There could be no sleep now for the anxious pilots. Something had popped loose up there, and in a few more hours they would be on their way up to witness this far-flung duel. The flickering, flashing light of cannon fire faded at last before the salmon and rose colored morning light that streaked the smoke clouds lying across the pathway of the coming sun. Long before that orb of light arose, red-eyed, over a new scene of carnage, ten planes were out on the line, motors warming, while the pilots and mechanics made last minute inspections. Every member of the squadron was present; the unlucky ones to bid good luck to those chosen for the mission and to see the take-off of this first dawn patrol. Their interest was intensified by the throaty rumbling of the distant guns. It was an hour of high suspense. For this hour every man present had waited with a keen desire that had been his prompter and spur through all the long, wearying months of training. All the schooling in theory was now behind. Experience, that hard teacher, was now at the controls. The school of machine gunnery, where dummies and swift moving targets had served as theoretical enemies, was now to become a real school where the enemy was also armed and where mistakes and misses were likely to hurl the pupil out of the class with never a chance to profit by the mistake. The dawn patrol! The day! From this hour they would begin to tally their earned victories. On this night, if lucky enough to encounter the enemy, some of them would send in reports that would start them up the ladder toward that coveted rank--an ace! It never entered the mind of any one of them that some enemy pilot, already an ace and rich in experience, might send in a report fattening his record and increasing his fame. No, no! Air battle is made possible only by thoughts of victory. McGee walked over to Yancey's plane. The gangling Texan was testing his rudder controls and flipping his ailerons with jerky movements of evident impatience. "I want you to know," McGee said to him, "that I did not ask for this flight. It is yours, by rights." Yancey's grin was genuinely friendly. "Shucks, that's nothin'. I'm glad to be out. Bein' a flight leader sorter cramped my style anyhow. This way I can do a little free-lancin'--if I see some cold turkey." "You leave cold turkey alone and stay in formation," McGee replied. "Just remember, old man Shakespeare was talking about the air service when he said 'things are not always what they seem'." "I'll be good unless I spot some of those German observation balloons. I've a sneaky feelin' I could eat up two or three of those sausages before I come back here for breakfast without havin' my appetite spoiled."