Three hours, three long hours--and one can only guess how long they were to the maimed and wounded, cowering and squeezing flat to earth in the reeking shell-holes, gasping for choked breath through their gas-masks, quivering under the fear of further wounds or sudden and violent death; how bitterly long they were to the German commanders and generals watching their plans destroyed, their attack wiped out, their regiments and battalions burnt away in our consuming fire. Our despatches, after their common use and wont, put the matter coldly, dispassionately, and with under-rather than over-statement of facts--"The attack was broken by our artillery fire." Broken! Smashed rather; attack and attackers blotted out, annihilated, utterly and entirely. "By our artillery fire." The truth no doubt, but hardly the complete truth, since it said no word of the part the Air Service had played. So few knew what had been brought about by the work of a photographic patrol, the following reconnaissance, the resulting air work. The infantry never knew how it was that the attack never reached them, why they did not have to beat it off with bullet and bayonet--or be beaten in by it--except that the guns perhaps had stopped it. The public did not know because the press did not say--perhaps because the press itself didn't know. And what the Air Service knew, as usual it didn't tell. But Somebody evidently knew, because Washie and Pip found themselves shortly afterwards in Orders for a Decoration; and apparently the Squadron knew, because next morning when he went out to his 'bus Washie found that "Pan" had a neat little splash of paint on what you might call her left breast, an oblong little patch showing the colours of the ribbon of the Military Cross. _All that we are and all we own,_ _All that we have and hold or take,_ _All that we tackle or do or try_ _Is not for our, or the Corps' own sake._ Through our open eyes the Armies see, We look and we learn that they may know. Collect from the clouds the news they need, And carry it back to them below. We harry the guns that do us no harm, We picture the paths we shall never take; There's naught to help or to hinder us On the road we bomb or the bridge we break. Only to work where our footmen wish, Only to guard them from prying eyes, To find and to fetch the word they want, We war unceasing and hold the skies. _All that we are and all we own,_ _All that we have or hope or know,_ _Our work and our wits, our deaths, our lives,_ _We stake above, that they win below._ IX IF THEY KNEW--