Next day was very much like the first, and Jack felt the inclination grow to consider a transfer to this life of luxury and ease. But the afternoon brought a new side of air work to him. The remains of a patrol--three machines out of six--straggled home with riddled machines and the tale of a hot fight. Jack gathered and sorted out and had interpretations of the involved and technical details, and they made his blood run hot and cold in turn. The six had fought a big formation of fifteen to twenty Huns, fought them fast and fiercely for a good fifteen minutes, had crashed five certainly and put others down without having time to watch their end, had routed and driven east the remainder of the formation. But they had lost two men crashed. One had his top petrol tank holed and the top plane set on fire. He was low down and fighting two Huns, and he might with luck have dived down and made a landing in Hunland. He preferred instead to take one more Hun down with him and lessen the odds against his fellows, had deliberately flung his machine on the nearest enemy, crashed into him, and went hurtling down, the two locked together and wrapped in roaring flames. Another had his engine hit, but with water spraying out from his radiator fought on and finished his individual combat, and put his Hun down before he attempted to turn out and make for the lines. He had flown long enough after receiving the damage to make it a matter of speculation whether his engine could get him home or not, but he flung away this last chance by turning aside from his homeward flight and throwing away a couple of thousand feet of height to dive in to the assistance of another of our machines hard beset by four enemies. One of these he crippled and drove down, and another his divers on gave a quick chance to the hard-pressed pilot to shoot down and crash. But the damaged engine by now was done, and the pilot could only turn his nose for the lines and try to glide back. One of the hostiles saw his chance, drove after him, dropped on his tail, pouring in burst after burst of fire, hung to him and followed him down in the spin which was evidently the last desperate attempt to win clear, finally shot him down and crashed him as he flattened out. A third pilot had been badly wounded by a burst of bullets which had riddled and smashed one arm. He, too, might have pulled out and escaped; and he, too, hung on fighting to the end; flew his machine lurching and swerving home, landed, fainted, and died from loss of blood before the tourniquet was well on his arm.