The lieutenant, when he had read, handed the message to a sergeant and told him to pass it along round the men. And they read and shouted cheers they knew he could not hear to the pilot lifting the "Silver Wings" steadily into the sky and back towards the lines. He was high enough now for the "Archies" to bear on him again, and from their trenches the men watched with anxious hearts and throbs of fear and hope the black puffs of smoke that broke rapidly above, below, and about the glinting silver. He made desperately slow speed against the heavy wind, but fortunately had not far to go before he was far enough back to be over the lines and out of reach of the Archies. Then just when it seemed that he was safe, when the Archie shells had ceased suddenly to puff about him, the watchers saw another machine drop from the cover of a cloud, dive straight down on the little silver shape, saw the silver wings widen as they turned sharply upward to face the enemy, wheel and shoot sideways to avoid the dive. With beating hearts and straining eyes they watched the two dipping and curving, lifting and diving, wheeling and circling about each other. The battle noises drowned all sound of their guns, but they knew well the rapid rattle of fire that was going on up there, the exchange of shots, the streaming bullets that poured about both, thought at last they could catch the sound of the firing clearly, could see the black cross and circled red, white, blue, that marked enemy and friend as the two machines drifted back in their fighting down wind until they were almost overhead. Once the watchers gasped as the enemy dived on "Silver Wings" and she slipped sideways and came down a thousand feet nose first and spinning in dizzy circles. The gasp changed to a cry of relief as the "Silver Wings" righted, zoomed sharply up, whirled round, and in turn dived on the enemy machine, that had overshot his pursuing dive and come below her. And the cry changed again to a yell of applause, a burst of cheers, as the enemy swerved suddenly, slid drunkenly sideways and down, rolled over, and fell away in a spinning dive, swoop after sickening swoop, that ended crashing in a clump of wood half a mile away. A wind-blown torrent of streaming black smoke marked the place of the fall and the fate of the enemy. "Silver Wings" turned again, and fought her way back towards the lines, with the Archie shells puffing and splashing about her.