Swerving right round on an Immelman turn I managed to get underneath the nearest scout as it flattened out. I had just pulled down my top-plane Lewis gun, and was preparing to fire a long burst upward into the belly of the scout, when--_poop!_--my petrol tank opened with a dull thud. The observer in the Rumpler had fired from a distance of more than 300 yards (far outside what is the normally effective range for aërial fighting), and some of his bullets had ripped through my tank--the only circumstance which, at that moment, could have put my Nieuport out of action. The petrol gushed over my trousers, and swirled round the floor of the cockpit. I turned south, and was ready to make a last-hope effort to reach the trenches before all the fuel had disappeared, when I received a second shock. On looking over the side, I was horrified to find that underneath the tank the fuselage was black and smouldering. Next instant some wicked-looking sparks merged into a little flame, licking and twisting across the centre of the fuselage. A thrill of fear that was so intense as to be almost physical went through me as I switched off, banked the bus over to the left as far as the joystick would allow, and, holding up its nose with opposite rudder, went down in a vertical side-slip--the only possible chance of getting to earth before the machine really caught fire. The traditional "whole of my past life" certainly did not flash before me; but I was conscious of an intense bitterness against fate for allowing this to happen one week before I was to have returned to Cairo the Neutral, where they dined and cocktailed, and where the local staff officers filled the dances arranged for the poor dear lonely young officers on leave from the front. And I shouted blasphemies into the unhearing air. I have no hesitation in saying that I was exquisitely afraid as the Nieuport slid downward at a great speed, for of all deaths that of roasting in an aeroplane, while waiting for it to break up, has always seemed to me the least attractive. But the gods were kind, for by the time I reached a height of 500 feet the violent rush of air--which incidentally boxed my ear painfully--had overwhelmed the flame and swept it out of existence. The fuselage still smouldered, however, and after righting the bus (now completely emptied of petrol) I lost no time in looking out for a landing-place. This was a hopeless task. Below was rocky mountainside, contoured unevenly, and possessing neither level nor open spaces, and scarcely any vegetation. There was just one patch of grass, about fifteen yards long; and although this was much too small for a landing-ground, I chose it in preference to bouldered slopes or stony gorges.