left central support of my upper wing in half, an explosive bullet cut in half the left guiding rod of the left aileron, and I was momentarily stunned by part of it which dug a nasty gouge into my left cheek. I had already opened fire and was driving straight for the boche with teeth set and my hand gripping the triggers making a veritable stream of fire spitting out of my gun at him, as I had incendiary bullets, it being my job lately to chase after observation balloons, and on Saturday morning I had also been up after the reported Zeppelins. I had to keep turning toward the boche every second, as he was circling around towards me and I was on the inside of the circle, so his gunner had all the advantage over me. I thought I had him on fire for one instant as I saw--or supposed I did--flames on his fuselage. Everything passed in a few seconds and we swung past each other in opposite directions at scarcely twenty-five meters from each other--the boche beating off towards the north and I immediately dived down in the opposite direction wondering every second whether the broken wing support would hold together or not and feeling weak and stunned from the hole in my face. A battery opened a heavy fire on me as I went down, the shells breaking just behind me. I straightened out over Ham at a thousand meters, and began to circle around to look for Mac or the other boche, but saw absolutely nothing the entire fifteen minutes I stayed there. I was fearful every minute that my whole top wing would come off, and I thought that possibly Mac had gotten around toward the west over our lines, missed me, and was already on his way back to camp. So I finally turned back for our camp, having to fly very low and against a strong northern wind, on account of low clouds just forming. I got back at a quarter to eleven and my first question to my mechanic was: "Has McConnell returned?"