"Your challenge is accepted. The German guns will not interfere. I will meet you promptly at two. "(Signed) Immelman." Just a few minutes before two, the guns on both sides ceased firing. It was as though the commanding officers had ordered a truce. Long rows of heads popped up and all eyes watched Captain Ball from behind the British lines go off into the air. A minute or two later Immelman's machine was also seen in the air. The machines ascended in a wide circle. There were wild cheers on both sides, each for the respective champion. Captain Ball, thousands of feet above us and only a speck in the sky, was doing the craziest things imaginable. Our soldiers' cheers turned to cries of dismay. Ball was below Immelman and was apparently making no effort to get above him and thus gaining the advantage of position. On the contrary he was carelessly swinging around this way and that, attempting, it seemed, to postpone the inevitable. We saw the German's machine dip over preparatory to starting a nose dive. "O Lord, he's gone now," cried a young soldier at my side, for he knew Immelman's gun would start its raking fire once it was being driven straight down. Then, in less time than it takes to tell, the tables were turned. Before Immelman's plane could get into firing position, Captain Ball drove his machine into a loop. Getting above his adversary and cutting loose with his gun, he smashed Immelman by a hail of bullets as he swept by. Immelman's aeroplane burst into flames and dropped. Ball, from above, followed for a few hundred feet and then straightened out and raced for home. He settled down, rose again, and hurried back to release a huge wreath of flowers almost directly over the spot where Immelman's charred body was being lifted from a tangled mass of metal. Four days later Captain Ball was killed. He attacked, single-handed, four Germans. One he had shot down. As he pursued the other three two machines dropped from behind the clouds and closed in on him. He was pocketed and killed, but not until he had shot down two more of the enemy. You can never judge his ability as a fighter from a man's appearance. Private Davis was a runner, about 26 years of age, attached to my company headquarters. He was a small and unassuming man, very neat in his appearance and always spick and span, even in the trenches. His companions often wondered how he could manage to keep himself so clean and tidy. One night Davis, being near company headquarters, overheard the officers discussing an intended raid on a German machine-gun emplacement, which we thought was a short distance in front of the German trenches. This machine gun had caused quite a number of casualties in our company, so this raid was made with the object of finding and destroying it. Davis begged very hard to be allowed to go with a patrol party that was being sent out, so the company commander gave his assent.