I cannot remember the exact route we took in getting out. I only remember that Brereton asked me at Fismes, which way home and I answered, “south with the wind.” I remember that we crossed the Marne again at Dormans and headed toward La Ferte to drop our message of information. In fact on the trip out I was not concerned with the route particularly—I knew that south meant home and we already had the information wanted, so, to me, life and happiness meant home by the shortest possible route. [Illustration: ROUTE · COVERED · BY · ‘BRERETON’S · FAMOUS · FLIGHT’] In undertaking such a mission as this, that is, in being so far behind the lines without protection, I fully realized the utter futility of trying to concentrate my attention on the sky in search of enemy planes and at the same time do justice to the importance of the mission which would require practically constant attention to the ground. I quite well know that if we were caught so far back we would have no possible chance to get away with our lives, so, in my mind, it was of no importance to watch the sky. My watching the heavens would not help us from being seen, but at the same time, as we were carried along, I was also carried off with a multitude and variety of thoughts. About the biggest question I was attempting to solve was just how long I would last after a German patrol started after me. Then, I figured myself falling in flames. It is strange the many thoughts that will play upon one’s mind in similar circumstances. The sudden pangs of regret that you ever left the airdrome and even more sincere sorrow that you ever got into the Air Service; the wondering what the boys in the Squadron are doing, and how the folks back home are, and whether you will ever see them again, and what the preacher in the village church will say at your memorial services and whether the Commander of the Army will write your mother a nice letter of condolence and whether the girl who jolted you will be sorry; and you wonder what you would finally have turned out to be if you had not been killed, and other such trivial, little things; and the fact that you had wished you had burned all your letters before you left and a lot of little things you should have attended to before—for instance, on that flight I remembered that I was directed to call up the Corps Artillery Squadron and relieve them from two flights during that day. I brooded over the thought that if that Squadron went on with those flights and one of the flyers got killed how sorry I would be—how sorry I was that I had not attended to that before going out on this fool trip myself.