Just over Montfaucon we were opened up on by the German anti-aircraft artillery. I heard a heavy thud under our tail and at once the plane began to side-slip and quiver. The “Greenhorn” was badly frightened and began looking in every direction. Then his eyes fell on me and I have never seen the equal of the expression on his face when he saw me laughing. He did not realize the significance until I pointed to the anti-aircraft bursts, which were fully three hundred yards behind us. I assured him that everything was O. K. and he had done well. That put him a little more at ease. After a while I spied a splendid target, so I started him back toward the line so that we could call our batteries. We then played over our own lines for about an hour, as we were having a great deal of trouble in getting any batteries to answer, since they had all started to move up farther to support the fast advancing doughboys. I didn’t know whether “Greenhorn” appreciated that ride or not, but believe me, that sight was beautiful. The heretofore impassable region known as No-Man’s-Land was now converted to Every-Man’s-Land, for the whole shell riddled section was simply covered with the advancing American doughboys—in trenches, shell holes, everywhere. The mighty tanks were slowly plugging and lumbering along over the shell holes and we could easily see our most advanced lines, the troops deploying, the German machine gun crews at their nests vainly attempting to hold back the advancing infantry, and farther back we could see the retreating Germans, their supply trains, artillery and convoys. I marked down the location of our advance units, as this was important information, and told “Greenhorn” to fly north. As we circled over Montfaucon to the west we drew a very heavy machine gun fire from the Bois de Beuges, which had put several holes in the plane, and since “Greenhorn” was getting more and more unsteady in his flying I thought it well for our own safety and comfort to get a little better altitude, so I motioned up and “Greenhorn” started a steep climb right off the bat. Of course, I did not intend for him to make such a steep climb, and as we started our ascent the machine practically stood still in the air in a stall. This gave the German machine gunners a chance to concentrate on us, and believe me, they certainly made the best of their opportunity. Fortunately, beginner’s luck was with the boy and we got out of it after he finally heeded my frantic effort to get him to fly ahead for speed and not for altitude. I looked the plane over carefully when we were without the range of the German machine guns. Other than a few holes in the wings and the body of the plane I could find nothing wrong with it; at least, all the flying wires and struts were still good and the engine apparently was running perfectly. Upon getting more altitude, however, the “Greenhorn” started in the direction of home without any orders from me at all.