The lad came down like a streak from the sky and I knew we were going to hit the ground in one grand smash. The “Greenhorn” tried to land and couldn’t, so he gave her the gun again, circled the field, and in attempting to land almost hit one of the huge hangars with the tail. Death looked like a sure proposition to me. I felt like jumping—anything to get down to earth. In this second attempt he had a good chance to effect a good landing, but for some reason or other he kept on going. Then he foolishly did a vertical bank and came in with the wind, intending to land. To land with the wind is one of the most dangerous things a pilot can do, but it did not seem to affect our hero. Did he land with the wind? I’ll say he did. As we neared the ground I was sweating blood, for I knew what was sure to happen. Perspiration was flowing from my entire body with the freedom that it rolls from the winner of the fat man’s race at the old county fair. We hit the field in the center, took a two-story bounce; the wind caught us and as the wheels hit again, S-P-L-O-W! We rolled over on our nose. Good fortune alone kept us from doing worse. We stopped, and I was up in the cockpit about twelve feet from the ground, though I expected to be found underneath the engine about ten feet under ground—and the ambulance came rushing to pick up our remains. They got me another plane ready and after considerable hard luck I finally got the mission completed with the help of a very wonderful pilot named Lieutenant Weeks. Late that afternoon the “Greenhorn” came around and asked me if I would mind going with him again to-morrow. I was forced to decline. He was relieved from further duty at the front. It was his first and only trip over. I don’t think the “Kid” was a coward—he simply could not stand the gaff of air fighting. There is nothing more nerve-racking or terrifying than a ride in an airplane with a pilot at the stick in whom you have no confidence, and especially so when at war and in an active sector where the enemy has control of the air. There are many times in my young and blameless life in which I have been actually scared, but never one in which I have been carried in that state of fear and terror for such a long stretch as in that two hours, twenty-one minutes and eighteen seconds in a Salmson airplane in the Argonne Forest on September 26, 1918, with a green Lieutenant, fictitiously named “Greenhorn.” VII EILEEN’S INSPIRATION