“The air was going by us in a swift, steady river as we neared the German lines, and I never recall having been able to climb so quickly and easily. Lucky it was, too, for the enemy--probably in anticipation of a pursuit of their returning raiders--had their whole trench ‘hinterland’ planted with anti-aircraft guns, both stationary and movable. There was one little strip that blossomed out like a poppy garden as they opened up on us, and for a minute or so the smoke from the spreading shell-bursts formed a good-sized little cloud of its own. But they never had any real chance of getting us. My good little engine, singing like the wind in the telephone wires, had enabled me to get up over fourteen thousand feet without turning a hair and at that height you’re a lot safer from shells in an aeroplane than from taxis in crossing the Strand. K---- was feeling the altitude a bit, I think; I saw him wiping blood from his nose and pressing his hands to his ears, but he gave no signs of real distress. As for myself, beyond a little swelling of the fingers and a drumming at the temples, I was quite as usual. “We passed over the main ‘bouquets’ of the ‘Archies’ without even feeling the kick of the shells bursting beneath us; but in dropping down to ten thousand feet a few miles beyond, we encountered an unexpected ‘plant’ of them and the shrapnel bullets were flying all about us for a minute or two. A score of neat little holes winked out in the wings, and one friendly bit of a bullet--spent, but still hot from its sharp flight--dropped gently into my lap and slightly singed the fold of my coat in which it found lodgment. Then we left that mare’s nest behind and the going grew smoother once more. “It was only a few minutes later, and before any beginning had been made on the work we had come for, that K---- picked up a Zepp through his glass and began reporting its progress to me over the telephone. At first it was flying very high, doubtless to keep above gun-fire in crossing our lines. Once over, however, it came down rapidly, probably, as K---- suggested, with the purpose of luring the pursuing aeroplanes into easy range of the German ‘Archies.’ If that was the plan, it was eminently successful; for K---- presently reported one of our ‘chasers’ falling in flames, another planing for our own lines, and two or three others turning back. I could see the marauder myself by this time, and noted that it appeared to be heading off about twenty-five degrees to the west of me, and flying already at a level considerably lower than the twelve thousand feet I had run up to in getting away from the last spasm of gun-fire.