Presently Hoyt banked around, and following him, the compass needle on Paterson’s instrument board turned through a half circle. They were going back toward the south again and climbing still higher. An even thousand feet now--just under the rising, ragged clouds. He felt a drop of rain strike his cheek where his chin piece ended. It bit his skin like a thorn and stung for seconds afterward. His goggles were fogging. He ran a finger up under them and swept the lenses. Then, in a breath, it happened. A gray flash swept down out of the clouds in front of the formation. Hoyt zoomed to avoid it. The Hun zoomed and they came together and melted into each other in a welter of torn, rumpled wings and flying splinters. Something black and kicking rose out and disappeared. The cords stood out in Paterson’s neck and his throat closed. Somewhere his stomach leaped and kicked inside of him, trying to get out, and he saw coffee dripping from the dials of his instruments. In a second he had thrown his stick forward and gone down into Hoyt’s place. He didn’t dare look--he couldn’t look. He was screaming curses at the top of his voice and the screams caught in his throat in great sobs. His goggles were hopelessly fogged. He ripped them off. Behind him the four new men closed in tightly, with Darlington above them as deputy leader. There was blood again on his lips. He pulled back his stick and climbed. There, somewhere in the clouds, were the men who had done it! All right! All right! His eyes stung and wept with the force of the wind, and his cheeks quivered under the lash of the raindrops. With his free hand, fist clenched, he pounded his knee in stunned anguish until his muscles ached. Hoyt! Hoyt! Then he saw what he wanted and dived down furiously at the shape in the mist. Bullets tore at his top plane and raked across the cowling behind him. He closed on the Hun and sent it spinning. There was another--three--five--nothing but Huns. He dived in between them. Fine! He was screaming again, and firing. He forgot he was flying. The joy stick thrashed crazily between his knees and the ground and the clouds were a muddy gray scarf that swept from side to side across his eyes. Guns were the thing. Once, in a quick flash, he saw tiny men running upside down through the ring sight of his Lewis gun--the gun on his top plane--funny. His wrists ached and his fingers were quite dead against the Bowden trigger. No, not that; that’s a Camel--Darlington. He grabbed at his joy stick and pulled it back. Funny how hard it was to pull it. Another Camel swept in beside him, and another, with startling suddenness. It had been a long time now--a long time. Somebody had been afraid once and there had been a man named Hoyt. No, Hoyt was dead. Hoyt had been killed days before. Must have been P-B. P-B was probably in Amiens by now. He’d left in the tender at six o’clock. And always his guns chattered above the roar of his engine.