It is needless for me to add how deeply I feel for my fellow-prisoners in Germany who were less fortunate than I. Poor, poor fellows!--they are the real victims of the war. I hope that every one of them may soon be restored to that freedom whose value I never fully realized until after I had had to fight so hard to regain it. PAT O'BRIEN. MOMENCE, ILLINOIS, _January 14, 1918_. OUTWITTING THE HUN I THE FOLLY OF DESPAIR Less than nine months ago eighteen officers of the Royal Flying Corps, which had been training in Canada, left for England on the _Megantic_. If any of them was over twenty-five years of age, he had successfully concealed the fact, because they don't accept older men for the R. F. C. Nine of the eighteen were British subjects; the other nine were Americans, who, tired of waiting for their own country to take her place with the Allies, had joined the British colors in Canada. I was one of the latter. We were going to England to earn our "wings"--a qualification which must be won before a member of the R. F. C. is allowed to hunt the Huns on the western front. That was in May, 1917. By August 1st most of us were full-fledged pilots, actively engaged at various parts of the line in daily conflict with the enemy. By December 15th every man Jack of us who had met the enemy in France, with one exception, had appeared on the casualty list. The exception was H. K. Boysen, an American, who at last report was fighting on the Italian front, still unscathed. Whether his good fortune has stood by him up to this time I don't know, but if it has I would be very much surprised. Of the others five were killed in action--three Americans, one Canadian, and one Englishman. Three more were in all probability killed in action, although officially they are listed merely as "missing." One of these was an American, one a Canadian, and the third a Scotchman. Three more, two of them Americans, were seriously wounded. Another, a Canadian, is a prisoner in Germany. I know nothing of the others. What happened to me is narrated in these pages. I wish, instead, I could tell the story of each of my brave comrades, for not one of them was downed, I am sure, without upholding the best traditions of the R. F. C. Unfortunately, however, of the eighteen who sailed on the _Megantic_ last May, I happened to be the first to fall into the hands of the Huns, and what befell my comrades after that, with one exception, I know only second hand. The exception was the case of poor, brave Paul Raney--my closest chum--whose last battle I witnessed from my German prison--but that is a story I shall tell in its proper place.