There was no freebooting on the seventh. Artillery and infantry wanted to learn all there was to be known of the bridges on, and the terrain adjacent, the Meuse. Headquarters told the Trente-Neuf to “go get it”. And, behind Mudd, Langdon and four other pilots--three of them green--took off. At Villers Devant Mouzon, a detachment of engineers were doing their best to throw a path across the Meuse. The German machine gun nests and snipers were making of the job a nasty detail, till Mudd’s flight put an end to those ambushes. At Remilly, a like detachment was having a still harder time. And the covering aerial defense was no enviable task. Before the first four hour patrol had ended, two of Mudd’s new men had limped back to the ’drome with motor trouble, and one had been driven down a few kilometers east of the river by an enemy pursuit plane. Mudd and Langdon, close at hand, had seen that Trente-Neuf pilot burn his ship before he was taken prisoner by ground troops. Then, still behind the lines, the two had turned back toward the river. There was a heavy sky that day, November 7, and anything in the way of altitude had been out of the question. But now, here and there, the blue was breaking through and showing a higher ceiling. Suddenly, out of this clearer sky, a bi-motored enemy craft crossed their line of flight. Langdon jumped it. After a few seconds of thought, outclassed by the faster Yank, the enemy ship turned east. And the eager Langdon hung on. Mudd, after a moment, followed. Samter, as Langdon came down on the big ship’s tail again, thumped Langdon on the back and pointed to Mudd. “Old F.F.V. himself,” Samter yelled. “He’s going to pile on with us. Now there _will_ be a war!” But war and a personal battle were not Mudd’s concerns. Coming east from the Meuse, he had spotted two Hun pursuit planes that had seen Langdon and the bomber. Mudd was pretty well off to the south, and the pair of single-seater Germans came down on Langdon before he could work into position. With the first burst of lead, Samter crumpled, shot through both legs. He fought to stay, clinging tenaciously to his machine gun mount. He pulled a belt from his flying suit, passed it through and around the gun scarf and worked his way to a standing position. Langdon had dived and slipped; now he zoomed and flew a wing-over. They came back under the pursuing planes--and Samter got one as they went by. In a moment Langdon was crowding down on the bomber and single pursuit ship again. And just when he came into position, his gun jammed. The German seemed to realize his predicament; they passed the laugh from ship to ship. That was a mistake on their part; it made Langdon angry. * * * * * The speed of the chase was the speed of the big ship out front. The combat plane easily maintained a position between the pursuing DH and the huge German, thus further increasing Langdon’s rage.