The Fritzies spread out in circle formation, with a view to surrounding it, each a little higher than the other. With a lightning-like swoop the British bird, getting right in front of it and turning sharply, let fly his machine gun in rapid fire, Fritz answering energetically. In less than three minutes' time, a distinct wabbling was noticeable and the British sparrow, seeing that his work there was done, turned his attention to the others. His work was surely done; Fritz continued to wabble and then plunged in a deadly drop until he got to the Lens-Arras road, where he made a desperate attempt to alight on the highway; but he got tangled up in the trees, his wings being smashed and remaining in the branches, the body of the plane shooting down into a deep ditch and embedding itself and its two occupants in the mud. They were dead. A tremendous cheer greeted this victory over the first opponent. The other two airmen followed our bird, volleying at him as they flew. With a quick motion he turned upside down, swooping for the bird on his upper left, and continued to chase and fight him in this position. The other German bird was off to one side, put-put-put-put-ing! for all he was worth, but his bullets were wasted by reason of the upside down position. In a run of another 500 yards the work of our lad was finished, his machine gun having done the trick; and Fritz and his pilot being killed, the machine dashed rudderless to the ground, nose first. There remained but one. Our bird again got on top, but there was no fight left in Fritz; he scooted for a hundred yards in the direction of home, but was winged while running, part of his left wing dropping off. The rest was easy; his machine became unmanageable, an explosive bullet smashed into his petrol tank and he dropped in flames. The entire ceremony of sending the three German chickens to their eternal hen-coop did not take ten minutes. As each bird fell to its death, the entire valley resounded with wild cheering; and when the last foe fell, the cheering wave of sound was followed by a tiger in the shape of a volley from every rifle--in fact, everything that would shoot, except the big guns. Our bird then executed his stunt of victory, looping the loop several times over Fritzie's trenches, and the spirit of Fritz was amply exemplified by the thousand times ten thousand shots which were leveled at the air king to bring him down. He bore a charmed life; although his plane was perforated with machine-gun bullets, none touched a vital spot.