On one of these occasions one of these big shells exploded so close that it capsized the machine, and the pilot was thrown out of his seat and found himself hanging on with one hand and one foot. The observer also had an extremely narrow escape from being thrown out, some of the loose gear in the machine falling down vertically for a mile and a half and, we hope, hitting some German on the head. The pilot managed to scramble back into his seat and get the machine to resume a more dignified position. It had, however, fallen about 600 or 800 feet, and both the occupants were amused and greatly relieved to see the next batch of shells burst about this height above their heads. The Germans of course knew, or guessed, what we were after and were much annoyed with our persistency. Over a hundred shells of various sorts were counted, bursting in the air, within two minutes, by an onlooker on the ground, and it is not surprising that the machine was frequently hit; but we were lucky enough to manage to get back to our own side of the trenches when we were sufficiently damaged to be forced to come down. I never seem to get accustomed to being shelled when they get close, and I think it is beastly. It is rather different being in a trench, when the whole trench is being shelled, and where one can usually get some cover, but in the air it is an offensively personal ‘Hate’ on the part of the Strafers. One’s aeroplane is the target of the guns, and, if low enough down, of the machine guns and rifles too; and the pilot himself is the bull’s-eye in the centre of the target. It is bad enough for a pilot, but it must be much worse for those very gallant fellows who come up as observers and photographers, because they know that if their pilot is killed there is very little hope of their ever getting down alive themselves. I never believe those fellows who say they are not afraid. Anybody who has imagination must be frightened at times, and it has often been shown that anyone without imagination can never hope to fly at all well. However, all this makes no difference and we go up cheerily all the same, in fact I think that a Flying Corps mess is about the cheeriest place that I have ever been in. The work is extraordinarily interesting and at times very exciting, although we have our bad spells of dulness, when we have to come down after a long and tiring patrol in the bitter cold and report to our chief ‘nothing doing.’