"And oh, Girl, if you knew how I wanted to get them! I wanted to get those raiding Huns, if I had to chase them to the coast and across and right to Berlin. As Ross says, 'I wanted to let 'em have it where Dora wore the beads.' I felt 'I must. I'll die if I don't, and I----' "D'you know what I did? This is one of the most idiotic bits yet, but I'm going to tell you the lot.... Generally, I don't think I'm superstitious. Some fellows are; well, I'd known one perfectly sane and sensible fellow, who, when he was mad keen after something he wanted, winning some event, or something----he'd turn money out of his pocket--a sovereign, say, in the days when we had sovereigns, or a handful of silver----and throw it away. Pitch it right away, you know, to buy him luck. Well, I thought of it then. If I could buy that German plane! So---- "I pulled off my glove as I buzzed along after 'em and made a dive inside my jacket for money. Then I remembered I hadn't a bean on me. I'd given my last two quid to Smithers, and here I was, and I wanted to buy that Gotha, I tell you! I'd have bought her with anything I'd got, money, ring, every last thing---- "Then I remembered. "It was on the joy-stick, the thing I valued. Your little mascot! I ripped it off. I gave one look round to where those beggars were heading for the barrage, and then chucked that bit of ribbon out over where I guessed you might be. (Perfectly absurd, of course. The wind whisked it away.) ... And as I chucked it I shouted something out. Somebody's name. "No! You can't guess whose name it was. Nobody'd have thought it. The funny thing about it was, it wasn't even the name I meant to shout. I meant to shout out 'Cheer O, Girl!' I heard myself yelling out instead, 'Cheer O, _Ferris_!' "He was the observer I used to have. Killed, last year.... Somehow, just then, I forgot that; I felt as if he were with me. Then! I thought 'Good Lord, fancy if old Ferris----' "Then I didn't think any more; I settled down to business. Well, as you know, I did have to chase 'em to the coast, those dashed Archies popping all the way. _At_ the coast the Archies were----say really hot. Then those sea-planes took a hand, but it wasn't the seaplane that got her. _I_ got her! Got her right over Beachy Head. "I knew I'd done it the moment he turned about. I'd put half a drum right into her engines, and she wouldn't want to land in the sea (rather Irish). "Suddenly a searchlight blazed right on the pair of us, and the Archies stopped, just like the band stops and the limelight concentrates for the really tricky bit of the show with those acrobats at a music-hall....