During February an almost continuous fight was waged for a small length of trench on our left, known as the International Trench, because it changed hands so often. It culminated, March second, with the Battle of the Bluff, by which British troops took and held this line. We were in support, as usual, and suffered rather heavily from shell fire. This was the beginning of the spring offensive, and from that time on we caught it, hot and heavy, for four solid months. CHAPTER XII THE WAR IN THE AIR From the time we first caught sight of our guns shelling the German airplanes there was rarely a day that we did not see many of them, scouting, bombarding or fighting. At first, as mentioned elsewhere, they flew very low; within easy range of machine-gun fire, but soon began to climb to higher altitudes until, at the time of my departure, most of their work was done from a height of about twelve thousand feet. There was one of our planes, piloted by a major. I never heard his name but he was known all up and down the line as "The Mad Major." He was a pioneer in all the marvelous evolutions which now form an important part of the airman's training. Side slips, spinning dives, tail slides; all were alike to him. He would go over the enemy lines and circle about, directing the fire of a battery, scorning to notice the fire of the "Archies," (flyers' name for anti-aircraft guns) and when that job was finished, would come home in a series of somersaults, loops and spins which made one dizzy to watch. He was a great joker and frequently, when the shell-bursts were unusually thick around him, would come tumbling down from the sky like a shot pigeon, only to recover at a height of several hundred feet and shoot off in a bee line for the air dome. I've no doubt that the enemy often thought they had "got him," but at last reports he was still there. I watched the planes for months without seeing one hit and had about concluded that, to make an Irish bull, the only safe place on earth was up in the air, when, one morning, hearing the now familiar "put-put-put" of machine guns up above, we looked up to see one of our large observing biplanes engaged with a very small but fast enemy plane. The boche had all the best of it and soon our plane was seen to slip and stagger and begin to descend. The little "wasp" came swooping down after it, firing all the while until, when a few hundred feet from the ground, our machine turned its nose straight downward and crashed to earth, well behind our lines, both occupants being instantly killed, or perhaps they had already been killed by the bullets. The German thereupon turned and was soon back over his own territory. That same afternoon, another of our machines was shot down, apparently by the same man, just opposite our position, inside the German lines. [Illustration: German Aeroplane Trophy--Jules Vedrine Examining the Machine Gun]