Just before bedtime, the leader of the morning's patrol explains the matter to Wilkins. The rendezvous is over a near-by village at three thousand feet. Wilkins is to be last in line on the right wing of the V, a hundred yards behind the machine ahead of him. Signals are: a wriggle of the leader's tail means, "Open throttles, we're off"; a sideways waving of his wings means, "I'm going to attack; stand by"; or, "Easy, I see a Boche." After a not entirely dreamless sleep and a cup of coffee, our hero is at the hangars at 7.30, helping his mechanic give the "taxi" a final looking over. At 8 he takes the air and circles over the meeting-place till the V is formed. Just as he falls into his allotted station the leader, who has been flying in great circles, throttled down, wriggles his tail, opens the throttle wide, and heads for the lines, climbing at a hundred miles an hour. Wilkins is so busy keeping his position that he has scarcely time to feel a thrill or to look about him. Suddenly, from below comes a vicious growling thud, another, and another: _Hrrrump, hrrrump, hrrrump._ He strains his head over the side of the fuselage. There below him, and horribly close, he thinks, dense black balls are springing out--little spurts of crimson at their hearts. The patrol leader begins to weave about to avoid the "Archies," banking almost vertically this way and that in hairpin turns, and poor Wilkins, at the tail end, is working frantically to keep his place. He has never seen such turns, and makes the common mistake of not pulling back hard enough when past forty-five degrees. The result is that he loses height in a side-slip each time, and gets farther and farther behind his man. Meanwhile, far up in the blue, their shark-like bodies and broad short wings glimmering faintly in the upper sunlight, a patrol of Albatross monoplaces is watching. Thousands of feet below, close to the trenches, they see the clumsy photographic biplaces puffing back and forth about their business. Above these, they see the V of Spads turning and twisting as they strive to stay above the photographers they are protecting. But wait, what is wrong with the Spad on the right end of the V--a beginner surely, for at this rate he will soon lose his patrol? As if a silent signal had been given, five Albatrosses detach themselves from the flock, and reducing their motors still more, point their sharp noses downward, and begin to drift insensibly nearer.