Now, suppose two French monoplaces sight an Iron-Crossed two-seater. Flying at sixteen thousand feet, they see French shrapnel in white puffs bursting below them at two thousand feet, and several miles away. They change their course, and presently, dodging in and out among the fleecy balls, they espy a fast biplace, heavily camouflaged in queer splotches of green, brown, and violet. Coming nearer, they make out the crosses--ha, a Boche! Nearer and nearer they come, till they are four hundred yards behind and six hundred feet above the enemy, who has seen them and is making tracks for home. Three hundred yards, by the way, is the closest one may safely approach a machine-gun in the air. At this point A dives on the Boche to about two hundred and fifty yards, shoots a short burst, and veers off. The German machine-gunner lets him have a rafale, but meanwhile B has dived under and behind the enemy's tail. There he stays, at a fairly safe distance, with his eye on the rudder above him, ready to anticipate the banks which might enable the gunner to get in a burst. As soon as A sees that B is beneath the Boche, he dives and shoots again. The gunner is in a quandary--if he aims at A, B will slip up and forward, rear his machine into position, and deliver a possibly deadly burst. If he devotes his attention to B, A will be safe to make a dive to dangerously close quarters. There you have the theory of the most common of all attacks--but in reality it is more difficult than it sounds. The three machines are traveling at great speed, and constantly twisting, rearing, and diving. It is the easiest thing in the world to pass another plane, turn to follow it, and see nothing, no matter how you strain your eyes. In passing, your combined speed might be roughly _one hundred and twenty yards per second_, and you are both moving in three dimensions. The object for which you search may be to the side, ahead, above, below; and every second of your search may be increasing its distance at enormous speed. It is bitterly cold, and I am sitting in our cozy mess-room waiting for lunch, which is at twelve. A dense fog hangs over the aerodrome, and the trees are beautifully frosted. Just had word that a boy who was at Avord in my time has bagged one of the "Tangos"--no mean feat. It is the crack escadrille of all Germany--Albatross DIII's, driven by the pick of the Hun fighting pilots, and commanded, I believe, by Von Richthofen--the most famous of German aces. They are a formidable aggregation, recognizable by rings of tango red around their Iron Crosses, and stripes of the same color along the fuselage. For a young pilot to bring one of these birds down in one of his first flights over the lines is a wonderful piece of luck and skill.