"Brought down, I'm afraid," he answers. "We chased some two-seaters twenty-five miles into the Boche lines, and nine Albatrosses dropped on us. Got two of them, I think; but after the first mix-up, I lost track of D----, and he didn't come back with us." A melancholy little procession heads for the bar, and while the affair is being reëxplained, the telephone rings. "Lieutenant D---- has been found at X----. He was shot through the chest, but managed to regain our lines before he died. He was on the point of landing in a field when he lost consciousness. The machine is not badly smashed." At a near-by table, a dice game, which started after lunch and has been interrupted to hear the news, continues. I resume my place in my chair and spread out the Paris "Herald"--unable to focus my mind on the steamship arrivals or the offensive. Poor old D----! We have had lovely weather for the past fortnight--long warm days have made the trees burst into leaf and covered the meadows with wild-flowers. The quail have begun to nest--queer little fellows, quite unlike ours, whose love-song is, "_Whit_, twit, whit," with a strong emphasis on the first "whit." Sometimes, at night, a nightingale, on a tree outside my window, charms me to wakefulness with his dripping-sweet music. These are strenuous days--I have done nothing but fly, eat, and sleep for a fortnight. Our "traveling circus" has been living up to its name--going about from place to place with amazing mobility and speed. I have lived for a week with no baggage but the little bag I carry in my plane. It contains one change of light underwear, one pair of socks, tooth-brush, tooth-paste, tobacco, sponge, soap, towel, shaving things, mirror, a first-aid kit, and a bottle of eau de cologne. With this I can weather a few days anywhere until the baggage-trucks catch up. Our mobility is marvelous--we can receive our orders at daybreak, breakfast, and land in a place a hundred miles away in an hour and a half. Then a little oil and petrol, and we are ready to bounce something off the local Boche. I could easily write a large calf-bound volume on nothing but my experiences of the past week--one of the most strangely fascinating (in retrospect) of my life, though saddened by the loss of two of our pilots, one an American. We had no sooner got to this place than we were sent out on a patrol--six of us, with a French lieutenant, a special friend of mine, as flight-commander. None of us had flown before in this sector, and a young American (S----, of New York) was making his second flight over the lines. The weather was wretched, thick, low-hanging clouds with a fine drizzle of rain--visibility almost zero. While mechanics filled the machine, I pored over my map till I had all necessary landmarks thoroughly in mind. At last the captain glanced at his watch and shouted, "En voiture!"