I got absolutely lost the other day, for the second time since I have been on the front. I was flying at about nineteen thousand feet, half a mile above a lovely sea of clouds. I supposed I was directly over the front, but in reality there was a gale of wind blowing, drifting me rapidly "chez Boche." Three thousand feet below, and miles to the northeast, a patrol of German scouts beat back and forth, a string of dots, appearing and disappearing among the cloudy peaks and cañons. Too strong and too far in their lines to attack, I was alternately watching them and my clock--very cold and bored. Suddenly, straight below me and heading for home at top speed, I saw a big Hun two-seater, with enormous black crosses on his wings. At such a moment--I confess it frankly--there seem to be two individuals in me who in a flash of time conclude a heated argument. Says one, "You're all alone; no one will ever know it if you sail calmly on, pretending not to see the Boche." "See that Boche," says the other; "you're here to get Germans--go after him." "See here," puts in the first, who is very clever at excuses, "time's nearly up, petrol's low, and there are nine Hun scouts who will drop on you if you dive on the two-seater." "Forget it, you poor weak-kneed boob!" answers number two heatedly. "Dive on that Hun and be quick about it!" So I dived on him, obeying automatically and almost reluctantly the imperious little voice. With an eye to the machine-gunner in the rear, I drove down on him almost vertically, getting in a burst point-blank at his port bow, so to speak. Pushing still farther forward on the stick, I saw his wheels pass over me like a flash, ten yards up. Pulled the throttle wide open, but the motor was a second late in catching, so that when I did an Immelman turn to come up under his tail, I was too far back and to one side. As I pulled out of the upside-down position, luminous sparks began to drive past me, and a second later I caught a glimpse of the goggled Hun observer leaning intently over his cockpit as he trained his gun on me. But beside old Slapping Sally his machine was as a buzzard to a falcon; in a breath I was under his tail, had reared almost vertically, and was pouring bullets into his underbody. "You will shoot me up, will you?" I yelled ferociously--just like a bad boy in a back-yard fight. "Take that, then--" at which dramatic instant a quart of scalding oil struck me in the face, half in the eyes, and half in my open mouth. I never saw the Boche again, and five minutes later, when I had cleaned my eyes out enough to see dimly, I was totally lost. Keeping just above the clouds to watch for holes, I was ten long minutes at one hundred and thirty miles per hour in getting to the lines, at a place I had never seen before.