Whether it was the fact that we were a burial party and he wished to spare us--and this explanation I like to believe--or whether, by firing on us, he might betray his presence, and thus defeat his main purpose, which was to destroy the balloon anchored in the neighboring valley, I will never know; but _this_ I _do_ know--at a point directly above us, and where he could most easily have killed us with machine gun fire, he suddenly changed his course. Gliding down the valley, he raced full upon the observing balloon and hurled incendiary shells into it, setting it on fire; then, coming about, he dashed away to the north, escaping over his own lines amid a shower of leaden hail! "Ill blows the wind that profits no one"--the position of undertaker, we at first hesitated in accepting, had saved our life; burial boys were, after this, more reconciled than ever to their work! Air craft battles, although of frequent occurrence along our front, were always watched with keen delight. Our fliers were chiefly of the 108th Squadron from the fields of Toul and Colombey-le-Belles. It was in our area, on the banks of the Moselle, that the heroic and gallant Lufberry fell, fighting, to his death. He is buried in the little cemetery of Evacuation Hospital No. 1, near Toul. Eddie Rickenbacker, Reed Landis, Tuper Weyman, Elmer Crowel, Bernard Granville, Douglas Campbell, these and others were the gallant Aces of our Army, flying and fighting daily over the front. On September twenty-eighth Douglas Campbell fell in flames at Pannes. In the cemetery of the old church there he is buried. It was with special interest we cared for his grave, inasmuch as his home was in Kenilworth, near our own Chicago. Infantry contact flying was necessarily hazardous. It meant flying at an elevation easily in reach of rifle fire. Usually at mess, the evening before, the flyer, chosen for this mission, would be notified. His companions, too, would hear of the selection; and often indulged, in their own grim humorous way, of reminding him of the fact! The man next to him at the table would softly and weirdly hum a strain from Chopin's Funeral March, setting its music to the solemn words, "Ten thousand dollars going home to the States!" It was this trait in Buddie's character, however, ability to make the best of things, to see the smooth and not the seamy side of Death's mantle, that made him the most intelligent, cool, and resourceful of all fighting men. His buoyancy of disposition and resiliency of spirit gave him a self-confidence and initiative that made him rise superior to all hardship, and, as it were, compelled circumstances to side with him.