All these flying-grounds at the front are self-contained. The motor-lorries of the Wing stationed there line one side of the aerodrome when they are not away at the railheads fetching stores and supplies. The hum of the lathe, the clink of tools, resound from the travelling workshops by the roadside as from the repair shops installed in sheds and barns about the place. There is a constant droning in the air, faint and soothing like the hum of a bee, from somewhere far aloft where an airman is executing graceful curves on a testing flight, loud and deafening about the sheds where the engines are having their trial runs. Here is an aeroplane starting off on reconnaissance. Pilot and observer are already in their seats in the midst of a neat arrangement of maps on rollers, compass, barograph, speedometer, pressure gauges, clock, camera, and machine-gun. The biplane, big but frail, its planes shining diaphanously, its metal-work sparkling in the sun, quivers and trembles to the stroke of the roaring propeller. An officer wearing the characteristic cross-buttoned tunic of the R.F.C. is making a parting recommendation to the pilot, who, in his fur-lined leather hood and leather coat and fur gloves, looks more like an Arctic explorer than anything else. The observer, similarly muffled up, is fixing a map in position. The biplane is standing out in the middle of the field, its nose pointed in the opposite direction from the firing-line, for the airmen will only bring their machine into the wind after they are in the air. The roar of the engine grows suddenly louder as the officer, his injunctions at an end, steps clear, and the biplane slides away over the ground with that curious bobbing motion that one knows. It takes the air easily, steadily, and clambers aloft round and round the aerodrome, then suddenly turns sharply aside and makes off towards the firing-line, twenty miles away. Not a day passes that one does not see our aeroplanes bound for the front. How often have I stood in the fire-trench and watched one of these aerial reconnaissances--seen our airman, so high that he looked like a tiny moth in a vast domed hall, stealing out over the German lines! Again and again the enemy anti-aircraft guns drive him back, but each time he comes back and each time he sees a little more. Sometimes, as I have watched, I have seen another aeroplane suddenly materialize out of the blue and circle in sweeps about the invader. The “Archies” cease fire. From somewhere very far away, as it seems, echoes the dull tap-tapping of a machine-gun. Suddenly you realize that it is a fight in the air, that you are watching the fantasy of Wells translated into reality. Honestly, it is not very thrilling. You hear that very faint barking of the guns: all you see is two tiny shining specks manœuvring in the air. The only men who get a good view of the fight are the combatants engaged.