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Updated: May 14, 2025
I looked up and saw a narrow biplane, apparently a Roland, rushing towards our bus. My pilot turned vertically and then side-slipped to disconcert the Boche's aim. The black-crossed craft swept over at a distance of less than a hundred yards. I raised my gun-mounting, sighted, and pressed the trigger. Three shots rattled off and my Lewis gun ceased fire.
Again you press the trigger, and never was sound more welcome than the ta-ta-ta-ta-ta which shows you are ready for all comers. Once more you turn to meet the attacking Germans. As you do so your observer points to a black-crossed bird which is gliding down after he has crippled it. But three more are closing round you. Something sings loudly a yard away.
Doubtless, when sunset has brought the roving birds back to their nest, there will be a few "missing"; but this, part of the day's work, is a small enough sacrifice for the general achievement the staff supplied with quick and accurate information, a hundred or two Boche batteries silenced, important works destroyed, enemy communications impeded, a dozen or so black-crossed aeroplanes brought down, valuable photographs and reports obtained, and the ground-Hun of every species harried.
The observer engages one of the Huns, and evidently gets in some good shooting, for it swerves away and lets another take its place. Meanwhile enemy bullets have crashed through two spars, shot away a rudder-control, and ripped several parts of the fuselage. The black-crossed hawks cluster all around. There are two on the left, one on the right, one underneath the tail, and two above.
Every sector was covered by defensive patrols which travelled northward and southward, southward and northward, eager to pounce on any black-crossed stranger. Offensive patrols moved and fought over Boche territory until they were relieved by other offensive patrols.
Gun-flashes became numerous, kite balloons hung motionless, and we met restless aeroplane formations engaged on defensive patrols. With these latter on guard our chance of a scrap with roving enemy craft would have been remote; though for that matter neither we nor they saw a single black-crossed machine throughout the afternoon.
We emerge slightly to the west of the town. There is little to be observed; the railways are bare of trains, and the station contains only an average number of trucks. Four black-crossed aeroplanes are flying over their aerodrome at a height of some two thousand feet. Three of them begin to climb, perhaps in an attempt to intercept us.
By skill, or by luck, the light crew still held their beam on the black-crossed plane and in a twinkling two other lights were centered on it. McGee made a quick estimate of distance and of the other's flying speed. Then he nosed over, slightly, on a full throttle, and drove along a line which he thought would intersect the dive of the enemy.
Three hours ago I returned from a patrol round Mossy-Face Wood, where one seldom fails to meet black-crossed birds of prey, so I will begin with the subject of a hunt for the Flying Deutschman. There are two kinds of fighting air patrol, the defensive and the offensive, the pleasantly exciting and the excitingly unpleasant.
These cross the lines, hover among the Archie bursts, and drive back or down all black-crossed strangers within sight. Some of them go farther afield and attack the Boche above his own aerodromes. Such enemy craft as manage to take the air without meeting trouble from the advanced offensive patrols are tackled by the scouts near the lines.
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