He recovered from the subsequent operation, and in hospital, some weeks
afterwards, his C.O. appeared, with the news of his recommendation for
the D.S.O. The boy, for he was little more, listened with eyes of amused
incredulity, opening wider and wider as the Colonel proceeded. When the
communication was over, and the C.O., attributing the young man's
silence to weakness or grateful emotion, had passed on, the nurse beside
the bed saw the patient bury his head in the pillow with a queer sound
of exasperation, and caught the words, "I call it _perfectly childish!_"

That an act so simple, so all in the bargain, should have earned the
D.S.O. seemed in the eyes of the doer to degrade the honour!

* * * * *

With this true tale I have come back to a recollection of the words of
the flying officer in charge of the aerodrome mentioned in my second
letter, after he had described to me the incessant raiding and fighting
of our airmen behind the enemy lines.

"Many of them don't come back. What then? _They will have done their
job._"

The report which reaches the château on our last evening illustrates
this casual remark. It shows that 89 machines were lost during February,
60 of them German. We claimed 41 of these, and 23 British machines were
"missing" or "brought down."

But as I write the concluding words of this letter (May 3rd) a far more
startling report--that for April--lies before me. "There has not been a