imperishable souvenirs.

We have had other visitors. One bright day a Boche aeroplane made
a reconnaissance of our lines. It was a beautiful thing, white and
birdlike. But as its occupants were probably taking photographs of our
most secret fastnesses, artistic appreciation was dimmed by righteous
wrath--wrath which turned to profound gratification when a philistine
British plane appeared in the blue and engaged the glittering stranger
in battle. There was some very pretty aerial manoeuvring, right over
our heads, as the combatants swooped and circled for position. We
could hear their machine-guns pattering away; and the volume of sound
was increased by the distant contributions of "Coughing Clara"--our
latest anti-aircraft gun, which appears to suffer from chronic
irritation of the mucous membrane.

Suddenly the German aeroplane gave a lurch; then righted herself; then
began to circle down, making desperate efforts to cross the neutral
line. But the British airman headed her off. Next moment she lurched
again, and then took a "nosedive" straight into the British trenches.
She fell on open ground, a few hundred yards behind our second line.
The place had been a wilderness a moment before; but the crowd which
instantaneously sprang up round the wreck could not have been less
than two hundred strong. (One observes the same uncanny phenomenon in
London, when a cab-horse falls down in a deserted street.) However,
it melted away at the rebuke of the first officer who hurried to the
spot, the process of dissolution being accelerated by several bursts
of German shrapnel.

Both pilot and observer were dead. They had made a gallant fight, and
were buried the same evening, with all honour, in the little cemetery,