messed with our officers, Captain Thenault and Lieutenant de Laage de
Mieux, at the best hotel in town. An automobile was always on hand to
carry us to the field. I began to wonder whether I was a summer
resorter instead of a soldier.

Among the pilots who had welcomed us with open arms, we discovered the
famous Captain Happe, commander of the Luxeuil bombardment group. The
doughty bomb-dispenser, upon whose head the Germans have set a price,
was in his quarters. After we had been introduced, he pointed to eight
little boxes arranged on a table.

"They contain _Croix de Guerre_ for the families of the men I lost on
my last trip," he explained, and he added: "It's a good thing you're
here to go along with us for protection. There are lots of Boches in
this sector."

I thought of the luxury we were enjoying: our comfortable beds, baths,
and motor cars, and then I recalled the ancient custom of giving a man
selected for the sacrifice a royal time of it before the appointed
day.

To acquaint us with the few places where a safe landing was possible
we were motored through the Vosges Mountains and on into Alsace. It
was a delightful opportunity to see that glorious countryside, and we
appreciated it the more because we knew its charm would be lost when
we surveyed it from the sky. From the air the ground presents no
scenic effects. The ravishing beauty of the Val d'Ajol, the steep
mountain sides bristling with a solid mass of giant pines, the myriads
of glittering cascades tumbling downward through fairylike avenues of
verdure, the roaring, tossing torrent at the foot of the slope--all