To the south I made out the Alps. Their glittering peaks projected up
through the white sea about me like majestic icebergs. Not a single
plane was visible anywhere, and I was growing very uncertain about my
position. My splendid isolation had become oppressive, when, one by
one, the others began bobbing up above the cloud level, and I had
company again.

We were over Belfort and headed for the trench lines. The cloud banks
dropped behind, and below us we saw the smiling plain of Alsace
stretching eastward to the Rhine. It was distinctly pleasurable,
flying over this conquered land. Following the course of the canal
that runs to the Rhine, I sighted, from a height of 13,000 feet over
Dannemarie, a series of brown, woodworm-like tracings on the
ground--the trenches!


SHRAPNEL THAT COULDN'T BE HEARD

My attention was drawn elsewhere almost immediately, however. Two
balls of black smoke had suddenly appeared close to one of the
machines ahead of me, and with the same disconcerting abruptness
similar balls began to dot the sky above, below, and on all sides of
us. We were being shot at with shrapnel. It was interesting to watch
the flash of the bursting shells, and the attendant smoke
puffs--black, white, or yellow, depending on the kind of shrapnel
used. The roar of the motor drowned the noise of the explosions.
Strangely enough, my feelings about it were wholly impersonal.

We turned north after crossing the lines. Mulhouse seemed just below