That they were effective tactics was promptly demonstrated to the Huns by one of their machines bursting into flames, another rolling over sideways and "dead-leafing" down in a series of side-to-side slips which ended in a crash on the ground below, and by another continuing his dive well down, changing it into a long glide to the eastward and out of the fight, evidently with machine or pilot out of action. Several of the Fo-Fums had bullet-holes in their machines, but nothing vital was touched, and they had just time to connect up nicely into their compact circle when the remainder of the Huns came tearing down on them in similar terrifying fashion.
But the Fo-Fums met them in their similar fashion, and when the Huns, instead of diving past and down as the first lot had done, curved up in an abrupt zoom, the observers swung their gun-muzzles up after them and pelted them out of range. One Hun lost control just on the point of his upward zoom, flung headlong out until he stalled and fell out of the fight for good. From the fact that his gun continued to fire at nothing until he was lost to notice it was evident either that his gear was damaged or the pilot hit and unconsciously gripping or hanging to the trigger or firing mechanism. A fourth Hun at the top of his zoom up lurched suddenly, fell away in a spinning nose dive, and also vanished from the proceedings—whether "crashed" or merely "out of control" was never known.
In a fight against this sort of odds, which our pilots so often have, the need of keeping an eye on active enemies rather than on the subsequent interesting fashion of an out-of-control's finish certainly reduces our air men's score a good deal, since it is the rule only to claim and record officially as a "crash" a machine which is actually seen (and confirmed) to have smashed on the ground, to have broken in air, or otherwise have made a sure and positive finish. Five Huns down and definitely out of action was a good beginning to the fight, especially as no Fo-Fum was damaged, and the odds were now reduced to fifteen against six—quite, according to the Fo-Fums, usual and reasonably sporting odds.
But the odds were to lengthen to such an extent that even the seasoned and daring fighters of No. Umpty Squadron began to look grave and feel concerned. Two Flights came looming up rapidly from eastward, and, occupied as the Fo-Fums were with the first brush, the new enemies were upon them almost the instant the second rush on them finished—before, in fact, the first Huns shot down and hit the ground. The newcomers converged on the fight and dashed straight at the Fo-Fum circle without a pause. There were twelve of them in one lot and eight in the other, and that, added to the twenty the Fo-Fums had counted at the beginning of the fight, made a total of forty machines against their six.
After this the tale of the fight can no longer be told as a whole. It developed into a series of rushes and dives on the part of the enemy in large or small numbers, swift leaps and turns and twists, and plunges and checks, repeated hot attacks and attempts by the Huns to break the Fo-Fums' steady circle, determined and fairly successful efforts of the Fo-Fums to foil the attempts. For long minute after minute the fight swayed and scattered, flung apart, out and down and up, climbed and fell and closed in again to point-blank quarters. It ran raging on and on in a constant fierce rattle and roll of machine-gun fire, a falling out, one fashion or another, of Hun after Hun, in occasional desperate fights of single Fo-Fums forced out of the circle and battling to return to it.
Some of these single-handed combats against odds are worthy subjects for an air saga, each to its individual self. There was, for instance, the Fo-Fum which was forced out of the circle, cut off, and fought a lone-hand battle against eleven enemies. The observer stood and shot over his top plane at one Hun who tried to cover himself behind the tail of the Fo-Fum. The pilot at the same instant was lifting the nose a little to bring his gun to bear on another Hun diving on him from ahead, and this sinking of the Fo-Fum's stern gave the observer a chance. He filled it with a quick burst from his machine-gun, and filled the Hun so effectively full of bullets that his nose dropped and he swooped under the Fo-Fum. The observer jumped down to his bow gun, swung the muzzle down, and caught the Hun passing under with a burst which finished him and sent him whirling down out of control.
The pilot's shooting at the same time was equally effective. The Hun who had dived on his right front was met by a quick turn which brought the bow gun to bear and a short burst of fire. The Hun continued to dive past and under, and both pilot and observer caught a flashing but clear-imprinted picture of the Hun pilot collapsed in a heap on his seat before he also fell helplessly rolling and spinning down out of the fight.
The observer, dropping his forward gun as he saw his shooting effective, scrambled quickly up to his top gun and was just in time to open on another Hun not more than twenty feet away and with his gun going "nineteen to the dozen, and rapping bullets all over the old bus till she's as full of holes as a Gruyère cheese," as the observer said. He only fired about a dozen rounds—the fight by now had been running long enough and hot enough to make economy of ammunition a consideration—but some of the dozen got home and sent another Hun plunging down and out.
The observer just lifted his eyes from watching the "late lamented" and trying to decide whether he was "outed" or "playing dead," in time to catch a glimpse of a black cross streaking past astern of him. He glued his eyes to the sights, jerked his muzzle round after the fresh enemy, and just as he swung in a steep bank "slapped a hatful of lead into him" and saw a strip of the hostile's cowling rip and lift and beat flailing back against the struts until the enemy shut off engine and glided out.
The pilot's gun was clattering again, and the observer, seeing all clear behind him, turned and half jumped, half fell, down into his cockpit as the Fo-Fum lay over on her beam-ends in a bank that brought her almost sheer on her wing-tip. He was just in time to see the pilot's fresh victim fall out of control, and dropping the bow gun he had grabbed he hoisted himself to his top gun again.