Then came America’s entrance into the Great War and the selective service examination. At Board 109 Harry demanded that although he was a British subject he be allowed to go. And after considerable scratching of heads the members of Board 109 decided to ship Harry to Camp Upton with the first increment on September 10, and what was more, to make him the squad leader on the trip.
“Salute me, ya bloomin’ woodchopper,” Harry, ex-Tommy Atkins, shouted in derision at some lowly private who ventured to try a light remark. “Hain’t I yer superior? Hain’t I actin’ corporal? Hain’t I goin’ to be a sergeant-major? Awsk me—hain’t I?”
And the answer was decidedly and emphatically yes. And power to ye, Harry Booton—medal or no medal.
GERMAN FALCON KILLED IN AIR-DUEL
THE old days when armies ceased fighting to watch their two champions in single combat have come back again. It was on the Western front, and the engagement that resulted in the death of Immelman the Falcon, Germany’s most distinguished Ace, was in very truth a duel—no chance meeting of men determined to slay one another, but a formally arranged encounter, following a regular challenge, and fought by prearrangement and without interference. The battle was witnessed with breathless interest by the men of both armies crouched in the trenches, separated by only a few feet of No Man’s Land, while the fire of the anti-aircraft guns on both sides was stilled.
The victor in the spectacular fight was Captain Ball, the youthful English pilot who has only two notches less on the frame of his fighting machine than had the Falcon, who was credited with fifty-one “downs.” The story of the duel, which was declared to have been one of the most sensational events of the war, is told in a letter written by Col. William Macklin, of the Canadian troops, to a friend in Newark, N. J. Colonel Macklin, who was one of the eye-witnesses of the fight, writes in his letter, which is printed in the New York Tribune:
One morning Captain Ball, who was behind our sector, heard that Immelman the Falcon was opposite.
“This is the chance I’ve been waiting for; I’m going to get him,” declared Ball.