Friends tried to dissuade him, saying the story of Immelman’s presence probably was untrue. Ball would not listen.
Getting into his machine, he flew over the German lines and dropped a note which read:
“Captain Immelman: I challenge you to a man-to-man fight, to take place this afternoon at two o’clock. I will meet you over the German lines. Have your anti-aircraft guns withhold their fire while we decide which is the better man. The British guns will be silent.
“Ball.”
About an hour afterward, a German aviator swung out across our lines. Immelman’s answer came. Translated it read:
“Captain Ball: Your challenge is accepted. The German guns will not interfere. I will meet you promptly at two.
“Immelman.”
Just a few minutes before two o’clock the guns on both sides ceased firing. It was as though the commanding officers had ordered a truce. Long rows of heads popped up and all eyes watched Ball from behind the British lines shoot off and into the air. A minute or two later Immelman’s machine was seen across No Man’s Land.
The letter describes the tail of the German machine as painted red “to represent the British and French blood it had spilled,” while Ball’s had a streak of black paint to represent the mourning for his victims. The machines ascended in a wide circle, and then: