I knew right then that we were in for it, because I could see over toward the ocean a whole flock of Hun machines which evidently had escaped the attention of our scrappy comrades below us.
So we dove down on those nine Huns.
At first the fight was fairly even. There were eight of us to nine of them. But soon the other machines which I had seen in the distance, and which were flying even higher than we were, arrived on the scene, and when they, in turn, dove down on us, there was just twenty of them to our eight!
THE AEROPLANE WHICH LIEUTENANT O'BRIEN USED IN HIS LAST BATTLE WITH THE HUNS WHEN HE WAS BROUGHT DOWN AND MADE PRISONER
Four of them singled me out. I was diving and they dove right down after me, shooting as they came. Their tracer-bullets were coming closer to me every moment. These tracer-bullets are balls of fire which enable the shooter to follow the course his bullets are taking and to correct his aim accordingly. They do no more harm to a pilot if he is hit than an ordinary bullet, but if they hit the petrol-tank, good night! When a machine catches fire in flight there is no way of putting it out. It takes less than a minute for the fabric to burn off the wings, and then the machine drops like an arrow, leaving a trail of smoke like a comet.
As their tracer-bullets came closer and closer to me I realized that my chances of escape were nil. Their very next shot, I felt, must hit me.
Once, some days before, when I was flying over the line I had watched a fight above me. A German machine was set on fire and dove down through our formation in flame on its way to the ground. The Hun was diving at such a sharp angle that both his wings came off, and as he passed within a few hundred feet of me I saw the look of horror upon his face.
Now, when I expected any moment to suffer a similar fate, I could not help thinking of that poor Hun's last look of agony.