Somewhere (it generally takes a good deal of finding) a tiny puff of smoke appears against the blue. Never by any chance is it in the same quarter of the sky as the aircraft. Whoop-pop! Whoop-pop! One after another they leap up to have a look. The airman never takes the smallest notice, but sails serenely on, and never yet have I seen Archibald get within a thousand yards of his object. Once, so rumor has it, he did get nearer, so near, in fact, that two of his bullets hit a wing of the machine. But the shock of success was too great, and Archie's empty shell falling to earth put two of his own gunners out of action! This story I cannot vouch for, but this I know, that after a monoplane has actually disappeared over the horizon I have seen Archibald jump viciously at him four times and every time miss him by quite three miles! Well, here's to you, my comic friend. You add a humor to life, and I wish the others could follow your lead, and, taking life less seriously, give us as wide a miss.
(Four weeks later, the writer of this narrative fell in the trenches a victim of these Turkish guns.)
FOOTNOTES:
[12] All numerals relate to stories herein told—not to chapters in the original sources.
[13] A sudden attack was made on the right of the 11th Division and upon the extreme left of the 29th Division about 2 o'clock on the night of the 1st instant. It commenced with shell, machine gun, and rifle fire on Jephson's post and along Keretch Tepe Sirt ridge. Brigadier-General Maxwell was holding the right section of the 11th Division when a body of the enemy attempted a bomb and bayonet assault under cover of their bombardment. There was no heart, however, in the attack, and it was easily repulsed with loss to the enemy.
The Navy, as usual on such occasions, were prompt with their assistance, and the flanking torpedo-boat destroyer with her searchlight lit up the northern slopes of Keretch Tepe and effectively stopped the enemy from pressing in along the coast.
"IN THE FIELD"—THE STORIES OF THE FRENCH CHASSEURS
Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry
Told by Lieut. Marcel Dupont, of the French Chasseurs