Such German machines as are up are put down by fighting aviators. These
last fly high; in the clear blue of the early morning they look exactly
like gnats; some trail a little smoke in the sunshine; they take
their machine guns in pursuit over the German lines, and the German
anti-aircraft guns, the Archibalds, begin to pattern the sky about them
with little balls of black smoke. From below one does not see men nor
feel that men are there; it is as if it were an affair of midges. Close
after the fighting machines come the photographic aeroplanes, with
cameras as long as a man is high, flying low--at four or five thousand
feet that is--over the enemy trenches. The Archibald leaves these latter
alone; it cannot fire a shell to explode safely so soon after firing;
but they are shot at with rifles and machine guns. They do not mind
being shot at; only the petrol tank and the head and thorax of the pilot
are to be considered vital. They will come back with forty or fifty
bullet holes in the fabric. They will go under this fire along the
length of the German positions exposing plate after plate; one machine
will get a continuous panorama of many miles and then come back straight
to the aerodrome to develop its plates.
There is no waste of time about the business, the photographs are
developed as rapidly as possible.
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