As the boys landed the flight commander walked toward them.  They stepped from their machines and came in his direction, laughingly discussing their mimic battle.  As the flight commander drew near, he beckoned to them.

“Do you do that regularly?” he asked Jimmy.

“Yes, sir,” was Jimmy’s reply.

“Has it ever appeared to damage your planes?”

“No, sir.  Not that I am aware.”

That was all.  Just a casual question from the chief.  But it made Jimmy feel that he was not so much of a novice as he had felt before.  He felt that he was more “part of the show,” as he would have put it if he had been asked to describe his feelings.

Jimmy was the first of the Brighton boys to take part in a real fight in the air.  A couple of days after his arrival at the airdrome he was assigned to duty with an experienced aviator named Parker.  Both Parker and Jimmy were to be mounted on fast, agile machines with very little wing space, which, with their slightly-curved, fish-like bodies, had the appearance of dragon-flies with short wings.

“These wasp-things are great for looping,” said Parker to Jimmy.  “You can throw them ’way over in a big arc that lands you a long distance from where some of these Boche fliers expect you to be when you finish your loop.”

“What is the game we are to tackle?” asked Jimmy.

“Just hunting, I think.  The Boches seem to have become a little bolder than usual during the last forty-eight hours.  Two of their observation planes came unusually close to us yesterday.  I suppose they may have received orders to spot something they can’t find, and it is worrying them a bit.  I guess the chief is going to send us out together to see if we can bag one of their scout planes.  Their hunters will be guarding.  It is better to go out in twos, if not in lots, along this part of the line.  As a matter of fact, it is more than likely that some German on a new Fokker or a Walvert is sitting up aloft there like a sweet little cherub and laying for us.  They have a nasty habit of swooping down like a hawk when we get well over their territory and firing as they swoop.  If they get you, you drop in their part of the country.  If they miss you, they just swing off and forget it, or climb back and sit on the mat till another of our lot comes along.  Swooping and missing don’t put them in much danger, for if they come down they are in their own area.”

“Have you had one of them try that hawk game on you?” asked Jimmy.

“I have had the pleasure and honor to have the great Immelmann drop at me, once, on an Albatros, or a machine that looked like an Albatros.  We knew afterward that it was Immelmann, for he worked the same tactics several times, always in the same way.  I was out guarding one of our fellows who was getting pictures pretty well back of the Boche lines, when along came a regular fleet of German aircraft.