“Four of them took after me, and I had to think quick.  I couldn’t skip exactly, for I had to give the observation bus a chance to get a start.  I maneuvered into a pretty good position, under the circumstances, and was going to fire a round into them and then dive for home and mother, when the bullets began to sing about me from a fifth plane.  I couldn’t see it, so I flip-flopped chop-chop.  As I turned I saw Immelmann’s plane swoop past.  I turned over just in the nick of time and he missed me, though his nasty gun-fire pretty well chewed up my bottom plane.

“I did a hurried dead-leaf act, and I guess the Germans thought I was done for and dropping, for they lit out without bothering any more about me.  I got home without any further incident, and found the observation fellow had got back without a scratch, and had managed to just finish his job before we were attacked, which was lucky.”

Jimmy had taken in every syllable of Parker’s story.  He had tried to picture himself in the same bad fix, and had caught the idea of Parker’s lightning action.  “This fellow must be as quick as a cat,” he thought.  “I wonder if I would have had sense enough to grasp the situation in the way he did?  Well, if I get in a similar fix I will have some idea of what to do, thanks to him.”

Weeks afterward Jimmy heard that story of Parker’s fight with five Boche planes from another source.  He then learned that Parker had omitted an interesting feature of the tale.  Before Immelmann swooped on him, Parker had smashed up and sent to ground two of the four Boche machines which had originally attacked him.

The Brighton boys soon learned that the most outstanding characteristic of veteran fliers was modesty.  A new chivalry had sprung up with the development of the air service.  Every successful flier had to be a thorough sportsman to win through, and never did the boys meet a real veteran at the, game who would tell of his own successes.

The general view of the flying men at the front was that the man who did the prosaic work of daily reconnaissance and got back safe and sound, without frequent spectacular combats and hair-breadth escapes that made good telling, was just as much of a hero and took his life in his hands just as surely, as did the man who went out to individual duel with an adversary, and accomplished some stunt that had a spice of novelty in it.

The second in command at the airdrome gave Parker and Jimmy their final instructions.  “This is Hill’s first time over,” said the officer to Parker.  “He can fly, though.  I think for the first time he had better guard and watch.”  Then, turning to Jimmy:  “Watch Parker, and fly about eight hundred feet behind him and the same distance above him when he straightens out.  Parker will attack when he sees a Boche.  Your job will still be to sit tight and watch until you can see how things are going.  A second Boche or maybe more than one other will be pretty sure to show up, and it will be your job to attack whatever comes along and drive it off so that it can’t interfere with Parker while he is finishing off his man.