“Maybe the Boches look at it this way:  if they have their fight at their base of operations, over their own lines, and win out, they may make a prisoner; if the machine is not destroyed, that may be utilized.  If their man gets put out of commission we don’t get the beaten machine and therefore cannot learn their latest construction dodges from it.  It’s a different plan of action.  We go right out over the German lines with our hunters and tackle their observers, who do their reconnaissances from a bit back of their lines.  Only in the very first part of the war, when the Germans outnumbered us in fliers to an enormous extent, did they try to do much from our top-side.  Nowadays we do our observing daily from well over the enemy’s lines; and the Germans do most of theirs from well on their own side.  It’s a different way of looking at it.”

“Surely our way must be more efficient,” said Joe Little.

“We think so,” assented the aviator.  “We know more of their lines than they can possibly know of ours.  For the rest of this war I guess we will have to do so.  We are going forward from now on, and the Teutons are going back, and don’t you forget it.  We have to know their lines well, and lots of other things, such as their routes of supply and reinforcement, and their gun positions and munition dumps.  Our guns look to us, too, in a way they did not look to us a year ago, even.  It’s a big game.”

The Brighton boys walked on slowly, without comment.  Yes, it was a big game, in very truth.  The closer they came to it the bigger it became.

“Hello!  There is a monoplane.  I thought there were no monoplanes in use now,” said Bob Haines as they passed a round-bodied fleet-looking machine with a single pair of wings.  It was a single-seater.  They walked up to it and round it, gazing admiringly at its neat lines.  “What sort of a plane is this?” asked Bob of a mechanic who was standing beside the machine.

“An absolute hummer,” was the reply.  “Want to try her?  You have to be an Ace to get into her driving seat, son.”

Bob flushed, and was inclined to answer sharply, but Joe Little stepped forward and said quietly:  “We have just got here from the States.  Came last night.  This is our first look-around, and we want to learn all we can.  We did not know monoplanes were being used now.  The only aeroplanes we have flown have been biplanes.  Won’t you tell us something about this type?”

“Certainly,” said the mechanic.  “I was only joking.  No one can fly this sort of machine except the most experienced and best pilots.  It is the fastest machine in the world.  It is a Morane, and they call it a ‘Monocoque.’  Someone told me that the latest type German Fokker was modeled on this machine.  It is a corker, but the trickiest thing to fly that was ever made.  We have only got one here.  I heard a French flyer say the other day that the Spad biplane was faster than this machine, but I don’t believe it.”