“Who is the Mad Major?” I asked, but got no answer.  Every eye was on the wild career of the plane.

The Germans got more reckless.  They stood in their trenches.  We fired.  We got them by the ones and twos.  They ducked, then—­swoop—­again the major was over them, and again they forgot.  Up went their rifles, and spatter, spatter, the bullets went singing upward.

It was about an hour after that we heard a voice cry down to us:  “Cheer up, boys, all’s well.”  There, overhead, was the Mad Major in his plane.  Elusive as was the elusive Pimpernel, he flitted back of the lines to the plane-base.

“Who is he?” We crowded round the English Tommies when all was quiet.

“The Mad Major, Canuck,” they answered.  “The Mad Major.”

“Yes, but—­”

“Never ’eard of ’im, ’ave yer?” It was a sergeant who spoke, and we closed round, thinking to hear a tale.

“’E comes round ‘ere every evenin’, ’e does.  ’E ’as no fear, that chap, ’e ’asn’t.  Does it to cheer us up.  Didn’t yer ’ear ’im as ’e went?  ’E ’arries them, ’e does, ’arries them proper.  Down ’e’ll go, up ’e’ll go, and ne’er a bullet within singing distance of ’im.  ’E’s steeped in elusion!” The sergeant finished, proud of having found a phrase, no matter what might be its true meaning, that illustrated what he wished to convey.

The Mad Major certainly appeared immune from all of the enemy’s fire.

The sergeant went on.  He, himself, had been with the Imperial forces since August, 1914.  He had fought through the Aisne, the Marne, and the awful retreat from Mons.

’Twas at Mons, he told us, that the Mad Major earned his sobriquet, and first showed his daring.  During those awful black days when slowly, slowly and horribly, French and British and Belgians fought a backward fight, day after day and hour after hour, losing now a yard, now a mile, but always going back—­then it was that with the dreadful weight of superior numbers—­maybe twenty to one—­the Germans had a chance to win.  Then it was they lost, and lost for all time.

All through this rearguard action there was the Mad Major.  Mounted on his airy steed, he flitted above the clouds, below the clouds.  Sometimes swallowed in the smoke of the enemy’s big guns; sometimes diving to avoid a shell; sometimes staggering as though wounded, but always righting himself.  There would be the Mad Major each day, over the rearguard troops, seeming to shelter them.  He would harry the German line; he would drop a bomb, flit back, and with a brave “We’ve got them, boys,” cheer the sinking spirits of the wearied foot soldiers.

The Mad Major was a wonder.  Every part of the line he visited, and was known the length and breadth of the Allied armies.

Though for the moment the Mad Major had disappeared from our view, we were to hear more of him later on.

CHAPTER VII