What matters it if their machine gets hit,
if the planes are riddled with holes? It will still fly, even if the
engine gets a fatal wound and stops.
The pilot, if he is high enough, can still glide to safety in his own
lines. But (and it is a big "but") should a shrapnel ball find its
billet in the pilot--well, one has only to die once, and it is a quick
and sure death to fall with one's machine.
[Illustration]
*The Battles in Belgium*
[An Associated Press Dispatch.]
LONDON, Oct. 26, 4:40 A.M.--The correspondent of The Daily News, who has
been in an armored train to the banks of the Yser, gives a good
description of the battle in the North. He says:
"The battle rages along the Yser with frightful destruction of life. Air
engines, sea engines, and land engines deathsweep this desolate country,
vertically, horizontally, and transversely. Through it the frail little
human engines crawl and dig, walk and run, skirmishing, charging, and
blundering in little individual fights and tussles, tired and puzzled,
ordered here and there, sleeping where they can, never washing, and
dying unnoticed. A friend may find himself firing on a friendly force,
and few are to blame.
"Thursday the Germans were driven back over the Yser; Friday they
secured a footing again, and Saturday they were again hurled back.
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