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 or be shot down in the first seconds of the fight. On they flew, pointed straight at each other.

In each airplane, a machine-gun was fixed which pointed with the airplane. It had no other aiming. You pointed your plane and fired; so you put your target directly before you; you flew at it, as you fired.

If you took time, you manœuvered, of course, to get behind your target, to put your self on his tail and shoot him down without enabling him to fire at you; but when you had no time, you flew at him, firing, and he, firing, flew at you.

You flew at each other with frightful speed, firing. Your first bullets were bound to miss; it would be the bullets fired last, when you were flying straight at each other and nearer by eight hundred feet each second, which would send one plane, or the other, down. That meant that the man who kept his nerve for a second longer than the other, would kill the fellow who faltered. These, as I knew while the squadrons dashed at each other, were the conditions of the fight; and I knew that