The tons of steel being hurled into the air must meanwhile fall in splinters to the earth. Here is where our steel helmets prove so serviceable, protecting the head not only from falling splinters, but from bullets of the machine gun the Foker flyer is now vigorously firing earthward.
Now a new and welcome sound greets our eyes. Coming on the wings of the wind out of the south is the strong deep bass of Liberty Motor music--the all-American made--which, though arriving in quantity late in the war, proved at once its superiority to all others. Our ground guns have driven the Foker high into the air; which, evidently noting that the on-coming ships are merely observing and not fighting planes, comes steadily on!
How vividly I recall that stirring afternoon! We were on a hillside, just above Thiacourt, directing the work of a burial detail. As the Foker reached a point directly over us he dove full in our direction. There was nothing for us to do, no shelter to take refuge in, just an unprotected slope of the hill.
Whether it was the fact that we were a burial party and he wished to spare us--and this explanation I like to believe--or whether, by firing on us, he might betray his presence, and thus defeat his main purpose, which was to destroy the balloon anchored in the neighboring valley, I will never know; but _this_ I _do_ know--at a point directly above us, and where he could most easily have killed us with machine gun fire, he suddenly changed his course.
Gliding down the valley, he raced full upon the observing balloon and hurled incendiary shells into it, setting it on fire; then, coming about, he dashed away to the north, escaping over his own lines amid a shower of leaden hail! "Ill blows the wind that profits no one"--the position of undertaker, we at first hesitated in accepting, had saved our life; burial boys were, after this, more reconciled than ever to their work!
Air craft battles, although of frequent occurrence along our front, were always watched with keen delight. Our fliers were chiefly of the 108th Squadron from the fields of Toul and Colombey-le-Belles.
It was in our area, on the banks of the Moselle, that the heroic and gallant Lufberry fell, fighting, to his death. He is buried in the little cemetery of Evacuation Hospital No. 1, near Toul.