It was on a par with Peter's doctrine of 'atmosphere' and 'the double bluff' and all the other principles that his queer old mind had cogitated out of his rackety life.
By the end of August that year Peter's was about the best-known figure in the Flying Corps.

If the reports had mentioned names he would have been a national hero, but he was only 'Lieutenant Blank', and the newspapers, which expatiated on his deeds, had to praise the Service and not the man.

That was right enough, for half the magic of our Flying Corps was its freedom from advertisement.

But the British Army knew all about him, and the men in the trenches used to discuss him as if he were a crack football-player.

There was a very big German airman called Lensch, one of the Albatross heroes, who about the end of August claimed to have destroyed thirty-two Allied machines.