In prehistoric times the first man to make for himself a stone hatchet probably became the greatest warrior of his particular region. He may not have been as strong physically as his neighbor, but with the aid of so marvellous an invention as a stone hatchet he undoubtedly conquered his enemies and became a great prehistoric potentate, until some other great man made a larger and stronger hatchet; so down to the present invention has followed invention and improvement has been added to improveme

The "Bedouin" Squadron, so called because as a unit it was constantly moved from place to place, and because its members as individuals were wanderers at heart, was formed in September, 1917, equipped with the large Handley-Page bombing planes, and sent to the Nancy front to carry out pioneer work in long-distance bombing. The "Bedouins," as the officers of this squadron were called, first saw the light of day in England, Scotland, Ireland, America, India, Canada, South Africa, and Australia. Be

There was "Jimmie," whose insides had been shot away in Gallipoli. He was the envy of the officers' mess, because his newly acquired digestive apparatus, composed principally of silver tubes, could assimilate more wine without producing ill results than any other five members of the mess. Jimmie was not a flying officer; by all the laws of nature he should have been a corpse, but he had a heart which disregarded an intestine designed by a surgeon who must have been a plumber in some previous inc

There was Sammie, a prototype of the caricatured Englishman in our comic papers. Every American theatre-goer has seen Sammie exaggerated on the music-hall stage. Sammie was a small boy with an eyebrow on his upper lip and an apparently permanent window over his right eye. Before joining the Flying Corps he had served seventeen months in the trenches as a private; finally, driven mad with filth, rats, and other vermin, he captured an enemy machine-gun emplacement single-handed, and was given a co

There was "Jock," a "wee bonnie laddie," from the south of Scotland. He stood five feet three inches tall when wearing field boots with exceptionally high heels, but that did not prevent him from braining a Hun with the Hun's own wrench some sixty miles back of the enemy's front lines, and this is how it happened. One morning, about three o'clock, information arrived, together with a com plete and undamaged Hun aeroplane and two friendly Hun aviators, that at a certain German switch station a tr

There was "Mac," a North of England man. Before the war he was a typical English sportsman; he lived for hunting, and polo was his hobby. Like the rest of his class he pushed his way into the fighting line as soon as possible, as a private in the First Hundred Thousand. But eventually his genius expressed itself and leaving the known walks of man he became a master of the newly conquered element. Mac's mind was not limited by science, his soul was not dwarfed by religious prejudice, he held no p

"Gus" was the president of the Bedouin mess, and probably because of an early education at Heidelberg, he believed in starving the British aviator. At all events, while Gus was mess president we all starved with agonizing slowness, for Gus had but two ideas of what constituted a menu. Our meals consisted solely of "bully beef" and Brussels sprouts; this meal was varied occasion ally by leaving out the sprouts. To every indignant complaint from long-suffering members of the officers' mess, Gus wo

"Mid" was a Yank who joined the squadron a few months before its "bust-up." Mid had been a private in the first American contingent to arrive in France; but because he was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and knew that automobiles were manufactured in Detroit, Michigan, he was given a commission. The Bedouins first met Mid in January, 1918. He had run his car—Mid was always driving a car—into a snowdrift, and wandered a couple of miles through a blizzard in search of help. Fortunately for us, he tumbled

The Bedouin who held the unenvied record for crashes was known throughout the service as "Killem." Almost every time he went on a raid he crashed his machine, fortunately for him on this side of the lines. One night, returning from a raid on the Boche magneto works at Stuttgart, he lost his way and was forced to land, because of engine trouble, in France, near the Swiss border. The topography of the country here being mountainous, he was fortunate in merely "writing off" his aeroplane. He might

If you had visited the Bedouin Squadron at about eleven o'clock in the morning you would have received quite a shock when entering the officers' mess. In the first place, you would have found the mess deserted except for several dogs of unknown species and innumerable cats,—some proudly nourishing recent offspring, others in various stages of anticipation of a similar pleasure. Secondly, you would have been surprised at the comfortable, if not artistic, interior of our exteriorly unattractive hu

Every precaution having been taken, the engines run, the controls tested, the compasses swung, the courses made out, the charts prepared, and the drift figured, the Bedouins sat down to dinner free from care or worry. The dinner hour was always set, winter or summer, at least two hours before the night's raid was to start. A guest of the Bedouin mess on the night of an important raid would have been surprised if told that the jolly, laughing officers, who apparently had no thought in the world o

In the summer of 1917 the Germans were rushing troops up to the Ypres front, where the activities of the British threatened them at this point in their line. This movement of troops was made at night, as usual, because if made in daylight they would have been plainly visible to our reconnaissance and artillery observation squadrons. These troops were detrained at Menin and were transported by motor lorry along the Menin-Gelevelt road. On a certain evening the first night-bombing squadron of the

Probably the first time that a Rhine town was bombed on a densely cloudy night was in the spring of 1918 and it was bombed by a small Scotchman called "Jock." The wind that night was from the northeast, a favorable wind from the aviators' point of view because it was against them on the outward voyage. Shortly after crossing the lines, however, dense clouds coming up with the wind obliterated the earth, and all the aviators except Jock turned back hoping to find their aerodrome before it was als

One evening in August, 1918, there was a strong southwest wind blowing across the eastern part of France and severe thunderstorms were reported to be approaching. Nevertheless, certain Bedouins were selected to raid the railway station and sidings at Frankfort; "intelligence" having reported important rail movements in that vicinity. The Bedouins were ordered to return if they found, after testing the air, the weather conditions unfavorable for a flight of such long distance. As an alternative t

Mysterious Dick, or "Mystery" as he was usually called, was a slender, anæmic-looking boy with deep brown eyes. He was nicknamed "Mystery" for several reasons. In the first place, he gave every one on first acquaintance an uncomfortable feeling; no one could explain this, but every one admitted that he was a "bit queer." When he looked at you his eyes never appeared to be focused on you, but to be looking at something back of you; I have seen a man to whom Dick was talking suddenly turn and look