APRIL IN NORTH DEVON 61 



into softness of outline. In the sky above are 

 two buzzards. " Yesterday," said my com- 

 panion, " I could see six when I was fishing 

 near this spot." I wonder how many there 

 are in the whole of the country. They are 

 the only ones I have ever seen myself. " Watch 

 them doing stunts," he added. Suddenly one 

 came circling down in a graceful curve, floating 

 on its side, with wings nearly vertical. " An 

 Immelmann turn," he added quietly. I thought 

 of his experiences in the war. Sandhurst as 

 a cadet for a few months, two years in the 

 trenches, with a good line regiment, the Second 

 Battle of Ypres, Loos, the Somme battles too 

 numerous to mention and shell-fire and snipers 

 all the time ; then a transfer to the air, and 

 all the varied experiences that go therewith, 

 described by many pens ; now a captain in 

 the Royal Air Force, wearing the Military 

 Cross and the 1914 Star. As he is convalescing 

 after a bad crash, I do not pursue the subject, 

 but contemplate the row of twenty-three 

 Devon trout glistening on the grass between 

 us, and then pack them in the basket as he 

 wades in to finish his day's fishing, while I 

 stroll homewards along the bank, passing as 

 I go a rival fisher, a dead heron caught by the 

 wing on a bit of barbed-wire fence, and seeing 



