Aleck A. MacKinlay
January 21, 1916

Good to be back at Abeele and cleared to fly. I will have to catch up my diary regarding my time in hospital when I have a spare few moments. Pretty dismal and I am just happy to be away from that place.

Accommodations here are looking up ... I have been moved into one of the two new shed-barracks recently finished, which is a great improvement.

Chris has been flying with another pilot and so I have been assigned to observer Captain Trevelyan, a rather gung-ho Irishman. He seems quite serious, all business.

Our assigned mission today was to patrol over enemy front lines. Bloody ridiculous! Sending BE2's to patrol into enemy skies?! Standing orders from the top apparently that we are to be 'aggressive' at all times and go looking for a scrap. I think Major Mills is taking this idea a bit far in sending us out is our slow BE2's; isn't that what the Fees and Bristols are for! To top it all off, I was to lead our little flight of two aircraft, on my first day back from a concussion, in a lousy snow storm!

Fortunately we saw not a hint of the enemy ... they are too smart to be flying around in such weather. Had yet another engine failure as we approached home. I landed very carefully on a roadway NE of Abeele and we were home by car by mid afternoon. After reporting to Major Mills, he apparently called in the head mechanic for a severe reprimand. Hopefully my engine problems will improve as a result.