“Name it, Jeeves. Ask of me what you will, even unto half my kingdom.” “If you could see your way to abandoning your Alpine hat, sir.” I ought to have seen it coming. That cough should have told me. But I hadn't, and the shock was severe.

Several of our planes droned overhead, undeterred by the German 'archies', machine-gun and rifle fire, but not as yet the contact monoplane.

poet + -aster → poetaster (“unskilled poet”)

The Twentieth day about Four a Clock the Moon entered the 25 degree, 19 minutes of ꝳ and came to a Trioctile with the Radical Place of the Moon in the third Indicative, (Jupiter benignly Irradiating the Moon by a Trine about the same time,) denounced a propitious Crisis to ensue.