Part 8 (1/2)

When I saw that Boche thisquite new Then”

He stopped and laughed, as if he had played some schoolboy joke

”Then, what did you do?”

”Well, I made up my ?”

”Surely: I ordered myself not to shoot That is the way one masters one's nerves, little sister Mine are entirely mastered: I am now absolutely in control The Boche presented me with five hundred shots while I maneuvered They were necessary I a at the foot of the bed with his head resting against the post Her eyes et and she kept silent The silence continued

Finally she said softly, ”You have done well, Georges”

But he was asleep

Later, referring to thisin which he offered hiravely:

”That was the decisive ht then and there, I was done for”

When he reappeared at his escadrille's head-quarters on May 18, quite cheerful but with a set face and fla eyes, no one dared discuss his cure with hiion, and once more the contented pilot of a Nieuport flew over the country from Peronne to Roye He had not lost the least particle of his determination; quite the reverse One day (May 22) he searched the air desperately for three hours, and though he finally discovered a two-seated eneive over the coasoline in histhe Somme battle; the escadrilles faround, and new machines were tried

The ene-distance scouting airplanes Near A his rounds with Sergeant Chainat, attacked one of these groups on June 22, isolated one of the airplanes and,with his comrade, set it afire That was, I believe, his ninth This coe went hest

After July 1 there was a combat almost every day Would Guyne, as at Verdun? Returning on the 6th, after having put to flight an LVG, he surprised another Boche airplane which was diving down on one of our artillery-regulating machines He immediately drew the enemy's attention to hie in his flight notebook) was keen and supple His well-aih the propeller of the Nieuport and cut two cables in the right cell Guyne his flying career, once under fantastic conditions He passed through every for the self-possession, the quickness of eye, and rapidity of decision which his passion for conquest had developed

What battles he fought in the air! On July 9 his journal notes a coainst seven, in which Guyneed Deullin, as followed by an Aviatik at a distance of a hundred meters On the 11th, at 10 o'clock, he attacked an LVG and cut its cable; the enemy dived but appeared to be in control of the machine A few moments later he and Deullin attacked an Aviatik and an LVG, Guyne down the LVG; and before returning to their base, the two coroup of seven machines and dispersed them On the 16th Guynemer forced doith Heurtaux, an LVG, which fell with its wheels in the air After a short absence, during which he got a an on the 25th a repetition of his forroups consisting of froht three LVG's, and then groups of from three to ten machines On the 28th he successively attacked two airplanes within their own lines, then a drachen which was obliged to land, then a group of four airplanes one of which was forced down, and then a second group of four which were dispersed, Guyne him down

One blade of his own propeller was riddled with bullets, and he was compelled to land Such was his work for three days, taken at randoe, and it reads the saround while in chase of four ene Heurtaux, who attacked the Geruns Froed the infantry, and shared in their assaults The recital of events beca pilot had not tih to write details; nobody had any tied as it was in its triuhts We e letters, indeed, which contain nothing, absolutely nothing about the war, or the battle of the So else except _his_ war and _his_ battle The earth-world no longer existed for him: the earth was a place which received the dead and the vanquished So this is the way in which he wrote his two sisters, then sojourning in Switzerland (Fritzany enemy airplane):

Dear Kids,

Soun jammed; Fritz tumbled The 18th, _idem_, but in two shots: two Fritzes in five shots, record

Day before yesterday, attacked Fritz at 430 at ten er and perhaps the rest, prevented froht at half-past four: the Boche ran

At 740 attacked an Aviatik, carried away by the ier ”_couic_” (killed), the ain at fifty round

At 735, attacked an LVG; at fifteen erstwo kilometers from the trenches between two shell-holes Inventory of the ”taxi”: one bullet right in the face of my Vickers; one perforative bullet in the h it as well as the oil reservoir, the gasoline tank, the cartridge chest, er: result, about as if htly pinched in a door; not even skinned, only the top of the nail slightly blackened At the tiers had been shot To continue the inventory: one bullet in the reservoir, in the direction of h four ood sense to stop, but one wonders why

One bullet in the edge of the back of s They knocked the ”taxi” to pieces with a hatchet at two o'clock in the , received 86 shots of 105, 130 and 150, for nothing They will pay the bill

For a beginning, La Tour has his fourth es

PS--It could not be said now that I aer