Georges Guynemer: Knight of the Air Part 8

When I saw that Boche this morning I felt something quite new. Then...."

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

"Then, what did you do?"

"Well, I made up my mind to submit to his shots. Calmly."

"Without replying?"

"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 am perfectly satisfied."

She looked at him, sitting at the foot of the bed with his head resting against the post. Her eyes were wet and she kept silent. The silence continued.

Finally she said softly, "You have done well, Georges."

But he was asleep.

Later, referring to this meeting in which he offered himself to the enemy's fire, he said gravely:

"That was the decisive moment of my life. If I had not set things right 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 flaming eyes, no one dared discuss his cure with him.

The Storks returned for a few days to the Oise region, 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 enemy machine over Noyon, he was obliged to give over the combat for lack of gasoline in his motor.

Meanwhile they were preparing the Somme battle; the escadrilles familiarized themselves with their ground, and new machines were tried.

The enemy, who suspected our preparations, sent out long-distance scouting airplanes. Near Amiens, above Villers-Bretonneux, Guynemer, making his rounds with Sergeant Chainat, attacked one of these groups on June 22, isolated one of the airplanes and, maneuvering with his comrade, set it afire. That was, I believe, his ninth. This combat took place at a height of 4200 meters. The advantage went more and more to the pilot who mounted highest.

After July 1 there was a combat almost every day. Would Guynemer be put out of action from the beginning, as at Verdun? Returning on the 6th, after having put to flight an L.V.G., he surprised another Boche airplane which was diving down on one of our artillery-regulating machines. He immediately drew the enemy's attention to himself; but the enemy (Guynemer pays him this homage in his flight notebook) was keen and supple. His well-aimed shots pa.s.sed through the propeller of the Nieuport and cut two cables in the right cell. Guynemer was obliged to land. He was forced down eight times during his flying career, once under fantastic conditions. He pa.s.sed through every form of danger without ever losing the self-possession, the quickness of eye, and rapidity of decision which his pa.s.sion for conquest had developed.

What battles he fought in the air! On July 9 his journal notes a combat of five against five; on the 10th a combat of three against seven, in which Guynemer disengaged Deullin, who was followed by an Aviatik at a distance of a hundred meters. On the 11th, at 10 o'clock, he attacked an L.V.G. 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 L.V.G., Guynemer damaging the Aviatik, and Deullin forcing down the L.V.G.; and before returning to their base, the two comrades attacked a group of seven machines and dispersed them. On the 16th Guynemer forced down, with Heurtaux, an L.V.G., which fell with its wheels in the air. After a short absence, during which he got a more powerful machine for his own use, he began on the 25th a repet.i.tion of his former program. On the 26th he waged five combats with enemy groups consisting of from five to eleven airplanes. On the 27th he fought three L.V.G.'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, Guynemer pursuing one of the fugitives and bringing 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 random from the notebook.

Open his journal at any page, and it reads the same. On August 7 Guynemer got back with seven sh.e.l.l fragments in his machine: he had been cannonaded from the ground while in chase of four enemy airplanes. On the same day he started off again, piloting Heurtaux, who attacked the German trenches north of Clery and fired on some machine-guns. From its place up in the air the airplane encouraged the infantry, and shared in their a.s.saults. The recital of events became, however, more and more brief: the fighting pilot had not time enough to write details; n.o.body had any time in the Storks Escadrille, constantly engaged as it was in its triumphant flights. We must turn then to Guynemer's letters--strange letters, indeed, which contain nothing, absolutely nothing about the war, or the battle of the Somme, or about anything 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 (Fritz meaning any enemy airplane):

Dear Kids,

Some sport: the 17, attacked a Fritz, three shots and gun jammed; Fritz tumbled. The 18th, _idem_, but in two shots: two Fritzes in five shots, record.

Day before yesterday, attacked Fritz at 4.30 at ten meters: killed the pa.s.senger and perhaps the rest, prevented from seeing what happened by a fight at half-past four: the Boche ran.

At 7.40 attacked an Aviatik, carried away by the impetus, pa.s.sed it at fifty centimeters; pa.s.senger "_couic_" (killed), the machine fell and was got under control again at fifty meters above the ground.

At 7.35, attacked an L.V.G.; at fifteen meters; just ready to shoot, when a bullet in my fingers made me let go the trigger; reservoir burst, good landing two kilometers from the trenches between two sh.e.l.l-holes. Inventory of the "taxi": one bullet right in the face of my Vickers; one perforative bullet in the motor; the steel stone had gone clear through it as well as the oil reservoir, the gasoline tank, the cartridge chest, my glove ... where it stayed in the index finger: result, about as if my finger had been slightly pinched in a door; not even skinned, only the top of the nail slightly blackened. At the time I thought two fingers had been shot. To continue the inventory: one bullet in the reservoir, in the direction of my left lung, having pa.s.sed through four millimeters of copper and had the good sense to stop, but one wonders why.

One bullet in the edge of the back of my seat, one in the rudder, and a dozen in the wings. They knocked the "taxi" to pieces with a hatchet at two o'clock in the morning, under sh.e.l.l-fire. On landing, received 86 shots of 105, 130 and 150, for nothing. They will pay the bill.

For a beginning, La Tour has his fourth mention.

A hug for each of you.

Georges.

P.S.--It could not be said now that I am not strong; I stop steel bullets with the end of my finger.

Is this a letter? At first, it is a bulletin of victory: two airplanes for five bullets, plus one pa.s.senger "_couic_." Then it becomes a recital of the golden legend--the golden legend of aviation: he stops the enemy's bullets with his fingers; Roland would write in that style to the beautiful Aude: "Met three Saracens, Durandal cleft two, the third tried to settle the affair with his bow, but the arrow broke on the cord." Young Paul Bailly was right: "The exploits of Guynemer are not a legend, like those of Roland; in telling them just as they happened we find them more beautiful than any we could invent." That is why it is better to let Guynemer himself relate them. He says only what is necessary, but the right accent is there, the rapidity and the "_couic_." The following letter is dated September 15, 1916.

_From the same to the same_

Some sport.

On the 16th, in a group of six, four of them squeezed at 25 meters.

In four days, six combats at 25 meters: filled a few Boches with holes, but they did not seem to tumble down, though some were hard hit all the same; then five boxing rounds up between 5100 and 5300 (alt.i.tude). To-day five combats, four of them at less than 25 meters, and the fifth at 50 meters. In the first, gun jammed at 50 meters. In the second, at 5200, the Boche in his excitement lost his wings, and descended on his aerodrome in a wingless coach; his ears must be humming (16th). The third was a nose-to-nose combat with a fighting Aviatik. Too much impetus: I failed to hammer him hollow. In the fourth, same joke with an L.V.G. in a group of three: I failed to hammer him, I lurched: _pan_, a bullet near my head. In the fifth, I cleaned up the pa.s.senger (that is the third this week), then knocked up the pilot very badly at 10 meters,--completely disabled, he landed evidently with great difficulty, and he must be in hospital....

Three lines to describe a victory, the sixteenth. And what boarding of the adversary, from above and from below! He springs upon the enemy, but fails to go through him. Both speeds combined, he does not make much less than 400 kilometers an hour when he dives on him. The meeting and shooting hardly last one second, after which the combat continues, with other maneuvers. Some savant should calculate the time allowed for sight and thought in fighting such duels!

This was the period of the great series of combats on the Somme. The Storks Escadrille, which was the first to arrive, waged battle uninterruptedly for eight months. Other escadrilles came to the rescue.

Altogether they were divided into two groups, one under the command of Major Fequant, the other under that of Captain Brocard, appointed chief of battalion. It becomes impossible to enumerate all Guynemer's victories, and we can merely emphasize the days on which he surpa.s.sed himself. September 28 was a remarkable day, on which he brought down two enemies and had a fall from a height of 3000 meters. Little Paul Bailly would hardly have believed that; he would have said it was surely a legend, the golden legend of aviation. Nevertheless, here is Guynemer's statement, countersigned by the escadrille commandant:

"_Sat.u.r.day, September 23._--Two combats near Eterpigny. At 11.20 forced down a Boche in flames near Aches; at 11.21 forced a Boche to land, damaged, near Carrepuy; at 11.25 forced down a Boche in flames near Roye. At 11.30, was forced down myself by a French sh.e.l.l, and smashed my machine near Fescamps...."

These combats occurred between Peronne and Montdidier. To his father he wrote with more precision, but in his usual elliptical style.

"_September 22_: Asphyxiated a Fokker in 30 seconds, tumbled down disabled.

"_September 23_: 11.20.--A Boche in flames within our lines.

"11.21.--A Boche disabled, pa.s.senger killed.

"11.25.--A Boche in flames 400 meters from the lines.

"11.25 and a half.--A 75 blew up my water reservoir, and all the linen of the left upper plane, hence a superb tail spin. Succeeded in changing it into a glide. Fell to ground at speed of 160 or 180 kilometers: everything broken like matches, then the 'taxi' rebounded, turned around at 45 degrees, and came back, head down, planting itself in the ground 40 meters away like a post; they could not budge it. Nothing was left but the body, which was intact: the Spad is strong; with any other machine I should now be thinner than this sheet of paper. I fell 100 meters from the battery that had demolished me; they had not aimed at me, but they brought me down all the same, which they had no difficulty in recognizing; the sh.e.l.l struck me hard some time before exploding. The Boche fell close by Major Constantin's post. I picked up the pieces."

The group which he had attacked was composed of five airplanes, flying in _echelon_, three above, two below. The two which flew lowest were a.s.saulted by one of our escadrilles, and the pilots, seeing a machine fall in flames, thought at first it was their own victory. "It was my first one, falling from the upper story," Guynemer explained drolly, in his Stanislas-student manner. With his "_terrible oiseau_" he had waged battle with the three pilots "of the upper story," and had forced them down one after the other. "The first one," he said, "had a half-burned card in his pocket which had certainly been given him that same morning, judging by the date, which read in German: 'I think you are very successful in aviation.' I have his photograph with his Gretchen. What German heads! He wore the same decorations as that one who fell in the Bus wood...." Is this not Achilles setting his foot on Hector and taking possession of his trophies? Guynemer's heart was stone to his enemies. He saw in them the wrongs done to France, the invasion of our country, the destruction of our towns and villages, our desolation, and our dead, so many of our dead whose deserted homes weep for them. His was not to give pity, but to do justice. And in doing justice, when an adversary whom he had forced down was wounded, he brought him help with all his native generosity.

For him, thirty seconds had separated the Capitol from the Tarpeian Rock. After his triple victory came his incredible fall, unheard of, fantastic, from a height of 3000 meters, the Spad falling at the highest speed down to earth, and rebounding and planting itself in the ground like a picket. "I was completely stupefied for twenty-four hours, but have escaped with merely immense fatigue (especially where I wear my looping-the-loop straps, which saved my life), and a gash in my knee presented to me by my magneto. During that 3000-meter tumble I was planning the best way to hit the ground (I had the choice of sauces): I found the way, but there were still 95 out of 100 chances for the wooden cross. _Enfin_, all right!" And this postscript followed: "Sixth time I have been brought down: record!"

Lieutenant V.F., of the Dragon Escadrille, colliding with a comrade's airplane at a height of 3000 meters, had a similar fall onto the Avocourt wood, and was similarly astounded to find himself whole. He had continued maneuvering during the five or six minutes of the descent.

"Soon," he wrote, "the trees of the Hesse forest came in sight; in fact, they seemed to approach at a dizzy rate of speed. I switched off so as not to catch fire, and a few meters before reaching the trees I nosed up my machine with all my strength so that it would fall flat. There was a terrible shock! One tree higher than the rest broke my right wings, and made me turn as if I were on a pivot. I closed my eyes. There was a second shock, less violent than I could have hoped: the machine fell on its nose like a stone, at the foot of the tree which had stopped me. I unfastened my belt which, luckily, had not broken, and let myself slip onto the ground, amazed not to be suffering intense agony. The only bad effects were that my head was heavy, and blood was flowing through my mask. I breathed, coughed, and shook my arms and legs, and was dumbfounded to find that all my faculties functioned normally...."

Guynemer did not tell us so much; but, as a mathematician, he calculated his chances. He too had switched off, and with the greatest sang-froid superintended, so to speak, his fall. Its result was no less magical.

The infantrymen had observed this rainfall of airplanes. The French plane reached the earth just before its pilot's last victim fell also, in flames. The soldiers pitied the poor victor, who had not, as they thought, survived his conquest! They rushed to his aid, expecting to pick him up crushed to atoms. But Guynemer stood up without aid. He seemed like a ghost; but he was standing, he was alive, and the excited soldiers took possession of him and carried him off in triumph. A division general approached, and immediately commanded a military salute for the victor, saying to Guynemer:

"You will review the troops with me."

Guynemer did not know how to review troops, and would have liked to go.

He was suffering cruelly from his knee: