e was dying, but his
division was victorious.

Near Frise, Lieutenant Sains, who had been obliged to land on July 1,
1916, was rescued by the French army on July 4, after having hidden
himself for three days in a shell-hole to avoid surrendering, his pilot,
Quartermaster de Kyspotter, having been killed.

During the battle of the Aisne in April, 1917, Lieutenant Godillot,
whose pilot had also been killed, slid along the plane, sat on the knees
of the dead pilot, and brought the machine back into the French lines.
And Captain Mery, Lieutenant Viguier, Lieutenant de Saint-Severin, and
Fressagues, Floret, de Niort, and Major Challe, Lieutenant Boudereau,
Captain Roeckel, and Adjutant Fonck--who was to become famous as a
chaser--how many of these elite observers furthered the destruction
wrought by the artillery, and aided the progress of the infantry!

On October 24, 1916, as the fog cleared away, I saw the airplane of the
Guyot de Salins division fly over Fort Douaumont just at the moment when
Major Nicolai's marines entered there.[17] The airplane had descended so
low into the mist that it seemed as if magnetically drawn down by the
earth, and the observer, leaning over the edge, was clapping his hands
to applaud the triumph of his comrades. The latter saw his gesture, even
though they could not hear the applause, and cheered him--a spontaneous
exchange of soldierly confidence and affection between the sky and the
earth.

[Footnote 17: See _Les Captifs delivres_.]

Almost exactly one year later, on October 23, 1917, I saw the airplane
of the same division hovering over the Fort of the Malmaison just as the
Giraud battalion of the 4th Zouaves Regiment took possession of it. At
dawn it came to observe and note the site of the commanding officer's
post, and to read the optical signals announcing our success. At each
visit it seemed like the moving star of old, now guiding the new
shepherds, the guardians of our dear human flocks--not over the stable
where a God was born, but over the ruins where victory was born.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FIRST FLIGHT IN A BLERIOT]

Later on Captain Colcomb spoke of Guynemer as "the most sublime military
figure I have ever been permitted to behold, one of the finest and
most generous souls I have ever known." Guynemer was not satisfied to be
merely calm and systematically immovable, and to display sang-froid,
though to an extraordinary degree. He