must have
passed within fifty centimeters of my wheels. That disgusted him; he
went away and let me go. I came back with an intake pipe burst, one
rocker torn away: the splinters had made a number of holes in my
over-coat and two notches in the propeller. There were three more in one
wheel, in the body-frame (injuring a cable), and in the rudder."

All these accounts of the chase, cruel and clear, seem to breathe a
savage joy and the pride of triumph. The sight of a burning airplane, of
an enemy sinking down, intoxicated him. Even the remains of his enemies
were dear to him, like treasures won by his young strength. The
shoulder-straps and decorations worn by his adversary who fell at
Tilloloy were given over to him; and Achilles before the trophies of
Hector was not more arrogant. These combats in the sky, more than nine
thousand feet above the earth, in which the two antagonists are isolated
in a duel to the death, scarcely to be seen from the land, alone in
empty space, in which every second lost, every shot lost, may cause
defeat--and what a defeat! falling, burning, into the abyss beneath--in
which they fight sometimes so near together, with short, unsteady
thrusts, that they see each other like knights in the lists, while the
machines graze and clash together like shields, so that fragments of
them fall down like the feathers of birds of prey fighting beak to
beak--these combats which require the simultaneous handling of the
controlling elements and of the machine-gun, and in which speed is a
weapon, why should they not change these young men, these children, into
demi-gods? Hercules, Achilles, Roland, the Cid--where shall we find
outside of mythology or the epics any prototypes for the wild and
furious Guynemer?

On the day of his coming of age, December 24, 1915--earlier than his
ancestor under the Empire--he received the Cross of the Legion of Honor,
with this mention: "Pilot of great value, model of devotion and courage.
Has fulfilled in the past six months two special missions requiring the
finest spirit of sacrifice, and has waged thirteen aerial combats, two
of which ended in the enemy airplanes falling in flames." This mention
was already behindhand, having been based upon the report dated December
8. To the two victories therein mentioned should be added those of the
5th and the 14th of December. Decorated at the age of twenty-one, the
enlisted mechanician of Pau continued to progress at breakneck speed.