ister. 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 passed 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. H