e passed through every form of danger
without ever losing 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 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 repetition 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 shell 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 assaults. The recital of events became, however, more and more
brief: the fighting pilot had not time enough to write details; nobody
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 o