assenger "_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
(altitude). 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 passenger (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,