Part 9 (1/2)
”I happen to be wounded, General.”
”Wounded, you! It's impossible. When a man falls from the sky without being broken, he is a magician, no doubt of that. You cannot be wounded.
However, lean upon me.”
And holding him up, almost indeed carrying him, he walked with the young _sous-lieutenant_ in front of the troops. From the neighboring trenches rose the sound of singing, first half-suppressed, and then swelling into a formidable roar: the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_. The song had sprung spontaneously to the men's lips.
Cerebral commotion required Guynemer to rest for a few days. But on October 5 he started off again. The month of October on the Somme was marked by an improvement in German aviation, their numbers being considerably reinforced and supplied with new tactics. Guynemer defied the new tactics of numbers, and in one day, October 17, attacked a group of three one-seated planes, and another group of five. A second time he made a sortie, and attacked a two-seated plane which was aided by five one-seated machines. On another occasion, November 9, he waged six battles with one-seated and two-seated machines, all of which made their escape, one after another, by diving. Still this was not enough, and he set forth again and attacked a group of one Albatros and four one-seated planes. ”Hard fight,” says the journal, ”the enemy has the advantage.”
He broke off this combat, but only to engage in another with an Albatros which had surprised Lieutenant Deullin at 50 meters. On the following day, November 10, he added two more items to his list (making his nineteenth and twentieth): his first victim, at whom he had shot fifteen times from a distance less than ten meters, fell in flames south of Nesle; the other, a two-seated Albatros, 220 H.P. Mercedes, protected by three one-seated machines, fell and was crushed to pieces in the Morcourt ravine. This double stroke he repeated on the twenty-second of the same month (making his twenty-second and twenty-third), and again on January 23, 1917 (his twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh), and still again the next day, the twenty-fourth (his twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth victories). In addition, here is one of his letters with a statement of the results of three chasing days. There are no longer headings or endings to his letters; he makes a direct attack, as he does in the air.
26-1-'17
_January_ 24, 1917.--Fell on a group of five Boches at 2300. I brought them back, with drums beating, at 800 meters (one wire stay cut, one escape pot broken). At the end of the boxing-round, 400 meters above Roye, I succeeded in getting behind a one-seated machine of the group. My motor stopped; obliged to pump and let the Boche go.
11.45.--Attacked a Fritz, let him go at 800 meters, my motor spattered, but the Boche landed, head down, near Goyancourt. I only count him as damaged.
At this instant, I see a Boche cannonaded at 2400, hence at 11.50 a boxing round necessary with a little Rumpler armed with two machine-guns. The pilot got a bullet in his lung; the pa.s.senger, who fired at me, got one in his knee. The two reservoirs were hit, and the whole machine took fire and tumbled down at Lignieres, within our lines. I landed alongside; in starting in again one wheel was broken in the plowed frozen earth. In taking away the ”taxi” the park people completely demolished it for me. It was rushed to Paris for repairs.
25.--I watch the others fly, and fume.
26.--Bucquet loaned me his ”taxi.” No view-finder; only a wretchedly bad (oh, how bad!) sight-line.
At 12 o'clock.--Saw a Boche at 3800; took the lift.--Arrived at the sun.--In turning, was caught in an eddy-wind, rotten tail spin.--While coming down again I saw the Boche aiming at me 200 meters away; sent him ten shots: gun jammed; but the Boche seemed excited and dived with his motor in full blast straight south. Off we go! But I took care not to get too near so that he would not see that my gun was out of action. The altimeter tumbled: 1600 Estrees-Saint-Denis came in sight. I maneuvered my Boche as well as I could. Suddenly he righted himself and departed in the direction of Rheims, banging away at me.
I tried bluffing; I rose 500 meters and let myself fall on him like a pebble. When I began to think my bluff had not succeeded, he seemed impressed and began to descend again. I placed myself at a distance of 10 meters, but every time I showed my nose the pa.s.senger aimed at me. The road to Compiegne: 1000 ... 800 meters.
When I showed my nose, the pa.s.senger, standing, stopped aiming and made a sign that he gave himself up. All right! I saw under his belly that four sh.e.l.ls had struck the mark. 400 meters: the Boche slowed up his ”_moulin_” (motor). 200 meters, 20 meters. I let him go and watched him land. At 100 meters I circled and found I was over an aerodrome. But, having no more cartridges, I could not prevent them from setting fire to their ”taxi,” a magnificent 200 H.P. Albatros. When I saw they had been surrounded, I landed and showed the Boches my broken machine-gun. Sensation. They had fired at me two hundred times: my bullets, before the breakdown, had gone through their altimeter and their tachometer, which had caused their excitement. The pilot said that an airplane had been forced down two days before at Goyancourt: pa.s.senger killed, pilot wounded in legs--had to have one amputated above the knee. I hope this original confirmation will be accepted, which will make 30.
Thirty victories, twenty or twenty-one of which occurred on the Somme: such is the schedule of these extraordinary flights. The last one surpa.s.sed all the rest. He fought unarmed, with nothing but his machine, like a knight who, with sword broken, manages his horse and brings his adversary to bay. What a scene it was when the German pilot and pa.s.senger, prisoners, became aware that Guynemer's machine-gun had been out of action! Once more he had imposed his will upon others, and his power of domination had fascinated his enemies.
In the beginning of February, 1917, the Storks Escadrille left the Somme after six months' fighting, and flew into Lorraine.
CANTO III
AT THE ZENITH
I. ON THE 25TH OF MAY, 1917
The destiny of a Guynemer is to surpa.s.s himself. Part of his power, however, must lie in the perfection of his weapons. Why could he not forge them himself? In him, the mechanician and the gunsmith were impatient to serve the pilot and the fighter. Nothing in the science of aviation was unknown to him, and Guynemer in the factory was always the same Guynemer. He worked with the same nervous tension when he overhauled his machine-guns to avoid the too frequent and too troublesome jamming, or when he improved the arrangement of the instruments and tools in his airplane in accordance with his superior practical experience, as when he chased an enemy. He wanted to compel the obedience of matter, as he compelled the enemy to surrender.
In the Somme campaign he had forced down two airplanes in a single day, and then four in two days. In Lorraine he was to do even better. At that time, the beginning of 1917, the German aerial forces were very active in Lorraine, but the city of Nancy paid no attention to them. In 1914 Nancy had seen the invading army broken against the mountain of Saint Genevieve and the Grand Couronne; she had withstood a bombardment by gigantic sh.e.l.ls and visits from air squadrons, and all without losing her good humor and her animation. She was one of those cities on the front who are accustomed to danger, and who find in it an inspiration for courage, for commerce, and even for pleasure which does not belong to cities behind the lines. Sometimes people who were dining on the Place Stanislas left their tables to watch some fine battle in the air, after which they resumed their seats and their appet.i.tes, merely replacing Rhenish by Moselle wines. Nevertheless, the frequency of raids, and the destruction caused by bombs, began to make the existence of both native and visiting Nancyites decidedly unpleasant. The Storks Escadrille, which arrived in February, very promptly punished these aerial brigands, by a police policy both rapid and severe. The enemy airplanes which flew over Nancy were vigorously chased, and less than a month later the framework of a good dozen of them, arranged in an orderly manner around the statue of Stanislas Leczinski, rea.s.sured the population and served as an interesting spectacle for the visitor who could no longer have the pleasure of admiring, behind Lamour's gates, the two monumental fountains consecrated to Neptune and Amphitrite, by Guibal, and which were then covered by coa.r.s.e sacks of earth.
Guynemer had contributed his share of these _spolia opima_. On March 16 he alone had forced down three Boches, and a fourth on the 17th. Three victories in one day const.i.tuted a novel exploit. Navarre had achieved a double victory on February 26, 1916, at Verdun, and Guynemer had the same success on the Somme; in this campaign Nungesser had burned a drachen and two airplanes in one morning; but three airplanes destroyed in one day had never been seen before.
On that same evening Guynemer wrote to his family, and I transcribe the letter just as it is, with neither heading nor final formula. The King of Spain, in _Ruy Blas_, talks of the weather before he tells of the six wolves he has killed; but the new Cid fought in all weathers and speaks of nothing but his chase:
9 o'clock.--Rose from the ground on hearing sh.e.l.l explosions.