amused himself by counting the
holes in his wings, and pointing them out to the observer. He was
furious when the explosions occurred outside his range of vision,
because he was not resigned to missing anything. He seemed to juggle
with the shrapnel. And after landing, he rushed off to his escadrille
chief, Captain Brocard, took him by the arm, and never left him until he
had drawn him almost by force to his machine, compelling him to put his
fingers into the wounds, exulting meanwhile and fairly bounding with
joy. Captain, now Major Brocard, felt quite sure of him from that time,
and referred to him later in these words: "Very young: his extraordinary
self-confidence and natural qualities will very soon make him an
excellent pilot...."

His curiosity, indeed, was satisfied; and to whom would he confide all
the risks that he ran? His mother and his sisters, the hearts which were
the most troubled about him, and whose peace and happiness he had
carried off into the air. He never dreamed of the torment he caused
them, and which they knew how to conceal from him. Even the idea of such
a thing never occurred to him. As they loved him, they loved him just as
he was, in the raw. He was too young to dissimulate, too young to spare
them. He knew nothing either of lies or of pity. He never thought that
any one could suffer anguish about a son or a brother when this son and
brother was himself supremely happy in his vocation. He was naively
cruel.

But the rounds and reconnaissances were not to hold him long; and he
already scented other adventures. He had scented the odor of the beast,
and he had his airplane furnished with a support for a machine-gun. That
particular airplane, it is true, came to an untimely end in a ditch, but
was already condemned by its body-frame, which was rotten with bullet
holes. That was the only "wood" Guynemer "broke" during his early
flights.

But his next airplane was also armed, and in the young pilot could
already be plainly seen that taste for enemy-chasing which was to
bewitch and take possession of him. Though after this time he certainly
carried over the lines Lieutenant de Lavalette, Lieutenant Colcomb and
Captain Simeon, and always with equal calm, yet he aspired to other
flights, further away from earth. Lieutenant de Beauchamp--the future
Captain de Beauchamp, who was to die so soon after his audacious raids
on Essen and Munich--divined what was hidden in this thin boy who was in
such