flight three Albatros, while a more
rapid Fokker attempted an attack, but turned back having tried a shot at
their machine-gun. On the 16th Guynemer and Hatin dropped bombs on the
Chauny railway station; during the bombardment an Aviatik attacked them,
they stood his fire, replying as well as they could with their
musketoon, and returned to camp uninjured. Adjutant Hatin was decorated
with the Military Medal. As Hatin was a _gourmet_, Guynemer went that
same evening to Le Bourget to fetch two bottles of Rhine wine to
celebrate this family fete. At Le Bourget he tried the new Nieuport
machine, which was the hope of the fighting airplanes. Finally, on July
19--memorable date--his journal records Guynemer's first victory:

"Started with Guerder after a Boche reported at Couvres and caught up
with him over Pierrefonds. Shot one belt, machine-gun jammed, then
unjammed. The Boche fled and landed in the direction of Laon. At Coucy
we turned back and saw an Aviatik going toward Soissons at about 3200
meters up. We followed him, and as soon as he was within our lines we
dived and placed ourselves about 50 meters under and behind him at the
left. At our first salvo, the Aviatik lurched, and we saw a part of the
machine crack. He replied with a rifle shot, one ball hitting a wing,
another grazing Guerder's hand and head. At our last shot the pilot sank
down on the body-frame, the observer raised his arms, and the Aviatik
fell straight downward in flames, between the trenches...."

This flight began at 3700 meters in the air, and lasted ten minutes, the
two combatants being separated by a distance of 50 and sometimes 20
meters. The statement of fact is characteristic of Guynemer. An
unforgettable sight had been imprinted on his eyes: the pilot sinking
down in his cock-pit, the arms of the observer beating the air, the
burning airplane sinking. Such were to be his future landscape sketches,
done in the sky. The wings of the bird of prey were unfurled definitely
in space.

The two fighting airmen had left Vauciennes at two o'clock in the
afternoon, and at quarter-past three they landed, conquerors, at
Carriere l'Eveque. From their opposing camps the infantry had followed
the fight with their eyes. The Germans, made furious by defeat,
cannonaded the landing-place. Georges, who was too thin for his clothes,
and whose leather pantaloons lined with sheepskin, which he wore over
his breeches, slipped and impeded his walking, sat down u