portunities were less fortunate and whose exploits were less
brilliant but not less useful. The cavalry, artillery, and infantry were
drawn upon for recruits for the aviation branch of the army, and it
appeared a difficult undertaking to fuse such different elements; but as
all shared the same life and the same dangers, had similar tastes, and a
passion for attaining the same result, and as their officers were
necessarily recruited from among themselves, and chosen for services
rendered, an atmosphere of _camaraderie_ and friendly rivalry was
created. A great novelist said that the origin of our friendships dates
"from those hours at the beginning of life when we dream of the future
in company with some comrade with the same ideals as our own, a chosen
brother."[20] What difference does it make, then, if they depart in
company for glory or for death? These young men gave themselves with the
same willingness to the same service, a service full of constant
danger. They were not gathered together by chance, but by their vocation
and by selection, and they spoke the same language. For them, friendship
easily became rivalry in courage and energy, and a school of mutual
esteem, in which each strove to outdo the other. Friendship kept them
alert, drove away inertia and weakness, and they became confident and
generous, so that each rejoiced in the success of the others. In the
mountains, on the sea, in every place where men feel most acutely their
own fragility, such friendship is not rare; but war brings it to
perfection.

[Footnote 20: Paul Bourget, _Une Idylle tragique_.]

The patrols of the Storks Escadrille, in the beginning of the Somme
campaign, consisted of a single airplane, or airplanes in couples.
Guynemer, whom everybody called "the kid," always took Heurtaux with him
when he carried a passenger; for Heurtaux, as blond as Guynemer was
brown, thin and slender, very delicate and young, seemed to give
Guynemer the rights of an elder. Heurtaux was the Oliver of this Roland.
In character and energy they were the same. Dorme used to take Deullin
with him, or de la Tour. Or the choice was made alternately. This was
the quartet of whom the enemy had cause to beware, and woe to the Boche
who met any one of them! There was at that time at Bapaume a group of
five one-seated German machines which never maneuvered singly. If they
perceived a pair of Nieuports, they immediately tacked about and fled in
haste. But if one of our c