oles in his wings or even in his clothes. The Boche, being the
Boche, had shown his usual respect for truth and generosity towards an
adversary.

Guynemer, when returning to camp after a victory, generally announced
his success by making his engine work to some tune. This time the
cadence was the tune of the _Lampions_. All the neighboring airplane
sheds understood, also the cantonments, parks, depots, dugouts, field
hospitals and railway stations; in a word, all the communities scattered
behind the lines of an army. This time the motor was singing so
insistently that everybody, with faces upturned, concluded that their
Guynemer had been "getting them."

In fact, the news was already spreading like wildfire, as news has the
mysterious capacity for doing. No, it was not simply one airplane he had
set ablaze; it was two, one above Corbeny, the other above Juvincourt.
And people had hardly realized the wonderful fact before the third
machine was seen falling in flames near Fismes. It was seen by hundreds
of men who thought it was about to fall upon them, and ran for shelter.
Meanwhile, Guynemer's engine was singing.

And for the fourth time it was heard again at twilight. Could it be
possible? Had Guynemer really succeeded four times? Four machines
brought down in one day by one pilot was what no infantryman, gunner,
pioneer, territorial, Anamite or Senegalese had ever seen. And from the
stations, field hospitals, dugouts, depots, parks and cantonments, while
the setting sun lingered in the sky on this May evening, whoever handled
a shovel, a pickaxe or a rifle, whoever laid down rails, unloaded
trucks, piled up cases, or broke stones on the road, whoever dressed
wounds, gave medicine or carried dead men, whoever worked, rested, ate
or drank--whoever was alive, in a word--stepped out, ran, jostled
along, arrived at the camp, got helterskelter over the fences, broke
into the sheds, searched the airplanes, and called to the mechanicians
in their wild desire to see Guynemer. There they were, a whole town of
them, knocking at every door and peeping into every tent.

Somebody said: "Guynemer is asleep."

Whereupon, without a word of protest, without a sound, the crowd
streamed out and scattered in the darkening fields, threading its way
back to the quiet dells behind the lines.

So ended the day of the greatest aerial victory.

II. A VISIT TO GUYNEMER

_Sunday, June 3, 1917._ To-day, the first Sunday of June, the wom