defined his airplane as a flying machine-gun.
Captain Galliot, a specialist in gunsmithery, who overheard this remark,
also heard him say to the Minister of Aviation, M. Daniel Vincent, who
was inspecting the camp at Buc: "It is not by clever flying that you get
rid of a Boche, but by hard and sharp shooting."

It is not surprising, therefore, that he began his day's work by
overhauling his machine-gun, cartridges, and visor. He did not mind
trusting his mechanicians where his airplane and motor were concerned,
but his weapon and ammunition were his own special care. He regarded as
an axiom the well-known maxim of big-game hunters, that "it is not
enough to hit, but you must shoot down your enemy with lightning
rapidity if you do not wish to perish with him...."[26]

[Footnote 26: _Guynemer tireur de combat_ (_Guerre aerienne_ for October
18, 1917, special number consecrated to Guynemer).]

Of his machine itself Guynemer made a terrible weapon, and he soon
passed his fiftieth victory. On August 20 his record numbered
fifty-three, and he was in as good condition as on the Somme. On the
24th he was on his way to Paris, planning not only to have his airplane
repaired, but to point out to the Buc engineers an improvement he had
just devised.

II. OMENS

"Oh, yes, the dog always manages to get what he wants," Guynemer's
father had once said to him with a sad smile, when Georges, regardless
of his two previous failures, insisted at Biarritz upon enlisting.

"The dog? what dog?" Guynemer had answered, not seeing an apologue in
his father's words.

"The dog waiting at the door till somebody lets him in. His one thought
is to get in while the people's minds are not concentrated on keeping
him out. So he is sure to succeed in the end."

It is the same thing with our destiny, waiting till we open the door of
our life. Vainly do we try to keep the door tightly shut against it: we
cannot think of it all the time, and every now and then we fall into
trustfulness, and thus its hour inevitably comes, and from the opening
door it beckons to us. "What we call fatalism," M. Bergson says, "is
only the revenge of nature on man's will when the mind puts too much
strain upon the flesh or acts as if it did not exist. Orpheus, it is
true, charmed the rivers, trees and rocks away from their places with
his lyre, but the Maenades tore him to pieces in his turn."

We cannot say that the Guynemer who flew in Flanders was not the same