s
reported missing. Yet it was inconceivable that such a piece of news
should not have been circulated; and, in fact, yesterday a message
dropped by a German airplane on the British lines, concerning several
English aviators killed or in hospital, was completed by a note saying
that Captain Guynemer had been brought down at Poelkapelle on September
10, at 8 A.M. But could this message be credited? Both the day
and hour it stated were wrong. On September 10 at 8 A.M.
Guynemer was alive, and even the next day he had not left the camp at
the hour mentioned. An English newspaper had announced his
disappearance, and perhaps the enemy was merely using the information.
The mystery remained unsolved.

As we were discussing these particulars, the last airplanes were
landing, one after another, and Guynemer's companions offered their
reasons for hoping, or rather believing; but none seemed convinced by
his own arguments. Their inner conviction must be that their young chief
is dead; and besides, what is death, what is life, to devoting one's all
to France?

Captain d'Harcourt had succeeded Major Brocard pro tem as commandant of
the unit. He was a very slim, very elegant young man, with the grace and
courtesy of the _ancien regime_ which his name evoked, and the
perfection of his manners and gentleness seemed to lend convincing power
to all he said. Guynemer being missing and Heurtaux wounded, the Storks
were now commanded by Lieutenant Raymond. He belonged to the cavalry, a
tall, thin man, with the sharp face and heroic bearing of Don Quixote, a
kindly man with a roughness of manner and a quick, picturesque way of
expressing himself. Deullin was there, too, one of Guynemer's oldest and
most devoted friends. Last of all descended from the high regions
_sous-lieutenant_ Bozon-Verduraz, a rather heavy man with a serious
face, and more maturity than belonged to his years, an unassuming young
man with a hatred for exaggeration and a deep respect for the truth.

Once more he went through every detail of the fatal day for me, each
particular anticipating the dread issue. But in spite of this narrative,
full of the idea of death, I could not think of Guynemer as dead and
lying somewhere under the ground held by the enemy. It was impossible
for me not to conjure up Guynemer alive and even full of life, Guynemer
chasing the enemy with strained terrible eyes, Guynemer of the
superhuman will, the Guynemer who never gave up,--in short, a G