rders it was
destined to become illustrious. Vedrines belonged to it.
_Sous-lieutenant de cavalerie_ Deullin joined it almost simultaneously
with Guynemer, whose friend he soon became. Later, little by little,
came Heurtaux, de la Tour, Dorme, Auger, Raymond, etc., all the famous
valiant knights of the escadrille, like the peers of France who followed
Roland over the Spanish roads. This aviation camp was at Vauciennes,
near Villers-Cotterets, in the Valois country with its beautiful
forests, its chateaux, its fertile meadows, and its delicate outlines
made shadowy by the humid vapor rising from ponds or woods. "Complete
calm," wrote Guynemer on June 9, "not one sound of any kind; one might
think oneself in the Midi, except that the inhabitants have seen the
beast at close range, and know how to appreciate us.... Vedrines is very
friendly and has given me excellent advice. He has recommended me to his
'_mecanos_,' who are the real type of the clever Parisian, inventive,
lively and good humored...." Next day he gives some details of his
billet, and adds: "I have had a _mitrailleuse_ support mounted on my
machine, and now I am ready for the hunt.... Yesterday at five o'clock I
darted around above the house at 1700 or 2000 meters. Did you see me? I
forced my motor for five minutes in hopes that you would hear me." He
had recently parted from his family, and a happy chance had brought him
to fight over the very lines that protected his own home. The front of
the Sixth Army to which he was attached, extending from Ribecourt beyond
the forest of Laigue, passed in front of Railly and Tracy-le-Val,
hollowed itself before the enemy salient of Moulin-sous-Touvent,
straightened itself again near Autreches and Nouvron-Vingre, covered
Soissons, whose very outskirts were menaced, was obliged to turn back on
the left bank of the Aisne where the enemy took, in January, 1915, the
bridge-head at Conde, and Vailly and Chavonne, and crossed the river
again at Soupir which belonged to us. Laon, La Fere, Coucy-le-Chateau,
Chauny, Noyon, Ham, and Peronne were the objects of his reconnoitering
flights.

War acts more poignantly, more directly upon a soldier whose own home is
immediately behind him. If the front were pierced in the sector which
had been intrusted to him, his own people would be exposed. So he
becomes their sentinel. Under such conditions, _la Patrie_ is no longer
merely the historic soil of the French people, the sacred ground e