The officer gave him
a letter to the recruiting officer at Bayonne, and he went back there
for the third time. This time his name was entered, he was taken, and he
signed a voluntary engagement. This was on November 21, 1914. There was
no need for him to explain to the family what had occurred when he
returned to the Villa Delphine: he was beaming.
"You are going?" said his mother and sisters.
"Surely."
Next day he made his _debut_ at the aviation camp at Pau as student
mechanician. He had entered the army by the back door, but he had got
in. The future knight of the air was now the humblest of grooms. "I do
not ask any favors for him," his father wrote to the captain. "All I ask
is that he may perform any services he is capable of." He had to be
tried and proved deserving, to pass through all the minor ranks before
being worthy to wear the _casque sacre_. The petted child of Compiegne
and the Villa Delphine had the most severe of apprenticeships. He slept
on the floor, and was employed in the dirtiest work about camp, cleaned
cylinders and carried cans of petroleum.
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