One more victory, and this one had the honor of appearing
in the official _communique_. Sometimes he got back with his machine and
his clothes riddled with bullet-holes. He carried fire and massacre up
into the sky. And all this was nothing as yet but the exercise of a
knight-errant in his infancy. This became evident later when he had
acquired complete mastery of his work.
February, 1916--the month in which began the longest, the most stubborn
and cruel, and perhaps the most significant battle of the Great War. In
this month began Verdun, and the menacing German advance on the right of
the Meuse (February 21-26), to the wood of Haumont, the wood of the
Caures and Herbebois, then to Samogneux, the wood of the Fosses, the Le
Chaume wood and Ornes, and finally, on February 25, the attack on
Louvemont and Douaumont. The escadrilles, little by little, headed in
the same direction, and Guynemer was about to leave the Sixth Army. He
would dart no more above the paternal mansion, announcing his victories
by his caracoles in the air; nor watch over his own household during his
patrol of the region beyond Compiegne, over Noyon, Chauny, Coucy, and
Tracy-le-Val.
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