The Boche presented me with five hundred shots
while I maneuvered. They were necessary. I am perfectly satisfied."
She looked at him, sitting at the foot of the bed with his head resting
against the post. Her eyes were wet and she kept silent. The silence
continued.
Finally she said softly, "You have done well, Georges."
But he was asleep.
Later, referring to this meeting in which he offered himself to the
enemy's fire, he said gravely:
"That was the decisive moment of my life. If I had not set things right
then and there, I was done for...."
When he reappeared at his escadrille's head-quarters on May 18, quite
cheerful but with a set face and flaming eyes, no one dared discuss his
cure with him.
The Storks returned for a few days to the Oise region, and once more the
contented pilot of a Nieuport flew over the country from Peronne to
Roye. He had not lost the least particle of his determination; quite the
reverse. One day (May 22) he searched the air desperately for three
hours, and though he finally discovered a two-seated enemy machine over
Noyon, he was obliged to give over the combat for lack of gasoline in
his motor.
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