V.G.; at fifteen meters; just ready to
shoot, when a bullet in my fingers made me let go the trigger;
reservoir burst, good landing two kilometers from the trenches
between two shell-holes. Inventory of the "taxi": one bullet right
in the face of my Vickers; one perforative bullet in the motor; the
steel stone had gone clear through it as well as the oil reservoir,
the gasoline tank, the cartridge chest, my glove ... where it
stayed in the index finger: result, about as if my finger had been
slightly pinched in a door; not even skinned, only the top of the
nail slightly blackened. At the time I thought two fingers had been
shot. To continue the inventory: one bullet in the reservoir, in
the direction of my left lung, having passed through four
millimeters of copper and had the good sense to stop, but one
wonders why.
One bullet in the edge of the back of my seat, one in the rudder,
and a dozen in the wings. They knocked the "taxi" to pieces with a
hatchet at two o'clock in the morning, under shell-fire.
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