Nothing was left
but the body, which was intact: the Spad is strong; with any other
machine I should now be thinner than this sheet of paper. I fell 100
meters from the battery that had demolished me; they had not aimed at
me, but they brought me down all the same, which they had no difficulty
in recognizing; the shell struck me hard some time before exploding. The
Boche fell close by Major Constantin's post. I picked up the pieces."
The group which he had attacked was composed of five airplanes, flying
in _echelon_, three above, two below. The two which flew lowest were
assaulted by one of our escadrilles, and the pilots, seeing a machine
fall in flames, thought at first it was their own victory. "It was my
first one, falling from the upper story," Guynemer explained drolly, in
his Stanislas-student manner. With his "_terrible oiseau_" he had waged
battle with the three pilots "of the upper story," and had forced them
down one after the other. "The first one," he said, "had a half-burned
card in his pocket which had certainly been given him that same morning,
judging by the date, which read in German: 'I think you are very
successful in aviation.
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