' I have his photograph with his Gretchen. What
German heads! He wore the same decorations as that one who fell in the
Bus wood...." Is this not Achilles setting his foot on Hector and
taking possession of his trophies? Guynemer's heart was stone to his
enemies. He saw in them the wrongs done to France, the invasion of our
country, the destruction of our towns and villages, our desolation, and
our dead, so many of our dead whose deserted homes weep for them. His
was not to give pity, but to do justice. And in doing justice, when an
adversary whom he had forced down was wounded, he brought him help with
all his native generosity.
For him, thirty seconds had separated the Capitol from the Tarpeian
Rock. After his triple victory came his incredible fall, unheard of,
fantastic, from a height of 3000 meters, the Spad falling at the highest
speed down to earth, and rebounding and planting itself in the ground
like a picket. "I was completely stupefied for twenty-four hours, but
have escaped with merely immense fatigue (especially where I wear my
looping-the-loop straps, which saved my life), and a gash in my knee
presented to me by my magneto.
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