I hope this
original confirmation will be accepted, which will make 30.
Thirty victories, twenty or twenty-one of which occurred on the Somme:
such is the schedule of these extraordinary flights. The last one
surpassed all the rest. He fought unarmed, with nothing but his machine,
like a knight who, with sword broken, manages his horse and brings his
adversary to bay. What a scene it was when the German pilot and
passenger, prisoners, became aware that Guynemer's machine-gun had been
out of action! Once more he had imposed his will upon others, and his
power of domination had fascinated his enemies.
In the beginning of February, 1917, the Storks Escadrille left the Somme
after six months' fighting, and flew into Lorraine.
CANTO III
AT THE ZENITH
I. ON THE 25TH OF MAY, 1917
The destiny of a Guynemer is to surpass himself. Part of his power,
however, must lie in the perfection of his weapons. Why could he not
forge them himself? In him, the mechanician and the gunsmith were
impatient to serve the pilot and the fighter. Nothing in the science of
aviation was unknown to him, and Guynemer in the factory was always the
same Guynemer.
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