Fifty machines destroyed! This had been Guynemer's dream. The apparently
inaccessible figure had gradually seemed a possibility. Finally it had
become a fact. Fifty machines down, without taking into account those
which fell too far from the official observers, or those which had been
only disabled, or those which had brought home sometimes a pilot,
sometimes a passenger, dead in their seats. What would Guynemer do now?
Was he not tired of hunting, killing, or destroying in the high regions
of the atmosphere? Did he not feel the exhaustion consequent on the
nervous strain of unlimited effort? Could he be entirely deaf to voices
which advised him to rest, now that he was a captain, an officer in the
Legion of Honor, and, at barely twenty-two, could hardly hope for more
distinction? On the other hand, he had shown in his unceasing effort
towards an absolutely perfect machine a genius for mechanics which might
profitably be given play elsewhere. The occasion was not far to seek,
for he had to take his damaged airplane back to the works; and what
with this interruption and the precarious state of his health--for he
had left the hospital too soon--he might reasonably have applied for
leave.
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