"
_For him the beauty of war had diminished_.... War already so long, so
exhausting and cruel, and laden with sorrow! Will war appear in its
horrid nakedness, now that those who invested it with glory disappear,
now, above all, when the king of these heroes, the dazzling young man
whose luminous task was known to the whole army, is no more? Is not his
loss the loss of something akin to life? For a Guynemer is like the
nation's flag: if the soldiers' eyes miss the waving colors, they may
wander to the wretchedness of daily routine, and morbidly feed on blood
and death. This is what the loss of a Guynemer might mean.
But can a Guynemer be quite lost?
* * * * *
Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, _September_, 1917
(From the author's diary)
Visited the Storks Escadrille.
The flying field occupies a vast space, for it is common to the French
and the British. A dam protecting the landing-ground screens it from
the sea. But from the second floor of a little house which the bombs
have left standing, you can see its moving expanse of a delicate, I
might say timid blue, dotted with home-coming boats.
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