The evening is
placid and fine, with a reddish haze blurring the horizon.
Opposite the sheds, with their swelling canvas walls, a row of airplanes
is standing before being rolled in for the night. The mechanicians feel
them with careful hands, examining the engines, propellers, and wings.
The pilots are standing around, still in their leather suits, their
helmets in their hands. In brief sentences they sum up their day's
experiences.
Mechanically I look among them for the one whom the eye invariably
sought first. I recalled his slight figure, his amber complexion, and
dark, wonderful eyes, and his quick descriptive gestures. I remembered
his ringing, boyish laugh, as he said:
"And then, '_couic_'...."
He was life itself. He got out of his seat panting but radiant,
quivering, as it were, like the bow-string when it has sent its shaft,
and full of the sacred drunkenness of a young god.
Ten days had passed since his disappearance. Nothing more was known than
on that eleventh of September when Bozon-Verduraz came back alone.
German prisoners belonging to aviation had not heard that he was
reported missing.
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