This victory was ratified, but a few days later the authorities, failing to find the necessary material proof, refused to give Guynemer credit for it. Ah, the regulations refuse the hunter this game? Guynemer, turning very red, declared: "It doesn't matter, I will get another." He was always wanting another; and in fact he got one four days later, on December 8. This is the report in his notebook: "Discovering the strategic line Royne-Nesle. While descending, saw a German airplane high, and far within its own lines. As it passed the lines at Beuvraigne, I cut off its retreat and chased it. I caught up to it in five minutes, and fired forty-seven shots from my Lewis from a point 20 meters behind and under it. The enemy airplane, an L.V.G. 165 H.P. probably, dived, caught fire, turned over, and, carried along by the west wind, fell on its back at Beuvraigne. The passenger fell out at Bus, the pilot at Tilloloy...."
When the victor landed at Beuvraigne near his victim, the artillerymen belonging to a nearby battery of 95 mm. guns (47th battery of the 31st regiment of artillery), and who were already crowding around the enemy's body, rushed upon and surrounded Guynemer. But the commander, Captain Allain Launay, mustered his men, ordered a salute to Guynemer, made a speech to his command, and said: "We shall now fire a volley in honor of Sergeant Guynemer." The salvo demolished a small house where some Boches had taken refuge. Through the binoculars they could be seen to scatter when the first shell struck their shelter.
"They owe that to me, too!" cried the enthusiastic urchin.
Meanwhile Captain Allain Launay had patiently ripped the captain's stripes from his cap, and when he had finished handed them to Guynemer:
"Promise me to wear them when you are appointed captain."
This victory was not questioned, and there was even some discussion about making this youngster a Knight of the Legion of Honor. But even when he had been promoted sergeant there had been some objection, owing to his youth. "Nevertheless," Guynemer had observed angrily, "I am not too young to be hit by the enemy's shells." This time another objection arose: If he receives the "cross" for this victory, what can be given him for succeeding ones? The proud little Roland rebelled, revolted, rose up like a cock on its spurs. He did not see that everybody already foresaw his destiny. He would have his "cross," he would have it, and he would not wait long for it, either. He would know how to wring it out of them.
Six days later, December 14, with his comrade, the sober and calm Bucquet, he attacked two Fokkers, one of which was dashed to pieces in its fall, while the other damaged his own machine. A letter to his father described the combat in his own brief and direct manner, without a superfluous word: "Combat with two Fokkers. The first, trapped, and his passenger killed, dived upon me without having seen me. Result: 35 bullets at close quarters and 'couic' [his finish]! The fall was seen by four other airplanes (3 plus 1 makes 4, and perhaps that will win me the 'cross'). Then combat with the second Fokker, a one-seated machine shooting through the propeller, as rapid and easily handled as mine. We fought at ten meters, both turning vertically to try to get behind.
"My spring was slack: compelled to shoot with one hand above my head, I was handicapped; I was able to shoot twenty-one times in ten seconds. Once we almost telescoped, and I jumped over him—his head must have passed within fifty centimeters of my wheels. That disgusted him; he went away and let me go. I came back with an intake pipe burst, one rocker torn away: the splinters had made a number of holes in my over-coat and two notches in the propeller. There were three more in one wheel, in the body-frame (injuring a cable), and in the rudder."
All these accounts of the chase, cruel and clear, seem to breathe a savage joy and the pride of triumph. The sight of a burning airplane, of an enemy sinking down, intoxicated him. Even the remains of his enemies were dear to him, like treasures won by his young strength. The shoulder-straps and decorations worn by his adversary who fell at Tilloloy were given over to him; and Achilles before the trophies of Hector was not more arrogant. These combats in the sky, more than nine thousand feet above the earth, in which the two antagonists are isolated in a duel to the death, scarcely to be seen from the land, alone in empty space, in which every second lost, every shot lost, may cause defeat—and what a defeat! falling, burning, into the abyss beneath—in which they fight sometimes so near together, with short, unsteady thrusts, that they see each other like knights in the lists, while the machines graze and clash together like shields, so that fragments of them fall down like the feathers of birds of prey fighting beak to beak—these combats which require the simultaneous handling of the controlling elements and of the machine-gun, and in which speed is a weapon, why should they not change these young men, these children, into demi-gods? Hercules, Achilles, Roland, the Cid—where shall we find outside of mythology or the epics any prototypes for the wild and furious Guynemer?
On the day of his coming of age, December 24, 1915—earlier than his ancestor under the Empire—he received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, with this mention: "Pilot of great value, model of devotion and courage. Has fulfilled in the past six months two special missions requiring the finest spirit of sacrifice, and has waged thirteen aërial combats, two of which ended in the enemy airplanes falling in flames." This mention was already behindhand, having been based upon the report dated December 8. To the two victories therein mentioned should be added those of the 5th and the 14th of December. Decorated at the age of twenty-one, the enlisted mechanician of Pau continued to progress at breakneck speed. The red ribbon, the yellow ribbon and green War Medal with four palms, are very becoming to a young man's black coat. Georges Guynemer never despised these baubles, nor in any way concealed the pleasure they afforded him. He knew how high one has to climb to pick them. And he was eager for more and more, not because of vanity, but for what they signified.