The infantrymen had observed this rainfall of airplanes. The French plane reached the earth just before its pilot's last victim fell also, in flames. The soldiers pitied the poor victor, who had not, as they thought, survived his conquest! They rushed to his aid, expecting to pick him up crushed to atoms. But Guynemer stood up without aid. He seemed like a ghost; but he was standing, he was alive, and the excited soldiers took possession of him and carried him off in triumph. A division general approached, and immediately commanded a military salute for the victor, saying to Guynemer:
"You will review the troops with me."
Guynemer did not know how to review troops, and would have liked to go. He was suffering cruelly from his knee:
"I happen to be wounded, General."
"Wounded, you! It's impossible. When a man falls from the sky without being broken, he is a magician, no doubt of that. You cannot be wounded. However, lean upon me."
And holding him up, almost indeed carrying him, he walked with the young sous-lieutenant in front of the troops. From the neighboring trenches rose the sound of singing, first half-suppressed, and then swelling into a formidable roar: the Marseillaise. The song had sprung spontaneously to the men's lips.
Cerebral commotion required Guynemer to rest for a few days. But on October 5 he started off again. The month of October on the Somme was marked by an improvement in German aviation, their numbers being considerably reinforced and supplied with new tactics. Guynemer defied the new tactics of numbers, and in one day, October 17, attacked a group of three one-seated planes, and another group of five. A second time he made a sortie, and attacked a two-seated plane which was aided by five one-seated machines. On another occasion, November 9, he waged six battles with one-seated and two-seated machines, all of which made their escape, one after another, by diving. Still this was not enough, and he set forth again and attacked a group of one Albatros and four one-seated planes. "Hard fight," says the journal, "the enemy has the advantage." He broke off this combat, but only to engage in another with an Albatros which had surprised Lieutenant Deullin at 50 meters. On the following day, November 10, he added two more items to his list (making his nineteenth and twentieth): his first victim, at whom he had shot fifteen times from a distance less than ten meters, fell in flames south of Nesle; the other, a two-seated Albatros, 220 H.P. Mercédès, protected by three one-seated machines, fell and was crushed to pieces in the Morcourt ravine. This double stroke he repeated on the twenty-second of the same month (making his twenty-second and twenty-third), and again on January 23, 1917 (his twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh), and still again the next day, the twenty-fourth (his twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth victories). In addition, here is one of his letters with a statement of the results of three chasing days. There are no longer headings or endings to his letters; he makes a direct attack, as he does in the air.
26-1-'17
January 24, 1917.—Fell on a group of five Boches at 2300. I brought them back, with drums beating, at 800 meters (one wire stay cut, one escape pot broken). At the end of the boxing-round, 400 meters above Roye, I succeeded in getting behind a one-seated machine of the group. My motor stopped; obliged to pump and let the Boche go.