Georges.
P.S. I, who get seasick over nothing at all, have just been out to sea for the first time. The water was very rough, especially for a little motor-boat, but I smiled serenely through it all. Wasn't I proud!...
In fact, some newspaper had announced that Guynemer would carry the aviation flag in the Parade of the Fourteenth of July in Paris, and this was enough to persuade the crowd that some other airman was Guynemer. Indeed, there had been talk of sending him to Paris on that solemn occasion, but he had declined. He loved glory, but hated show, and he had followed his squadron to Flanders, where he had taken to his bed.
The foregoing letter bears Guynemer's mark unmistakably. The son of rich parents rejoicing over having a room to himself, after having renounced all comfort from the very first day of his enlistment, and willing to begin as garçon d'aérodrome; the joke about the German airplane sunk so deep in the wet ground that it would have to be dug out, and the surprise of the pilot; the delight over Raymond's promotion; the amusing allusion to sea-sickness by the man who had no equal in air navigation, are all characteristic details.
Sheik Jabias thus sums up his impressions after visiting the Cid in his camp:
Vous dominiez tout, grand, sans chef, sans joug, sans digue,
Absolu, lance au poing, panache, au front....
And that Cid had never fought up in the air.
[IV. GUYNEMER IN HIS FATHER'S HOUSE]
To quote him once more, Sheik Jabias, after being dazzled by the Cid in his camp, is supposed to see him in his father's castle at Bivar, doing more humble work.
...Que s'est-il donc passé? Quel est cet équipage?
J'arrive, et je vous trouve en veste, comme un page,
Dehors, bras nus, nu-tête, et si petit garçon
Que vous avez en main l'auge et le caveçon,
Et faisant ce qu'il sied aux écuyers de faire,
—Cheick, dit le Cid, je suis maintenant chez mon père.