A wonderful atmosphere men breathe here, for it relieves death of its horror.  One officer, Raymond, I think, said in a careless manner: 

“Guynemer’s fate will be ours, of course.”

Somebody protested:  “The country needs men like you.”

To which Deullin answered:  “Why does it?  There will be others after us, and the life we lead....”

But Captain d’Harcourt broke in gaily:  “Come on; dinner’s ready—­and with this bright moon and clear sky we are sure to get bombed.”

Bombed, indeed, we were, and pretty severely, but in convenient time, for we had just drunk our coffee.  A few minutes before, the practiced ear of one of us had caught the sound of the bimoulins, the bi-motor German airplanes, and soon they were near.  We gained the sheltering trench.  But the night was so entrancingly pure, with the moon riding like an airship in the deep space, that it seemed to promise peace and invited us to enjoy the spectacle.  We climbed upon the parapet and listened to the breathing of the sea, accompanying with its bass the music of the motors.  There were still a few straggling reddish vapors over the luminous landscape, and the stars seemed dim.  But other stars took their place, those of the French Voisins returning from some bombing expedition, their lights dotting the sky like a moving constellation, while at intervals a rocket shot from one or the other who was anxious not to miss the landing-ground.  Over Dunkirk, eight or ten searchlights stretched out their long white arms, thrusting and raking to and fro after the enemy machines.  Suddenly one of these appeared, dazzled by the revealing light, as a moth in the circle of a lamp; our batteries began firing, and we could see the quick sparks of their shells all around it.  Flashing bullets, too, drew zebra-like stripes across the sky, and with the cannonade and the rumbling of the airplanes we heard the lament of the Dunkirk sirens announcing the dreaded arrival of the huge 380 shells upon the town, where here and there fires broke out.  Meanwhile the German airplanes got rid of their bombs all around us, and we could feel the ground tremble.

The Storks looked on with the indifference of habit, thinking of their beds and awaiting the end.  One of them, a weather prophet, said: 

“It will be a good day to-morrow; we can start early.”

As I spun towards Dunkirk in the motor, these young men and their speeches were in my mind, and I seemed to hear them speaking of their absent companion without any depression, with hardly any sorrow.  They thought of him when they were successful, referred to him as a model, found an incentive in his memory,—­that was all.  Their grief over his loss was virile and invigorating.

* * * * *

After watching his friend’s body through the night, the hero of d’Annunzio goes to the aerodrome where the next trials for altitude are to take place.  He cannot think of robbing the dead man of his victory.  As he rises into the upper regions of the air he feels a soothing influence and an increase of power:  the dead man himself pilots his machine, wields the controls, and helps him higher, ever higher up in divine intoxication.