He had feared to be met with some parental objection on account of the uncertain health which had so often thwarted him, and had postponed his preparation for the Ecole Polytechnique.  Now he felt reassured.  Next day he was at Bayonne, getting through all the necessary formalities.  He was medically examined—­and postponed.  The doctors found him too tall, too thin—­no physiological defect, but a child’s body in need of being developed and strengthened.  In vain he supplicated them; they were pitiless.  He returned home grieved, humiliated, and furious.  The Villa Delphine was to know some very uncomfortable days.  His family understood his determination and began to have fears for him.  And he returned to the charge, and attacked his father with insistence, as if his father were all-powerful and could, if he would, compel them to accept his son’s services for la Patrie.

“If you would help me, I should not be put off.”

“But how?”

“A former officer has connections in the army.  You could speak for me.”

“Very well, I will.”

M. Guynemer, in his turn, went to Bayonne.  From that date, indeed from the first day of war, he had promised himself never to set obstacles in the way of his son’s military service, but to favor it upon all occasions.  He kept his word, as we shall see later, at whatever cost to himself.  The recruiting major listened to his request.  It was the hour of quick enthusiasms, and he had already sustained many assaults and resisted many importunities.

“Monsieur,” he now said, “you may well believe that I accept all who can serve.  I speak to you as a former officer:  does your conscience assure you that your son is fit to carry a knapsack and be a foot-soldier?”

“I could not say that he is.”

“Would he make a cavalryman?”

“He can’t ride on account of his former enteritis.”

“Then you see how it is; it’s proper to postpone him.  Build him up, and later on he’ll be taken.  The war is not finished.”

As Georges had been present at this interview, he now saw himself refused a second time.  He returned with his father to Biarritz, pale, silent, unhappy, and altogether in such a state of anger and bitterness that his face was altered.  Nothing consoled him, nothing amused him.  On those magnificent August days the sea was a waste of sunshine, and the beach was an invitation to enjoy the soft summer hours; but he did not go to the beach, and he scorned the sea.  His anxious parents wondered if, for the sake of his health, it would not be easier to see him depart.  As for them, it was their fate to suffer in every way.

Ever since the mobilization, Georges Guynemer had had only one thought:  to serve—­to serve, no matter where, no matter how, no matter in what branch of the service, but to leave, to go to the front, and not stay there at Biarritz like those foreigners who had not left, or like those useless old men and children who were now all that remained of the male population.