and a passion for attaining the same result, and as their officers were necessarily recruited from among themselves, and chosen for services rendered, an atmosphere of camaraderie and friendly rivalry was created.  A great novelist said that the origin of our friendships dates “from those hours at the beginning of life when we dream of the future in company with some comrade with the same ideals as our own, a chosen brother."[20] What difference does it make, then, if they depart in company for glory or for death?  These young men gave themselves with the same willingness to the same service, a service full of constant danger.  They were not gathered together by chance, but by their vocation and by selection, and they spoke the same language.  For them, friendship easily became rivalry in courage and energy, and a school of mutual esteem, in which each strove to outdo the other.  Friendship kept them alert, drove away inertia and weakness, and they became confident and generous, so that each rejoiced in the success of the others.  In the mountains, on the sea, in every place where men feel most acutely their own fragility, such friendship is not rare; but war brings it to perfection.

[Footnote 20:  Paul Bourget, Une Idylle tragique.]

The patrols of the Storks Escadrille, in the beginning of the Somme campaign, consisted of a single airplane, or airplanes in couples.  Guynemer, whom everybody called “the kid,” always took Heurtaux with him when he carried a passenger; for Heurtaux, as blond as Guynemer was brown, thin and slender, very delicate and young, seemed to give Guynemer the rights of an elder.  Heurtaux was the Oliver of this Roland.  In character and energy they were the same.  Dorme used to take Deullin with him, or de la Tour.  Or the choice was made alternately.  This was the quartet of whom the enemy had cause to beware, and woe to the Boche who met any one of them!  There was at that time at Bapaume a group of five one-seated German machines which never maneuvered singly.  If they perceived a pair of Nieuports, they immediately tacked about and fled in haste.  But if one of our chasers was cruising alone, the whole group attacked him.  Heurtaux, attacked in this way, had been compelled to dive and land, and on his return had to submit to the jests of Guynemer, for at that age friendship is roughish.  “Go there yourself,” advised Heurtaux, “and you will see.”  Next day Guynemer went alone, but in his turn was forced down.  After these two trials, which might have ended in disaster—­but knights must amuse themselves—­the five one-seated planes at Bapaume were methodically but promptly beaten down.