Friendship demands equality between souls.  If one has to protect the other, if one is manifestly superior, it is no longer friendship.  In the Storks Escadrille friendship reigned in peace in the midst of war, so surely did each take his turn in surpassing the others.  Which one was, finally, to be the greatest, not because of the number of his mentions, nor his renown or public fame, but according to the testimony of his comrades—­the surest and most clearsighted of testimony—­for no one can deceive his peers?  Would it be the cold and calm Dorme, who went to battle as a fisher goes to his nets, who never spoke of his exploits, and whose heart, under this modest, gentle, kind exterior, was filled with hatred for the invader who occupied his own countryside, Briey, and for six months had held in custody and ill-treated his parents?  In the Somme battle alone his official victories numbered seventeen, but the enemy could recount many others, doubtless, for this silent, well-balanced young man possessed quite improbable audacity.  He would fly more than fifteen or twenty kilometers above the German lines, perfectly tranquil under the showers of shells which rose from the earth.  At such a distance within their lines the Boche airplanes thought themselves safe when, suddenly, du Sud ou du Septentrion, appeared this knightly hero.  And he would return smilingly, as fresh as when he had started out.  It was only with difficulty that a very brief statement could then be extracted from him.  His machine would be inspected, and not a trace of any fragment found; he might have been a tourist returning from a promenade.  In more than a hundred combats his airplane received only three very small wounds.  His cleverness in handling his machine was incredible:  his close veering, his twistings and turnings, made it impossible for the adversary to shoot.  He also knew how to quit the combat in time, if his own maneuvers had not succeeded.  He seemed invulnerable.  But later, much later, while he was fighting on the Aisne in May, 1917, Dorme, who had penetrated far within the enemy’s lines, never came back.

[Illustration:  IN THE AIR]

Was Heurtaux the greatest, whose method was as delicate as himself—­a virtuoso of the air, clever, supple and quickwitted, whose hand and eye equaled his thought in rapidity?  Was it Deullin, skilled in approach, and prompt as the tempest?  Or the long-enduring, robust, admirable sous-lieutenant Nungessor, or Sergeant Sauvage, or Adjutant Tarascon?  Was it Captain Menard, or Sangloer, or de la Tour?  But the reader knows very well that it was Guynemer.  Why was it Guynemer, according to the testimony of all his rivals?  History and the epic have coupled many names of friends, like Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Nisus and Euryalus, Roland and Oliver.  In these friendships, one is always surpassed by the other, but not in intelligence, nor courage nor nobility of character.  For generosity, or wisdom of council, one might even prefer a Patroclus to an Achilles, an Oliver to a Roland.  In what, then, lies the superiority?  That is the secret of temperament, the secret of genius, the interior flame which burns the brightest, and whose appearances cause astonishment and almost terror, as if some mystery were divulged.