It is certain that Georges Guynemer was a mechanician and a gunsmith.  He knew his machine and his machine-gun, and how to make them do their utmost.  But there were others who knew the same.  Dorme and Heurtaux were perhaps more skillful in maneuvering than he. (It was interesting to watch Guynemer when he was preparing to mount his Nieuport.  First the bird was brought out of the shed; then he minutely examined and fingered it.  This tall thin young man, with his amber-colored skin, his long oval face and thin nose, his mouth with its corners falling slightly, a very slight moustache, and crow-black hair tossed backward, would have resembled a Moorish chief had he been more impassive.  But his features constantly showed his changing thoughts, and this play of expression gave grace and freshness to his face.  Sometimes it seemed strained and hardened, and a vertical wrinkle appeared on his forehead above the nose.  His eyes—­the unforgettable eyes of Guynemer—­round like agates, black and burning with a brilliance impossible to endure, for which there is only one expression sufficiently strong, that of Saint-Simon concerning some personage of the court of Louis XIV:  “The glances of his eyes were like blows”—­pierced the sky like arrows, when his practiced ear had heard the harsh hum of an enemy motor.  In advance he condemned the audacious adversary to death, seeming from a distance to draw him into the abyss, like a sorcerer.)

After examining his machine he put on his fur-lined combinaison over his black coat, and his head-covering, the passe-montagne, fitting tightly over his hair, and framing the oval of his face, and over this his leather helmet.  Plutarch spoke of the terrible expression of Alexander when he went to battle.  Guynemer’s face, when he rose for a flight, was appalling.

What did he do in the air?  His flight journals and statements tell the story.  On each page, a hundred times in succession, and several times on a page, his flight notebooks contain the short sentences which seem to bound from the paper, like a dog showing its teeth:  “I attack ...  I attack ...  I attack....”  At long intervals, as if ashamed, appears the phrase:  “I am attacked.”  On the Somme more than twenty victories were credited to him, and to these should be added, as in the case of Dorme, others taking place at too great distances to receive confirmation.  In the first month of the Somme battle, on September 13, 1916, the Storks Escadrille, Captain Brocard, was mentioned before the army:  “Has shown unequaled energy and devotion to duty in the operations of Verdun and the Somme, waging, from March 19 to August 19, 1916, 338 combats, bringing down 36 airplanes, 3 drachen, and compelling 36 other badly damaged airplanes to land.”  Captain Brocard dedicated this mention to Lieutenant Guynemer, writing under it:  “To Lieutenant Guynemer, my oldest pilot, and most brilliant Stork.  Souvenir of gratitude and warmest friendship.”  And all the pilots of the escadrille, in turn, came to sign it.  His comrades had often seen what he did in the air.