But he was asleep.

Later, referring to this meeting in which he offered himself to the enemy’s fire, he said gravely: 

“That was the decisive moment of my life.  If I had not set things right then and there, I was done for....”

When he reappeared at his escadrille’s head-quarters on May 18, quite cheerful but with a set face and flaming eyes, no one dared discuss his cure with him.

The Storks returned for a few days to the Oise region, and once more the contented pilot of a Nieuport flew over the country from Peronne to Roye.  He had not lost the least particle of his determination; quite the reverse.  One day (May 22) he searched the air desperately for three hours, and though he finally discovered a two-seated enemy machine over Noyon, he was obliged to give over the combat for lack of gasoline in his motor.

Meanwhile they were preparing the Somme battle; the escadrilles familiarized themselves with their ground, and new machines were tried.  The enemy, who suspected our preparations, sent out long-distance scouting airplanes.  Near Amiens, above Villers-Bretonneux, Guynemer, making his rounds with Sergeant Chainat, attacked one of these groups on June 22, isolated one of the airplanes and, maneuvering with his comrade, set it afire.  That was, I believe, his ninth.  This combat took place at a height of 4200 meters.  The advantage went more and more to the pilot who mounted highest.

After July 1 there was a combat almost every day.  Would Guynemer be put out of action from the beginning, as at Verdun?  Returning on the 6th, after having put to flight an L.V.G., he surprised another Boche airplane which was diving down on one of our artillery-regulating machines.  He immediately drew the enemy’s attention to himself; but the enemy (Guynemer pays him this homage in his flight notebook) was keen and supple.  His well-aimed shots passed through the propeller of the Nieuport and cut two cables in the right cell.  Guynemer was obliged to land.  He was forced down eight times during his flying career, once under fantastic conditions.  He passed through every form of danger without ever losing the self-possession, the quickness of eye, and rapidity of decision which his passion for conquest had developed.

What battles he fought in the air!  On July 9 his journal notes a combat of five against five; on the 10th a combat of three against seven, in which Guynemer disengaged Deullin, who was followed by an Aviatik at a distance of a hundred meters.  On the 11th, at 10 o’clock, he attacked an L.V.G. and cut its cable; the enemy dived but appeared to be in control of the machine.  A few moments later he and Deullin attacked an Aviatik and an L.V.G., Guynemer damaging the Aviatik, and Deullin forcing down the L.V.G.; and before returning to their base, the two comrades attacked a group of seven machines and dispersed them.  On the 16th Guynemer forced down, with Heurtaux, an L.V.G., which fell with its