Meanwhile his comrades had added to their laurels.  Auger was dead, it is true; but Captain Derode, Adjutant Fonck—­a perfect Aymerillot, the smallest and youngest of these knights-errant, Heurtaux, Deullin (both wounded, and the latter now risen to a captaincy), Lieutenant Gorgeus and Corporal Collins—­all had done well.  Besides them many, too many, bombarding aviators ought to be mentioned, but we must limit ourselves to those who are now laid low in Flemish graveyards:  Lieutenant Mulard, Sergeant Thabaud-Deshoulieres, sous-lieutenant Bailliotz, sous-lieutenant Pelletier, who saved his airplane if he could not save his own life, and was heard saying to himself before expiring:  “For France—­I am happy....”; finally Lieutenant Ravarra, and Sergeant Delaunay, who had specialized in night attacks and disappeared without ever being heard of again.

Guynemer had reported at the camp on August 15.  On the seventeenth, at 9.20 o’clock, he brought down a two-seated Albatros which fell in flames at Wladsloo, and five minutes later a D.F.W. which collapsed, also in flames, south of Dixmude.  This double execution avenged the death of Captain Auger and of another Stork, Sergeant Cornet, killed the day before.  On the eighteenth, Guynemer poured a broadside, at close quarters, into a two-seated machine above Staden; and on the twentieth, flying this time on his old Vieux-Charles, he destroyed a D.F.W. in a quick fight above Poperinghe.  This meant three undoubted victories in four days under circumstances which the number of enemy machines and the high altitude made more difficult than they had ever been.  The weather during this month of August was constantly stormy, and the Germans were taking every precaution to avoid surprise; but Guynemer was quick as lightning, took advantage of the shortest lulls, and baffled German prudence.

The British or Belgian airmen of the neighborhood called on him, and he liked to return their politeness.  He loved to talk about his methods, especially his shooting methods, for flying to him was only the means of shooting, and once he defined his airplane as a flying machine-gun.  Captain Galliot, a specialist in gunsmithery, who overheard this remark, also heard him say to the Minister of Aviation, M. Daniel Vincent, who was inspecting the camp at Buc:  “It is not by clever flying that you get rid of a Boche, but by hard and sharp shooting.”

It is not surprising, therefore, that he began his day’s work by overhauling his machine-gun, cartridges, and visor.  He did not mind trusting his mechanicians where his airplane and motor were concerned, but his weapon and ammunition were his own special care.  He regarded as an axiom the well-known maxim of big-game hunters, that “it is not enough to hit, but you must shoot down your enemy with lightning rapidity if you do not wish to perish with him...."[26]

[Footnote 26:  Guynemer tireur de combat (Guerre aerienne for October 18, 1917, special number consecrated to Guynemer).]