Georges Guynemer: Knight of the Air Part 16

After watching his friend's body through the night, the hero of d'Annunzio goes to the aerodrome where the next trials for alt.i.tude are to take place. He cannot think of robbing the dead man of his victory.

As he rises into the upper regions of the air he feels a soothing influence and an increase of power: the dead man himself pilots his machine, wields the controls, and helps him higher, ever higher up in divine intoxication.

In the same way the warlike power of Guynemer's companions is not diminished. Guynemer is still with them, accompanying each one, and instilling into them the pa.s.sionate longing to do more and more for France.

V. THE LEGEND

In seaside graveyards, the stone crosses above the empty tombs say only, after the name, "Lost at sea." I remember also seeing in the churchyards of the Vale of Chamonix similar inscriptions: "Lost on Mont-Blanc." As the mountains and the sea sometimes refuse to give up their victims, so the air seems to have kept Guynemer.

"He was neither seen nor heard as he fell," M. Henri Lavedan wrote at the beginning of October; his body and his machine were never found.

Where has he gone? By what wings did he manage thus to glide into immortality? n.o.body knows: nothing is known. He ascended and never came back, that is all. Perhaps our descendants will say: "He flew so high that he could not come down again."[29]

[Footnote 29: _L'Ill.u.s.tration_, October 6, 1917.]

I remember a strange line read in some Miscellany in my youth and never forgotten, though the rest of the poem has vanished from memory:

Un jet d'eau qui montait n'est pas redescendu.

Does this not embody the upspringing force of Guynemer's brilliant youth?

Throughout France some sort of miracle was expected: Guynemer must reappear--if a prisoner he must escape, if dead he must come to life.

His father said he would go on believing even to the extreme limits of improbability. The journalist who signs his letters from the front to _Le Temps_ with the pseudonym d'Entraygues recalled a pa.s.sage from Balzac in which some peasants at work on a haystack call to the postman on the road: "What's the news?" "Nothing, no news. Oh! I beg your pardon, people say that Napoleon has died at St. Helena." Work stops at once, and the peasants look at one another in silence. But one fellow standing on the rick says: "Napoleon dead! psha! it's plain those people don't know him!" The journalist added that he heard a speech of the same kind in the bush-region of Aveyron. A pa.s.senger on the motor-bus read in a newspaper the news of Guynemer's death; everybody seemed dismayed. The chauffeur alone smiled skeptically as he examined the spark plugs of his engine. When he had done, he pulled down the hood, put away his spectacles, carefully wiped his dirty hands on a cloth still dirtier, and planting himself in front of the pa.s.senger said: "Very well. I tell you that the man who is to down Guynemer is still an apprentice. Do you understand?..."

The credulity of the poor people of France with regard to their hero was most touching. When the death of Guynemer had to be admitted, there was deep mourning, from Paris to the remote villages where news travels slowly, but is long pondered upon. Guynemer had been brought down from a height of 700 meters, northeast of Poelkapelle cemetery, in the Ypres sector. A German noncommissioned officer and two soldiers had immediately gone to where the machine was lying. One of the wings of the machine was broken; the airman had been shot through the head, and his leg and shoulder had been broken in the fall; but his face was untouched, and he had been identified at once by the photograph on his pilot's diploma. A military funeral had been given to him.

Nevertheless, it seemed as if Guynemer's fate still remained somewhat obscure. The German War Office published a list of French machines fallen in the German lines, with the official indications by which they had been recognized. Now, the number of the _Vieux-Charles_ did not appear on any of these lists, although having only one wing broken the number ought to have been plainly visible. Who were the noncommissioned officer and the two soldiers? Finally, on October 4, 1917, the British took Poelkapelle, but the enemy counter-attacked, and there was furious fighting. On the 9th the village was completely occupied by the British, and they searched for Guynemer's grave. No trace of it could be found in either the military or the village graveyard.

In fact, the Germans had to acknowledge in an official doc.u.ment that both the body and the airplane of Guynemer had disappeared. On November 8, 1917, the German Foreign Office replied as follows to a question asked by the Spanish Amba.s.sador:

Captain Guynemer fell in the course of an air fight on September 11 at ten A.M. close to the honor graveyard No. 2 south of Poelkapelle. A surgeon found that he had been shot through the head, and that the forefinger of his left hand had been shot off by a bullet. The body could neither be buried nor removed, as the place had been since the previous day under constant and heavy fire, and during the following days it was impossible to approach it. The sector authorities communicate that the sh.e.l.ling had plowed up the entire district, and that no trace could be found on September 12 of either the body or the machine. Fresh inquiries, which were made in order to answer the question of the Spanish Emba.s.sy, were also fruitless, as the place where Captain Guynemer fell is now in the possession of the British.

The German airmen express their regret at having been unable to render the last honors to a valiant enemy.

It should be added that investigation in this case was only made with the greatest difficulty, as the enemy was constantly attacking, fresh troops were frequently brought in or relieved, and eye witnesses had either been killed or wounded, or transferred.

Our troops being continually engaged have not been in a position to give the aforesaid information sooner.

So there had been no military funeral, and Guynemer had accepted nothing from his enemies, not even a wooden cross. The battle he had so often fought in the air had continued around his body; the Allied guns had kept the Germans away from it. So n.o.body can say where lies what was left of Guynemer: and no hand had touched him. Dead though he was, he escaped. He who was life and movement itself, could not accept the immobility of the tomb.

German applause, like that with which the Greeks welcomed the dead body of Hector, did not fail to welcome Guynemer's end. At the end of three weeks a coa.r.s.e and discourteous paean was sung in the _Woche_. In its issue of October 6, this paper devoted to Guynemer, under the t.i.tle "Most Successful French Aviator Killed," an article whose lying cowardice is enough to disgrace a newspaper, and which ought to be preserved to shame it. A reproduction of Guynemer's diploma was given with the article, which ran as follows:

Captain Guynemer enjoyed high reputation in the French army, as he professed having brought down more than fifty airplanes, but many of these were proved to have got back to their camps, though damaged it is true. The French, in order to make all verification on our side impossible, have given up stating, in the past few months, the place or date of their so-called victories. Certain French aviators, taken prisoner by our troops, have described his method thus: sometimes, when in command of his squadron, he left it to his men to attack, and when he had ascertained which of his opponents was the weakest, he attacked that one in turn. Sometimes he would fly alone at very great alt.i.tudes, for hours, above his own lines, and when he saw one of our machines separated from the others would pounce upon it unawares. If his first onset failed, he would desist at once, not liking fights of long duration, in the course of which real gallantry must be displayed.[30]

[Footnote 30: Der Erfolgreichste Franzosische Kampfflieger Gefallen.

Kapitan Guynemer genoss grossen Ruhm im franzosischen Heere, da er 50 Flugzeuge abgeschossen haben wollte. Von diesen ist jedoch nachgewiesenerma.s.sen eine grosse Zahl, wenn auch beschadigt, in ihre Flughafen zuruckgekert. Um deutscherseits eine Nachprufung unmoglich zu machen, wurden in den letzten Monaten Ort und Datum seiner angeblichen Luftsiege nicht mehr angegeben. Ueber seine Kampfmethode haben gefangene franzosische Flieger berichtet: Entweder liess er, als Geschwaderfuhrer fliegend, seine Kameraden zuerst angreifen un sturzle sich dann erst auf den schwachsten Gegner; oder er flog stundenlang in grossten Hohe, allein hinter der franzosischen Front und sturzte sich von oben herab uberraschend auf einzeln fliegende deutsche Beobachtungsflugzeuge. Hatte Guynemer beim ersten Verstoss keinen Erfolg, so brach er das Gefecht sofort ab; auf den langer dauernden, wahrhaft muterprobenden Kurvenkampf liess er sich nicht gern ein.--Extract from the _Woche_ of October 6, 1917.]

This is the filth the German paper was not ashamed to print. Repulsive though it is, I must a.n.a.lyze some of its details. An enemy's abuse reveals his own character. So this German denied the fifty-three victories of Guynemer, all controlled, and with such severity that in his case, as in that of Dorme, he was not credited with fully a third of his distant triumphs, too far away to be officially recognized; so this German also vilified Guynemer's fighting methods, Guynemer the foolhardy, the wildly, madly foolhardy, whose machines and clothes were everlastingly riddled with bullets, who fought at such close quarters that he was constantly in danger of collisions--this Guynemer the German journalist makes out to be a prudent and timid airman, shirking fight and making use of his comrades. What sort of story had the German who brought him down told? Was it not obvious that if Guynemer had engaged him at 4000 meters, and had been killed at 700, that he must have prolonged the struggle, and prolonged it above the enemy's lines?

Finally, the German journalist had the unutterable meanness and infamy to saddle on imprisoned French aviators this slander of their comrade, insinuated rather than boldly expressed. After all, this doc.u.ment is invaluable, and ought to be framed and preserved. How Guynemer would have laughed over it, and how youthfully ringing and honest the laugh would have sounded! Villiers de l'Isle Adam, remembering the Hegelian philosophy, once wrote: "The man who insults you only insults the idea he has formed of you, that is to say, himself."

As a whole army (the Sixth) marched on May 25 towards that hill of the Aisne valley where Guynemer had brought down four German machines, and acclaimed his triumph, so the whole French nation would take part in mourning him.

At the funeral service held at Saint Antony's Compiegne, the Bishop of Beauvais, Monseigneur Le Senne, spoke, taking for his text the Psalm in which David laments the death of Saul and his sons slain _on the summits_, and says that this calamity must be kept secret lest the Philistines and their daughters should rejoice over it. This service was attended by General Debeney, staff major-general, representing the generalissimo, and by all the surviving members of the Storks Escadrille, with their former chief, Major Brocard. His successor, Captain Heurtaux, whose unexpected appearance startled the congregation--he seemed so pale and thin on his crutches--had left the hospital for this ceremony, and looked so ill that people were surprised that he had the strength to stand.

A few hours before the service took place, Major Garibaldi, sent by General Anthoine, commander of the army to which Guynemer belonged, had brought to the Guynemer family the twenty-sixth citation of their hero, the famous doc.u.ment which all French schoolboys have since learned by heart and which was as follows:

Fallen on the field of honor on September 11, 1917. A legendary hero, fallen from the very zenith of victory after three years'

hard and continuous fighting. He will be considered the most perfect embodiment of the national qualities for his indomitable energy and perseverance and his exalted gallantry. Full of invincible belief in victory, he has bequeathed to the French soldier an imperishable memory which must add to his self-sacrificing spirit and will surely give rise to the n.o.blest emulation.

On the motion of M. Lasies, in a session which reminded us of the great days of August, 1914, the Chamber decided on October 19 that the name of Captain Guynemer should be graven on the walls of the Pantheon. Two letters, to follow below, were read by M. Lasies, to whom they had been written. One came from Lieutenant Raymond, temporary commandant of the Storks, and was as follows:

Having the honor to command Escadrille 3 in the absence of Captain Heurtaux, still wounded in hospital, I am anxious to thank you, in the name of the few surviving Storks, for what you are doing for the memory of Guynemer.

He was our friend as well as our chief and teacher, our pride and our flag, and his loss will be felt more than any that has thinned our ranks so far.

Please be sure that our courage has not been laid low with him; our revenge will be merciless and victorious.

May Guynemer's n.o.ble soul remember us fighting our aerial battles, that we may keep alight the flame he bequeathed to us.

Raymond Commanding Escadrille 3.

The other letter came from Major Brocard:

My dear Comrade:

I am profoundly moved to hear of the thought you have had of giving the highest consecration to Guynemer's memory by a ceremony at the Pantheon.

It had occurred to all of us that only the lofty dome of the Pantheon was large enough for such wings.

The poor boy fell in the fullness of triumph, with his face towards the enemy. A few days before he had sworn to me that the Germans should never take him alive. His heroic death is not more glorious than that of the gunner defending his gun, the infantryman rushing out of his trench, or even that of the poor soldier perishing in the bogs. But Guynemer was known to all. There were few who had not seen him in the sky, whether blue or cloudy, bearing on his frail linen wings some of their own faith, their own dreams, and all that their souls could hold of trust and hope.

It was for them all, whether infantrymen or gunners or pioneers, that he fought with the bitter hatred he felt for the invader, with his youthful daring and the joys of his triumphs. He knew that the battle would end fatally for him, no doubt, but knowing also that his war-bird was the instrument of saving thousands of lives, and seeing that his example called forth the n.o.blest imitation, he remained true to his idea of self-sacrifice which he had formed a long time before, and which he saw develop with perfect calm.

Full of modesty as a soldier, but fully conscious of the greatness of his duties, he possessed the national qualities of endurance, perseverance, indifference to danger, and to these he added a most generous heart.

During his short life he had not time enough to learn bitterness, or suffering, or disillusionment.

He pa.s.sed straight from the school where he was learning the history of France to where he himself could add another page to it.

He went to the war driven by a mysterious power which I respect as death or genius ought to be respected.

He was a powerful thought living in a body so delicate that I, who lived so close beside him, knew it would some day be slain by the thought.

The poor boy! Other boys from every French school wrote to him every day. He was their legendary ideal, and they felt all his emotions, sharing his joys as well as his dangers. To them he was the living copy of the heroes whose exploits they read in their books. His name is constantly on their lips, for they love him as they have been taught to love the purest glories of France.

_Monsieur le depute_, gain admittance for him to the Pantheon, where he has already been placed by the mothers and children of France. There his protecting wings will not be out of place, for under that dome where sleep those who gave us our France, they will be the symbol of those who have defended her for us.

Major Brocard.