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He was to take part in the contemplated offensive, on his own magic airplane which he brought from Fismes on the 23d for the Storks Escadrille had been incorporated into a fighting unit under Major Brocard. No disease could be an obstacle to a Guynemer when an offensive was in preparation. As early as June 24 Guynemer had soared again.
He searched the air like Nisus the forest in his quest of Euryalus, and his mind began to misgive him. After two hours he was still waiting, alone, noticing with dismay that his oil was running low. One more circle! How slack the engine sounded to him! One more circle! Now it was impossible to wait any more: he must go back alone. On landing, his first word was to ask about Guynemer.
For he rarely came home without bullet-holes in his wings or even in his clothes. The Boche, being the Boche, had shown his usual respect for truth and generosity towards an adversary. Guynemer, when returning to camp after a victory, generally announced his success by making his engine work to some tune. This time the cadence was the tune of the Lampions.
The one-seated Nieuport, rapid, easily managed, with high ascensional speed, and capable, by its solid construction and air-piercing power, of diving from a height upon an enemy and falling upon him like a bird of prey, was then the chasing airplane par excellence, and remained so until the appearance of the terrible Spad, which made its début in the course of the Somme campaign, Guynemer and Corporal Sauvage piloting the first two of these machines in early September, 1916.
Almost the entire French army filed through this extraordinary epic battle, and Guynemer, wounded and weeping with rage, was not there.
In the absence of Heurtaux, Guynemer was in command, and once more the necessity of setting a good example forced itself upon him. Several flyers had started on scouting work already; the fog was quickly lifting, the day would soon be resplendent, and the notion of duty too quickly dazzled him, like the sun.
"The opening weeks of the automobile and aviation exhibition were a period of comparative tranquillity for his masters, as Guynemer was no longer the same restless, nervous, mischievous boy, being too anxious to retain his privileges for the promenades. He was always one of those who haunted the prefect when the hour for departure drew near.
It will be the same with Guynemer, whose remains will never be found, as if the earth had refused to engulf them; they will never be brought back, amidst the acclamations of the people, to the mount once dedicated to Saint Genevieve. But his legendary life was fitly crowned by the mystery of such a death.
Guynemer, for a shining instance, is the idol of every schoolchild in France, not for his daring alone, nor for the number of boche birds of prey he brought down; but because wealth and influence were unavailing to get him an opportunity beyond what the poorest, humblest youngster might have got in the same indomitable way; and because frail health and puny strength could not debar him from the sublimest exploits of daring for France.
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? Nobody knows: nothing is known.
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