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No German patrol appeared above the French or British lines, which Guynemer and his companion lost sight of above the Maison Blanche, and they followed on to the German lines over the faint vestiges of Poelkapelle. Guynemer's keen, long-practiced eye then saw a two-seated enemy airplane flying alone lower down than himself, and a signal was made to attract Bozon-Verduraz' notice.
The notion of Guynemer falling to a German seemed hardly short of sacrilege. So Bozon-Verduraz waited on, making up his mind to wait as long as necessary. But an hour passed, and nobody appeared. Then the airman broadened his circles and searched farther out, without, however, swerving from the rallying-point.
The next day his notebook records two more victories: "Attacked with Adjutant Bozon-Verduraz, four Albatros one-seaters, above Brimont. Downed one in flames north of Villers-Franqueux, in our own lines. Attacked a D.F.W. which spun down in our lines at Moussy." These victories, his forty-sixth, forty-seventh, and forty-eighth, were his farewell to the Aisne.
All at once he was really resolved. Sous-lieutenant Bozon-Verduraz was requested to accompany him, and the mechanicians wheeled the machines out. One of his comrades asked with assumed negligence: "Aren't you going to wait till Major du Peuty and Major Brocard arrive?"
But Guynemer and Bozon-Verduraz had started at twenty-five minutes past eight. They had left the sea behind them, flying south-east. They had reached the lines, following them over Bixchoote and the Korteker Tavern which the French troops had taken on July 31, over the Bixchoote-Langemarck road, and finally over Langemarck itself, captured by the British on August 16.
Guynemer a prisoner!... He had said one day with a laugh, "The Boches will never get me alive," but his laugh was terrible. No, Guynemer could not have been taken prisoner. Where was he, then? On the squadron log, sous-lieutenant Bozon-Verduraz wrote that evening as follows: Tuesday, September 11, 1917. Patrolled. Captain Guynemer started at 8.25 with sous-lieutenant Bozon-Verduraz.
"Not back yet!" Bozon-Verduraz knew it. He knew that Guynemer had been taken away from him. The telephone and the wireless sent their appeals around, airplanes started on anxious cruises. Hour followed hour, and evening came, one of those late summer evenings during which the horizon wears the tints of flowers; the shadows deepened, and no news came of Guynemer.
He got out of his seat panting but radiant, quivering, as it were, like the bow-string when it has sent its shaft, and full of the sacred drunkenness of a young god. Ten days had passed since his disappearance. Nothing more was known than on that eleventh of September when Bozon-Verduraz came back alone. German prisoners belonging to aviation had not heard that he was reported missing.
Last of all descended from the high regions sous-lieutenant Bozon-Verduraz, a rather heavy man with a serious face, and more maturity than belonged to his years, an unassuming young man with a hatred for exaggeration and a deep respect for the truth. Once more he went through every detail of the fatal day for me, each particular anticipating the dread issue.
But he missed the German, who proceeded to tail spin, and was missed again by Bozon-Verduraz, who awaited him below. What ought Guynemer to do? Desist, no doubt. But, having been imprudent in his direct attack, he was imprudent again on his new tack, and his usual obstinacy, made worse by irritation, counseled him to a dangerous course.
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