Chapter 7: Men of the Desert Summary and Analysis

The seventh chapter begins with an admission that men might be tempted to believe they are wasting their lives in the mineral world of the desert while the living, breathing world outside it is growing more beautiful and then passing its prime. He contends, however, that he and his fellow pilots looked on the desert as the place in which they lived the best years of their lives. He determines to tell the stories of a few of the desert places closest to his heart.

The first of five sections opens with Antoine's recounting of his first day in the Sahara Desert. He was piloting a plane carrying the mail that lost a connecting rod. Guillaumet was piloting the convoy plane, but to board a plane together would make it too heavy to...