tank, the cartridge chest, my glove ... where it stayed in the index finger:  result, about as if my finger had been slightly pinched in a door; not even skinned, only the top of the nail slightly blackened.  At the time I thought two fingers had been shot.  To continue the inventory:  one bullet in the reservoir, in the direction of my left lung, having passed through four millimeters of copper and had the good sense to stop, but one wonders why.

One bullet in the edge of the back of my seat, one in the rudder, and a dozen in the wings.  They knocked the “taxi” to pieces with a hatchet at two o’clock in the morning, under shell-fire.  On landing, received 86 shots of 105, 130 and 150, for nothing.  They will pay the bill.

     For a beginning, La Tour has his fourth mention.

     A hug for each of you.

     Georges.

     P.S.—­It could not be said now that I am not strong; I stop steel
     bullets with the end of my finger.

Is this a letter?  At first, it is a bulletin of victory:  two airplanes for five bullets, plus one passenger “couic.”  Then it becomes a recital of the golden legend—­the golden legend of aviation:  he stops the enemy’s bullets with his fingers; Roland would write in that style to the beautiful Aude:  “Met three Saracens, Durandal cleft two, the third tried to settle the affair with his bow, but the arrow broke on the cord.”  Young Paul Bailly was right:  “The exploits of Guynemer are not a legend, like those of Roland; in telling them just as they happened we find them more beautiful than any we could invent.”  That is why it is better to let Guynemer himself relate them.  He says only what is necessary, but the right accent is there, the rapidity and the “couic.”  The following letter is dated September 15, 1916.

     From the same to the same

     Some sport.

     On the 16th, in a group of six, four of them squeezed at 25 meters.

In four days, six combats at 25 meters:  filled a few Boches with holes, but they did not seem to tumble down, though some were hard hit all the same; then five boxing rounds up between 5100 and 5300 (altitude).  To-day five combats, four of them at less than 25 meters, and the fifth at 50 meters.  In the first, gun jammed at 50 meters.  In the second, at 5200, the Boche in his excitement lost his wings, and descended on his aerodrome in a wingless coach; his ears must be humming (16th).  The third was a nose-to-nose combat with a fighting Aviatik.  Too much impetus:  I failed to hammer him hollow.  In the fourth, same joke with an L.V.G. in a group of three:  I failed to hammer him, I lurched:  pan, a bullet near my head.  In the fifth, I cleaned up the passenger (that is the third this week), then knocked up the pilot very badly at 10 meters,—­completely disabled, he landed evidently with great difficulty, and he must be in hospital....