“I essay a bluff. I mount to 2,000 feet over him and drop on to him like a stone. Made an impression on him but was beginning to believe it did not take when he suddenly began to descend. I put myself 10 yards behind him; but every time I showed my nose around the edge of his tail the gunner took aim at me. “We take the road towards Compiègne—3,000 feet—2,000 feet again I show my nose, and this time the gunner stands up, takes his hands from his machine gun and motions to me that he surrenders. _All Right!_ “I see underneath his machine the four bombs in their resting place. 1,500 feet. The Boche slows down his windmill. 600 feet. 300 feet. I swerve over him while he lands. I make a round or two at 300 feet and see that I am over an airdrome. But not having any gun or cartridges I cannot prevent them from setting fire to their taxi, a 200 H. P. Albatross, magnificent. “When I see they are surrounded I come down and show the two Boches my disabled machine gun. Some headpiece! “They had fired 200 shots at me. My ten bullets that I fired before I jammed had struck their altimeter and the revolution counter, hence their emotion! The pilot told me that my aeroplane I shot down day before yesterday at Goyancourt had gunner killed and pilot wounded in the knee. Hope this unique confirmation will be accepted by authorities. It will make my 30th.” THE FLIGHT INTO THE UNKNOWN But after he had brought down his fiftieth, for some unaccountable reason a change came over Guynemer. He became nervous and irritable. He lost his old vivacity, nerve, dash, and with them his instincts of the air seemed to desert him. Friends urged him to rest, to give over fighting and direct his genius to teaching others to fly. But he answered: “They would say I would fight no more because France has no more decorations to give me”; and he had a jealous pride to work harder than ever, do even more valiant deeds. And he did work harder. He did take greater risks. He engaged in combats but was unable to win. Luck had turned and his chums, his comrades, knew him to be a sick man in no condition to fly. They ’phoned to their commanding officer in Paris begging him to come and take Guynemer away for a recuperative rest. Captain Brocard responded promptly. He arrived at the Dunkerque aerodrome at nine o’clock the next morning. But Guynemer had ordered his machine and taken flight half an hour before, accompanied, in another machine, by Lieut. Bozon-Verduras.