I jumped to the ground with my bundle of civilian clothes under my arm, and without waiting a moment I bent to kiss the ground for which I had suffered so much. My comrade also descended without uttering a word. We looked anxiously about but the searchlights continued to glow in their regular fashion as though no alarm had been given. Above us we heard the deep grinding noise of a “Gotha.” Not a moment to be lost. I went towards the tail and Bottecchia stood by the wing. The propeller revolved slowly and with a light, cadenced rustling moved the high grass and bent with its breeze the branches of the trees and the stalks of the flowers near it. I pushed all my weight against the triangular trellis of the tail of the “Voisin” and by making the front wheels of the plane rise, I caused it to circle on its hind wheels while Bottecchia helped me by pushing on the side of the wing. Quickly we removed our fur coats and helmets and I jumped on the plane to throw them in the bottom of the car. Gelmetti was moved and I could not say a word. I whispered in his ear, “Remember what you have promised; remember to come back for me after a month.” He nodded affirmatively and kissed me. I barely had time to place my feet back on the ground before he had fed the motor with gas and in the twinkling of an eye had disappeared. The dear old “Voisin” had again taken flight and we could only distinguish it by the rumbling of the silencer which was red-hot and resembled a red lamp wandering in the sky. For a few seconds we could still follow its glitter and then it disappeared.... * * * * * We were alone! The moment which I had thought about so often, which I had so often dreaded, was come! The aeroplane, the last advanced sentinel of our country, the last safe refuge, had left us, but I did not tremble. There was within me all that calm which comes to us in most trying moments, all the faith I had ever felt in the success of my mission. Above us the tranquil stars twinkled and the vast plain beneath trembled as though an invisible hand were moving the flowers and stars which surrounded us. In the background the still profiles of the mountains lent to the picture a meek aspect of peace and we, who had passed from sudden motion to calm, from a great struggle to the silence of nature, found again in the wilderness of that broad plain the significance of deep things, the intimate feeling of life. Never as in that moment had I ever experienced the sensation that something within me had been cut short, that a new life was commencing for me; I felt like a sailor who, wrested from the current, has with difficulty reached the bank of a turbulent stream and looks anxiously towards the other bank to which he no longer has the strength or the courage to return. So I felt that the past was worth nothing and that I lived only for the strength of the present, that I lived only for the strength of the future.