His parents, or rather his father, consenting, he was on his way to Pau
next morning. He rushed to Captain Bernard-Thierry with his plea. The
Captain objected. Georges pleaded, passionately, tearfully, begging
even as a child for a desired object. The troubled captain made the
only practicable concession—he would receive the youth as a mechanician
student. The heavens opened. “That’s the thing! That’s the thing! I
know automobiles.” And so it began, with hard work to the like of which
he had never been accustomed, his endurance of which was problematical.
But January 26, 1915, he was named as pilot student; March 10, 1915, he
made his veritable first flight. In a letter to his father about this
time he said: “I believe I am not making a reputation for prudence, but
I hope this will come. I shall know soon.”
That reputation never came, on the contrary it was said of him:
“Returning almost daily from his chases with his aeroplane and often
his clothing riddled with bullets, hurling himself with absolute
abandon against three, ten, fifteen or twenty enemy machines in
formation, among which he usually succeeded in bringing down one or
more; exulting in the number of wounds which his faithful planes
brought home as if to bear witness to his charmed life, and encircling
them with red paint to make them more conspicuous; on two occasions
shooting down an enemy plane with a single bullet; on May 25, 1917,
bringing down four enemy aeroplanes in one day—these extraordinary
exploits coupled with the very extraordinary energy of this slim
boy soon placed him upon a pedestal which raised him high above his
comrades; and by reason of his many miraculous escapes from certain
death, eventually surrounded him with a halo of fame unknown to the
French populace since the day of Jeanne d’Arc.
[Illustration:
© _Underwood & Underwood._