A STRANGE DUEL IN THE CLOUDS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 93, 12 January 1918, Page 3

A STRANGE DUEL IN THE CLOUDS

WIPING OUT AN INSULT

"IT WAS HE!"

No one was surprised when Rouzier Dorcieres, "director" of 267 duels, and the principal in moro than twenty affairs on tho "field oi honour, volunteered to serve I ( ranee in tho Aim} he had passed the ago limit for conscription —but only his close li lenus knew that this modern Cyrano do Bergerac chose the aviation branch that he might meet his last adversary in tho air. Ho found his man, fought his duel, brought down his opponent, and received his own death wound. A Paris correspondent of the Los Angeles "Tribune" tells tho story: On the night of August 191.4, Dorcieres and a few of his old cronies -old because all of tho younger men who had consorted with him were mustered into the Army—gathered at their table in their favourite cafe. •'My friends," said Dorcieres, as calmly as though he had been announcing that he was going to Deauville for a holiday at the seaside, "I bid you farewell. To-niglit lam going to volunteer as' a soldier of l 1 ranee. ■'You may wonder why, at tije age of thirty-nine, I voluntarily enlist in the Army, and why I choose to enter the aviation service, distinctly the place for a youth. Listen, then. You nave always believed that I have never suffered an affront in my life that was not avenged. But there was one tune when I was insulted —grossly and the ■•nan who did it escaped me. Do you remember the winter, five y° ars °g°> that I passed in Switzerland, It was there, when I was stopping ill Zurich, that the thing occurred. It was after dinner, when the man sitting next to mo nudged my shoulder. " 'So you are Rouzicr Dorcieres, he said. '1 recognise you. And they say Toil have never been touched in a duel.

Well, I am sorry I have never tad the good fortune to meet you in one.' Then he laughed a sneering laugh. "My blood boiled. 'But you will have the chance to meet me to-morrow morning,' I replied, glaring at him for his insolence. And then as I surveyed his countenance I saw the answer for his piggishness, He was a Prussian. " 'Mo,' ho answered me, 'I will not be able to avail myself of tlie pleasure of measuring swords with you, as I leave for Germany 011 the midnight train.- 1 am attached to the Imperial Aviation Corps and must report at Johannisthal to-morrow. 1 "1 looked at my watch. It was but a, few minutes after eight 0 clock. 'Then I will teach you vour lesson tonight,' I told him. ■' 'Monsieur, 1 he said, I shall meet you Here before ten o'clock with my seconds and the swords. We will settle this affair beforo I dopart. "I bowed with pleasure as lie stalked from the restaurant. And tnon whom did I see sittine near me but our old friend, the Comt-o de 11 , »s fine a second as any man ever had. In fow words I had recounted the incident and called on him to act in my behalf. I waited in that restaurant with the Comte nntil elevon o'clock. The Prussian officer did not appear. Two years afterward I read in a dispatch from Berlin of bis being brevetted as an aviator in tho Kaiser's service, and recently I read of how iio was working in tho air service of tho German Army.

"That is wliy I enter the aviation acrvico of Franco. Because I still liopo to meet him and make liim repay bis debt of honour to mo'".

Dorcieres went to tho front to seek in tho air the only man who had ever insulted Mm and failtvl to pay tho pricc. His pilot, the aviator who operated the-aeroplane in which he fought his last duel, told thp rest of the story to Dorcioros's friends long after the official bulletins had announced his death: — "Ho told me to find you, messieurs, and to toll you just what ho told mo aa ho lay dying—dying from eleven ma-chine-gun bullets which riddled iiis torso in that last combat which nearly me, also, my life. "Rouzicr Dorcieres was the strangest naehine-gunner I ever had with mo. julike othor gunners, he always caried binoculars, and when we sighted ind approached a Boche aeroplane lie .pent his preliminary time in peering ntently at the occupants of tho enemy nachine instead of preparing and testng his mitrailleuse anxiously as most 'miners do. "As we circled near the German ma:hine in his last flight Dorcieres P^ ss " id me a scrap of paper. On it ho had icrawled a request that I swoop past he German as near as I could. Initantly I divined his reason—and his •cason for always carrying and usnig lis high-power glasses. He thought ho ■ecognised one of the occupants of rlio other aeroplane. "I swerved and doubled and shot last the Fokkor's tail. Dorcieres's »yes had been riveted to the glasses, >ut be dropped them now, heedlessly, uid they smashed in tho bottom of tho : uselage. . "Dorcioros's right hand was on the nitrailleuse trigger aiid his left was ceding tho cartridge-bolt cleanly into he loading-chamber as we rounded and lashed by, abreast, but a little higher, than tho enemy. "Taca-tac-ponf-ponf-taca-tac-pour-pour —and he drove thirty rounds at tho fokker. And then as I swerved tho Boche timed upward and let fly at us. Ho had icen travelling faster than I thought, accause my mind had been distracted jy approaching too near him at Dor:iere's request, and lie reached us ivith every shot from his machine51m. Our fuselage cracked and splintered as the leaden hail perforated tho wir and the choking gasps that _ I heard behind me were the positive indications that' my gunner had been hit. .1, too, turned upward, as my motor was undamaged, and climbcu with tho German. Then we both planed and approached each other. I heard my mitrailleuse begin to spit; at the exact fraction of a second that I (vo came ■ within range, and the enemy ;un never once barked a reply. Dorsiorces's first shot must have killed the enemy gunner. And his torrent of bullets ripped off the tail ot tho Fokker and it dived into our lines like a stone, nose down. "I landed within fifty yards of too broken Boscho car and its occupants. Two stretchers wero waiting there ior ns, belt I was unhurt, miraculously. AVo put Dorcierces in one, tenderly as a baby, and then started ofL But ho had soon the wreck of the l'okkei there and ho begged that we stop be"Beside tho German machine were the pilot and tho gunnor, both dead. By a superhuman effort my dying gunner raised himself 011 his elbow. He gazed at tho face of tho enemy machine-gunner. , " 'It is ho,' was all lie said. And wo carried him to the field hospital. "That afternoon I went to seo him. Ho was pretty nearly gone. 'Jhat is when 110 explained, and that is when ho asked me to convey to you, messieurs, this message—that he nad avenged his honour."