FOUGHT HIS LAST DUEL.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 16 November 1917, Page 1

FOUGHT HIS LAST DUEL.

No one \va6 surprised when Rouzier Dorcieres, "director" of 267 duels, and the principal in more than 20 affairs on the g "field, of honor," volunteered to serve s France in the army. He had passed the v age limit for conscription; but only his v close friends knew that this modern I Cyrano de Bergerac chose the aviation v branch that ho might meet his last adver- ~t sary in the air. He found his man, fought t his duel, brought down his opponent, and p received his own death-wound. A Paris > correspondent of the. Los Angeles ! *Tri- o bune' tolls the story:— ii On the night of August 2, 1914, Dor- n cieres aad a few of his eld cronies—old li because all of the younger men who liad t consorted with him were mustered inio the £ a>my —gathered at 'their tablo in thoir li favorite cafe. r "My friends." s?id Dorciercs, as oahnly b as though lie had been announcing that t he was Agoing t-> Deauville for a holiday t at the seaside, "1 bid you farewell. To- I night I am going to volunteer as a soldier n of Fiance. You may wonder why, at lire t age of 39, I voluntarily enlist in the army. .•' and why I choose to enter the aviation service, "distinctly the place lor a youth, -h Listen, then. You have always believed o that I have never suffered an affront in s my life that was not avenged. But. thare a was one time when I was insulted grossly, n and the man who did it escaped me. Do a you remember the winter, five yeaa's ago, e that I passed in Switzerland? It was there, s when I was stopping in Zurich, that the a thing occurred. It was after dinner, when I the man sitting next- to Tnc nudged my s shoulder. "' So you are Rouzier Dorcieres,' lie t said. 'I lecogniso you. And they say o you have never been touched in a- duel, a Well, I am sorry I have never had the n good fortune to meet ono.' Then t lie laughed a sneering laugh. li "My blood boiled. ' But you will have t the chance to meet mo to-morrow morn- t ing, 1 I replied, glaring at him for Ids a insolence. And then, as I surveyed his o countenance,. I saw the answer for his e piggishness. He was a Piussian. f "'No,' he answeredNne. "I will itot be i able to avail myself of the pleasure of 1 measuring swords with you, as I leave i'or 1 Germany on the midnight-train. I am it- t tached to the Imperial Aviation Corps, an-1 < must Teport at Johannistual to-morrow.' v, " I looked at my watch. ' It was but a 1 few minutes after 8 o'clock. * Then I will teach you your lesson to:night. ! T told him 1 " 4 Monsieur,' he said, ' 1 shall meet you < here before i.O o'clock with my seconds i and the swords. We will settle this affair i before I depart." t "I bowed with pleasure as he stalked ■; fiom the restaurant. And then whom did "* I see sitting near me but our old friend f the .Comte De B- , as tine a second as i any man ever had. In a few Avoids I had recounted the incident, and wiled on hiit-. I in my behalf. I waited in that ( restaurant with the Gomte till 11 o'clock, t The Prussian officer did not appear. Two 1 years afterward I read in a despatch ' from Berlin of his being breveted as an i aviator in tho Kaiser's service, and recently 1 I read of how he was working in the air- i service of the German army. : "That is why I enter the aviation ser- ) vice of France. Because I still hope to ; meet him and make him repay his debt of i honor to me." - N < Dorcieres went to tho front to seek in j the ah the only man who had ever in- i suited bins and failed to pay the price, "tlis pilot, the aviator who operated the < aeroplane in which he fought his last duel, i told the rest of the story to Dorcieres's < friends loug after the official bulletins had i announced his death : 1 "He told me to find you, messieurs, and i to tell you just what he told me as he lay dying—dying from 11 machine giui bullets < wliich riddled his torso in that last combat . winch nearly cost me also my life. " Rouzier Dorcieres was the strangest imichiue-guniier 1 ever had with mo. Unlike other gunners, ho always carried binoculars, and when we sighted and approached a Boche aeroplane ho spent his preliminary time in peering intently" at the occupants of tho enemy machine instead of preparing and testing his mitrailleuse anxiously, as most gunners do. "As we circled near the German machine in his last flight Dorcieres passed me a scrap of paper. On it he had scrawled si request that I swoop past the German as near as I could. Instantly I divined his reason—and his reason for always carrying and using his high-power glasses. Ho thought he recognised one of the occupants of the other aeroplane. " I swerved and doubled and shot past the Fokker's tail. Doruieres's eyes had been riveted to the glasses, but he dropped them now, heedlessly, and they smashed in tho bottom of the fuselage. "Dorcieres's right hand was on the mitrailleuse-trigger and his left was feeding the cartridge-belt cleanly into the Joading-ehamber as we rounded and flashed by, abreast, but a little higher, than the enemy.

"Taea-tac-pouf-pouf-tacii-tac-pouf-pouf—-and he drove 30 rounds at the Fokker. And then as I swerved the Boche turned upward tnd let fly at us. He had been travelling faster than I thought, because my mind had been -distracted by approaching too near him at Docieres's request, and he reached us with every shot from' his machine gun. Our fuselage cracked and splintered as the leaden hail perforated the car, and the choking gasps that I heard behind me were the positive indications that my gunner had been hit. I. too, turned upwards, as my motor was undamaged, and climbed with the German. Then we both planed and approached each other. I heard my mitrailleuse begin to spit at the exact fraction of a second that we came within range, and the eneiny gun never once barked a reply. Dorcieres"s first shot must have killed the enemv gunner. And his torrent of bullets ripped off the tail ot" the- Fokker, and it dived into our lines like a stone, nose down. 'M landed within' 50yds, of the broken Boche car and its occupants. Two stretchers were waiting there for us, but I was unhurt, miraculously. We put Doreieres in one, tenderly as a baby, and then started off. But he had seen the wreck of the Fokker there, and lie begged that we stop beside it. '""Beside the German machine were the . pilot and the gnuner, both dead. Bv a superhuman effort my dying gunner raised -, himself on his elbow. He gazed at the . face of the enemy machine gunner, i •' •' It is he,' was all he said. And we . carried him to the field hospital. - " T,lafc afternoon I went to see him. t He was pretty nearly gone. That is when - he explained, and that is when he asked i me to convey to you, messieurs, this massage—that he had avenged his honor."'