I had to fulfill a
mission that was a little difficult. It was at Mazingarbe,
between Bethune and Lens, and 9 o'clock in the evening. Two of
the enemy's armored auto-machine guns had just been discovered
approaching our lines. I was ordered to go and meet them with
a Pugeot of twenty-five or thirty horse power--I was
automobilist in the Thirtieth Dragoons.
"I left by the little road from Vermelles on which the two
hostile machines were reported to be approaching. After twenty
minutes I stopped, put out my lights, and waited. A quarter of
an hour of profound silence followed, and then I caught the
sound of the first mitrailleuse. With one spin of the wheel I
threw my machine across the middle of the road. That of the
enemy struck us squarely in the centre. The moment the shock
was past I rose from my seat with my revolver and killed the
chauffeur and the mechanician.
"But almost immediately the second machine gun arrived. The
two men on it comprehended what had happened. While one of
them stopped the machine, the other aimed at me under his seat
and fired a revolver ball that pierced both thighs; then they
turned their machine and retreated.
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