Suddenly Tom saw Jack give a jump, as though in an agony of pain, and then the young pilot crumpled up in his seat.
“Badly hit!” exclaimed Tom with a pang at his own heart. “Poor Jack is out of it!”
The machine, out of control for a moment, started to go into a nose dive, but Tom let go the lever of his machine gun, and took charge of the craft, since it was one capable of dual manipulation. Tom now had to become the pilot and gunner, too, and he had yet a long way to go to reach his own lines, while Jack was huddled, before him, either dead or badly wounded.
CHAPTER XVI. JUST IN TIME
It was with mingled feelings of alarm and sorrow that Tom Raymond sent the speedy Spad aeroplane on its homeward way toward the French lines. He was worried, not chiefly about his own safety, but on account of Jack; and his sorrow was in the thought that perhaps he had taken his last flight with his beloved chum and comrade in arms. He could not see where Jack had been hit, but this was because the other lad lay in such a huddled position in the cockpit. Jack had slumped from his seat, the safety straps alone holding him in position, though he would not have fallen out when the machine was upright as it was at present.
“One of those machine gun bullets must have got him,” mused Tom, as he started the craft on an upward climb, for it had darted downward when Jack's nerveless hands and feet ceased their control. For part of the steering in an aeroplane is done by the feet of the pilot, leaving his hands free, at times, to fire the machine gun or draw maps.
Tom had a double object in starting to rise. One was to get into a better position to make the homeward flight, and another was to have a better chance not only to ward off the attack of the Hun planes, of which there were now three in the air, but also to return their fire. It is the machine that is higher up that stands the best chance in an aerial duel, for not only can one maneuver to better advantage, but the machine can be aimed more easily with reference to the fixed gun.
In Tom's case he did not have access to this weapon, which was fixed on the rim of the cockpit where Jack could, and where he had been controlling, it. With Jack out of the fight, through one or more German bullets, it was up to Tom to return the fire of the Huns from his swivel mounted Lewis gun. He was going to have difficulty in doing this and also guiding the craft, but he had had harder problems than this to meet since becoming an aviator in the great war, and now he quickly conquered his worrying over Jack, and began to look to himself.
He gave one more fleeting glance at the crumpled-up figure of his chum, seeking for a sign of life, but he saw none. Then he swung about, turning in toward the nearest Hun airman, and not away from him, and opened up with the machine gun, using both hands on that for a moment, while he steered with his knees.