Major Cowan was the first to notice him. “Ah! Lieutenant McGee! I am–”
“No sir, I am Lieutenant McGee’s ghost. McGee got his neck broken over there just now–trying to make a landing in the dark. Your ground crew were 94exceedingly helpful to him, Major. So nice of them to obey his signals so promptly.”
For once Cowan was at a disadvantage. “Gad, man! Did you signal?”
“Oh, yes. I waved my hand. Rather original idea, don’t you think? Perhaps you weren’t expecting me to come back.”
“Frankly, Lieutenant, I wasn’t.” The look on Cowan’s face was one of genuine admiration. “You have done a courageous thing, Lieutenant–and I thought it foolhardy. I said as much to Lieutenant Larkin, and I apologize to you, here, in the presence of all these men who witnessed your courage.”
All the others thereupon surged around McGee, pumping his hand vigorously and clapping him on the back.
McGee’s anger faded. It was a thing that never stayed long with him.
“Is Larkin here?” he asked.
“He was,” Cowan answered. “Came a few minutes after you took off, but when I refused him a ship he got mad as a hornet, bawled out the light crew and–and me, and then jumped back in his car and rode off. Rather tempestuous fellow.”
“If he had stayed here,” McGee said, regretfully, “my Camel wouldn’t now be standing over yonder on its nose with its undercarriage wiped off. He’d at least think of landing lights.” He pushed his way 95through the crowd toward the burning embers of the twisted, broken and charred plane. “Pilot burned to a crisp, I suppose,” he mused half aloud.