Seventeen Zero fighters against one crippled Boeing—and the Fortress had won out! Nine of the Japs had torched down. The others had turned back to their home base.
Barry’s heart swelled with pride in the great ship and the fighting crew of which he was a member. Except for that last shell hit....
A glance at the slumped figure of Tex O’Grady sobered him. Curly Levitt had finished bandaging the captain, and Fred Marmon was helping to lift him out of his seat. The two men lugged their wounded pilot back toward the tail and laid him down, wrapped in their coats.
“What are the Old Man’s chances?” the young co-pilot asked, as the navigator returned.
“It’s hard to tell how deep those shell fragments in his side have gone,” Curly answered. “He’s lost a lot of blood, too. All we can do now is hope.... Hold steady, now, while I swab out that cut in your scalp—oh-oh! I can feel something there.”
“So can I!” grunted Barry. “Take it easy, fella!”
Curly’s fingers touched the cut again, cautiously. Barry felt a stabbing twinge.
“There it is, Mister!” the navigator shouted. “A bit of shrapnel as big as my thumbnail. If your head weren’t solid bone, as I’ve always suspected, we’d be minus a co-pilot.”
He held the scrap of jagged metal in front of Barry’s nose for a second, then stuck it in his pocket.
“When you tie it up, be sure to leave the bone in,” Barry answered with a grin. “When this war is over you can get yourself a nice job in a butcher shop. It would just suit your rough-and-ready style.”