Not without a sharp thrill of excitement, the other man raised his eyes heavenward only to see a swarm of black buzzards flying over their heads.
He turned away with keen disappointment, though attempting to hide his feelings from Steve, whose eyes were still glued upon the birds of ill omen.
“Look, Lefty, can’t you see? They’re circling us—they’re going to land!”
He noticed that the other man didn’t respond and, looking closer, realized that what he believed to be planes were merely the hallucinations of a fever-torn mind.
“I—I thought they were ships,” he whispered as he fell back on the disabled wing, closing his eyes with a death-like relaxation that startled the other boy.
“Steve, Steve!” Lefty cried, working to bring his buddy out of the passive submission of physical defeat that had enveloped him, “don’t give up; they’ll find us, sure!”
The sick man’s eyes fluttered open as they each gazed at one another for a brief moment. The realization that the end was hovering near left the two men with a morbid resignation of complacency registered upon their faces.
“Remember what you promised,” Steve said a little above a whisper. “Don’t let ’em get me! You know—the ship—I’d do the same for you!”
Lefty nodded grimly as his face took on an appearance of cold, indifferent immobility. When he looked down again, Steve smiled up at him, gasped and fell back, motionless. He lifted the man’s eyelids, felt his pulse and listened for a sign of life as his ear rested against the other’s heart.
All was over—it was Taps for the pilot and Phelps braced himself for his next ordeal as he covered the dead boy’s face with the windjammer.