“Were you ever shot down while on observation work?” she asked him between mouthfuls.
“Yes, a few times.”
“What happened?”
“I came down.” He grinned.
“What else, sir?” persisted Grace, determined to get the story from him.
“Nothing except that a Boche flier took a mean advantage of me and sneaked up on me in an Allied plane that the enemy had captured. Then he calmly dropped a bomb on the old bag.”
“What did you do then, sir?”
“Deserted the ship and woke up in a hospital. You see I bumped my head against a stone wall in landing. My head from infancy has been soft and demands most delicate handling.”
Grace said she couldn’t imagine such a thing. To her the major was a heroic figure. He reminded her of Hippy Wingate. Like Hippy he made a joke of the desperate work he had done and was still doing. There were no heroics about those cloudland pirates.
“What did you do before the war, if it is not an impertinent question? You know a woman’s curiosity must be satisfied.”