And so, with rare understanding and insight, she made her decision. The protective urge which had come with love and bred fear must be dominated and stilled—or, failing that, the anguish borne patiently. The alternative was even worse than the vision of Billy in the wreckage.
Out on the screened veranda Billy held her close and long. Off in the dark, where the squat little huts of the post lay along in orderly, shadowy rows, lights in windows began winking out, one by one. Then a tremulous cry floated over hut and hangar.
Taps!
Billy released her. They crossed to the door. She put a hand on his arm.
“It will be all right, dear. I have been foolish. Don’t mind me. I feel so much better already, now that I have told you! But you mustn’t think of it any more—never. I can beat it. I am sure I can. And of course you will be safe! The air won’t hurt two people who love it as much as you and I do. Now, mind! Forget all about this. I promise you I shall. Good night, Billy dear. And dream about—about October.”
But Billy did not dream about October. He dreamed of crashes. That was something he had never done before. The horrible thing about the crashes he dreamed of was that they didn’t hurt him—they hurt Jennie. She seemed always to be there watching when they came, looking on in frozen helplessness, speechless, anguished, mortally stricken, while shadowy figures dashed toward the wreckage to drag him out, dead.
Once his ship caught fire. And then he saw Jennie go white, sway, and sink to the ground, to lie there pitifully at peace until some fool revived her and brought back her hopelessness.
Cobb was not aware in these dreams of the absurdity of dying and watching himself die at the same time. It seemed quite natural and horribly real and vivid.
Some time before morning the dreaming stopped. And all that remained to Billy of that night of horrors when he opened his eyes in the gray light of the oncoming day was an oppressive sense of foreboding.
“What’s the matter with me?” he muttered sitting up in his Q. M. cot and blinking questioningly at the recumbent form of his roommate, Norris, who was snoring comfortably in another cot. Norris did not answer.