“Whoa there, you’re in a big rush, aren’t you?” Garret asked with a grin.
“Sorry,” Stan grunted and was off.
As he strode across the field he got to wondering if Garret had been listening at the door. It didn’t seem possible. Eavesdropping in an officer of Garret’s standing would have laughed him out of the service if he had been caught. He dismissed it from his mind.
He told Allison and O’Malley about his plans and warned them not to mention his trip to anyone. Allison grinned lazily. O’Malley was excited.
“Sure, an’ the war’s about over,” he boasted. “With me coaxing one of them sweet colleens through the skies there won’t be a Jerry left in a week.”
“You lugs come a-rattling when I send in the call,” Stan said as he strode toward his quarters.
A half-hour later he was kicking his Spitfire into line. He was into the air swiftly and laid his course across the serene green countryside to pick up the shore of the North Sea at the nearest point.
At that height it was difficult to realize he was in the sky above a war-torn nation. There were no evidences of destruction below, and the blue sky was clear of enemy planes. The steady throbbing roar of the Spitfire’s motor was a pleasantly lulling sound, and he settled back comfortably with his mind at ease, checking over the structural details of the Hendee Hawks in his mind for use in putting the dismantled ships together as fast as possible when he landed at the naval base where they awaited him.
It was pleasant to be out of danger for this brief period. It gave him a chance to examine his thoughts, do a little readjusting of his personal concepts to the grim realities of war. He found he had been under such terrific tension every instant since reporting to the Red Flight that this was the first chance he had found to look back over what had happened and realize how supremely lucky he had been thus far to escape death.
Flying at 4,000 feet, he appeared to be merely creeping across the green blanket of England beneath him. Ahead, he could faintly see a silver line of mist marking the shore of the sea. Though the Spitfire was tunneling through the blue at 350 miles an hour, he suddenly found he was impatient for even more speed. Behind him men were even now fighting and dying. He wanted to get back into it, start doing his part again.