“Not—not so bad,” Ted replied, hesitatingly. “Sort of got a bump or two.”
“Climb over and help him onto our plane,” Jack said. Stew was on the sinking plane in an instant. A moment more and they were rising from the water.
Nearing the Black Bee, Jack signaled that he had a wounded man and was coming aboard. He got the all-clear at once.
The first person to reach the plane was Mary. She had seen it all. There was a look on her face that Jack had never seen there before as she called, “Ted! Is he badly injured?”
“He’ll pull through,” Jack admitted. “But why only Ted? Can’t you give another fellow a smile?”
“Jack, I could kiss you for saving Ted,” she exclaimed. And that was just what she did.
In landing on the sea, and again on the deck of the Black Bee, Jack had experienced unusual difficulty in controlling the jet plane, but was at the time too excited to think much about it. When at last he had time to look the plane over, he found that it had, at some time during the fight, been seriously damaged.
“You picked up some of our flak,” was the verdict of the commander of the deck crews. “That plane’s through.”
When Jack came to his own commander to ask for another plane, the Commander put a hand on his shoulder and in a gruff voice said:
“Forget it, boy! You’ve done your part. You’ve pitched five innings, and never a man got to first base. It’s you for the showers.”