“Over ‘Hell’s Half Hour’ perhaps,” she suggested.
“Stranger things than that have happened in this crazy war of ours. But if this is our last meeting,” he was serious again, “I’m not afraid. In war, after quite a time, you stop being afraid. To die is not so tough. I died once, as hard as anyone can die.”
“How, Jimmie?” she whispered huskily.
“A Jap shot my plane from under me. There were four of them. I got three, but the other one got me,” he explained.
“I had to bail out. In getting away I hit my head on something and went out like a match. When I came out of it—two hours later—my watch was still running—I was lying on a bed of flowers beside a stream on the only flat, treeless bit of land for miles.”
“Flow—flowers for a funeral,” she murmured.
“Perhaps,” he agreed, “but not for mine. But I ask you. Didn’t I die? If I’d gotten a little harder crack it would have split my skull and that would have been the end. What’s the difference?”
“But if you’d gone into another world?” she spoke.
“I don’t know much about that,” he replied soberly. “I hope there’s a future life. Here’s hoping. That’s all I can say.”
“Here’s hoping.” She held up two fingers, crossed. “But Jimmie!” she exclaimed, bringing him back to his story. “We left you lying on a bed of flowers with a cracked head.”