“The ⸺ he can’t!”
It was stout, fiery Pop Cravath, his eyes snapping. Daly had been his friend.
“I suppose you look forward to burning to death, eh? Hard-boiled egg we have with us!” he stormed on.
Moran was in his shell, like a turtle. His eyes met Cravath’s squarely as he stumbled on.
“Every man knows what to expect—it’s just an incident—”
“You don’t say! We’ll give a dance in honor of it, I suppose, to let the world know that a few deaths here and there don’t faze our nervy pilots!” Cravath spat bitterly. “I’m ⸺ if I’m not sick of these guys that shoot off their mouths about how little danger means to them—when hard luck hits somebody else! And how loud they yelp when it hits them—”
“The worst of it is,” Kennard slid in, “that we can’t even go over into Mexico tonight, ⸺ it!”
The object of his words had been to cut off the hot-tempered Cravath, Moran knew, and to ease the tension which had fallen over the depressed table.
The C.O.’s eyes were very keen and very cold as they rested on his newest flyer. He went on gruffly:
“It’s the custom to go on a howling drunk every time a man gets knocked off and sort of forget it. Now we’ve got to stay on duty.”