"Cripes! You'll be up to that there Captain Hay soon if you keeps it up, sir!"
Lance laughed. Hay, the almost legendary hero of the American Air Force—who had shot down, so latest rumors said, fifty Slav planes—was far above him. "I'll never reach Hay's record, Wells. I'll be doing pretty well if I bag half as many!" Then, seeing Ranth, the orderly, followed by Praed, he strode quickly away and came face to face with the latter.
or a moment the two men eyed each other, a taut silence between them. Praed's thin, sun-blackened countenance was immovable, masklike. His blue-green eyes met Lance's steadily. Finally Lance snorted and burst out:
"Why the hell did you run away, Praed? Scared stiff?"
Praed's low voice, devoid of all trace of emotion, asked: "What makes you think I was scared, Lance?"
"You know damn well what makes me think it! That lousy crack about your motors being shot!"
"Two of my motors were limping."
Lance gave a sarcastic chuckle. "Ask Wells about that, why don't you? He's got a few ideas on the subject."