“Clinging on with one hand and his legs ... he had soon cut a great jagged hole in the canvas”
Suddenly the kite turned over, and Billy would have been thrown out, had he not been strapped to the spar. He clung on like grim death, trying to imagine he was an airman, looping the loop. Then the Eagle seemed to lose her balance altogether, and Billy felt himself falling towards the ground, the kite merely acting as a parachute.
What happened he never knew, for he opened his eyes to find himself lying on the ground with a crowd round him.
“He’s all right,” said a cheery voice.
He was surrounded by wounded soldiers—he recognized them by their blue suits and red ties.
“Where am I?” he asked, in a very faint little voice.
“‘After looping the loop three times the gallant airman made his descent in the grounds of Netley Hospital,’” said one of the Tommies as if he were quoting from a newspaper!
The next thing Billy knew was that a doctor in a white coat, with khaki puttees showing from under it, had picked him up in his arms and was carrying him across the grass between rows and rows of huts painted white and grey.
Before long he was lying on a bed with a Red Cross nurse bending over him.
“You’ll soon be all right, sonny,” she said in a comforting voice. “Now drink this. You have had a fly! But the doctor says there’s no harm done—only a few bruises. I expect you feel a bit shaky.”