“I suppose the guv’nor has been saying to everybody, ‘I told you so,’” I remarked. “He had always said I’d kill myself, sooner or later. My reply was that I’d either fly, or kill myself in the attempt. Have there been any more Zeppelin raids while I’ve been lying here?”
“No raids, but gossip has it that Zeppelins have been as far as the coast and were afterwards driven off by our anti-aircraft guns.”
“Good. When will Teddy be here?” I asked, raising myself with considerable difficulty.
“In the morning,” was my love’s response, as she took my hand in hers, stroking it softly, after which I raised her slim fingers to my lips.
Seeing this, the nurse discreetly left us, strolling to the other end of the ward, in which there were about twenty beds, while Roseye, bending down to me, whispered in my ear:
“You can’t tell how I feel, dear Claude, now that God, in His great goodness, has given you back to me,” and she cried quietly, while again and again I pressed her soft little hand to my hot, fevered lips.
Teddy Ashton, bright and cheery at news of my recovery, stood by my bed at about nine o’clock next morning. The doctor had seen me and cheered me by saying that I would soon be out. My first questions of Teddy were technical ones as to how the accident happened.
“I really can’t tell, old chap,” was his reply. “I’ve had the bus put into the hangar and locked up for you to see it just as it is.”
“Is it utterly wrecked?” I inquired anxiously, for I feared the guv’nor’s wrath and his future disinclination to sign any more cheques.
“No. Not so much as we expected. One plane is smashed—the one that buckled. But, somehow, you seemed to first make a nose-dive, then recover, and glide down to a bad landing.”