He had just energy enough left, after he
realized that he was very badly hurt, to tell his observer that he
was going off. Before he actually relinquished control of the machine,
the observer, who was a daring chap, climbed right out of his
seat, pulled himself along the fuselage, and half-sitting, half-lying,
managed to stick there, within reach of the control levers and the
engine cut-off.
"He was an old-time flyer himself, and understood aeroplane construction
pretty well, and he made a very decent landing not very far from our
front lines. Fortunately he was on the right side of them, though
from what he told us afterward that was more luck than judgment. He
thought he was much further back than he was.
"He had become very tired, owing to his strained position on the body
of the plane, and was afraid he would fall off. So he came down.
He had a bad shock when he found that his pilot was stone dead,
and had been for some time. He must have died when the observer
took over the control of the plane, but the observer, oddly enough,
never thought of him as dead, and quite expected to be able to bring
him around if he once got him safely landed.
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