From an apparently harmless
wound, and certainly a painless one, Parker's hurt had become so
serious as to prove mortal. For, try as he would, he could not
move his arms to right his machine. Down he dropped, mercifully
losing consciousness as his machine shot toward the earth, and crashing,
at last, so fiercely into the ground that naught remained of his
hunter and its gallant pilot but a twisted mass of wreckage and
a still form maimed out of all recognition. Parker had paid the
great price, after a gallant fight.
The other three hunters carried their pilots safely home, able to
report that Joe and Jimmy had each accounted for one of the four
Albatrosses that had last attacked them.
Three days later their squadron was moved back, and its place taken
by a fresh unit. Jimmy Hill was sent to hospital with his slit cheek,
but was soon out and about again.
Less than a fortnight later all five of the boys, Joe, Bob, Jimmy,
Harry, and Dicky, were on leave in London. The night after their
arrival on the English side of the Channel, Archie Fox, now a
convalescent, invited them to dinner at the Royal Overseas Officers
Club, where the six Brighton boys foregathered merrily.
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