Читать книгу Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in France and Belgium. Or, Saving the Fortunes of the Trouvilles онлайн

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The boys, without a second thought, raced down the slope to greet the aviator, like one of their own kind should be greeted, but as quickly halted as they drew nearer.

The airman was dead.

He had been fatally wounded at the very start of his last flight, but just before death, at its finish, had set his planes for a descent. With his dead hands gripping the controllers, the craft had sailed to the earth. He wore the yellowish, dirt-colored khaki uniform of a British soldier.

Billy and Henri removed their caps in reverence to valor and to honor the memory of a gallant comrade who had been game to the last.

Releasing the dead aviator from his death grip on the controllers, the boys tenderly lifted the corpse from the driver’s seat in the machine and covered the upturned face and glazed eyes with the muffler the airman had worn about his neck. The body was that of a youth of slight build, but well muscled. In the pockets of his blouse the boys found a pencil, a memorandum book and a photograph, reduced to small size by cutting round the face—a motherly type, dear to all hearts.