From the right came the distant roar of heavy artillery, such as
enlivens the front night and day. Yet it was so distant as to insure
no connection with the finished air raid that now threatened disaster
to himself.
Under the trees the darkness deepened, if such was possible. Where was
he going? Could he find his way back to his own crippled plane?
A heavy, yet trembling sigh, terminating in a muffled groan, showed him
his next course. Stumbling forward, he almost fell over a body prone
across his path. Another groan, then:
"Oh-h-h, Gawd -- Gawd!" Blaine thought he recognized something half
familiar in the words or voice.
Stooping down, he felt a horrible slime and a mashed something that was
not like anything he had ever felt before. He dropped to his knees,
drew out his small flashlight, hitherto held in reserve for desperate
emergencies, and cautiously turned it on.
It glimmered across a face -- a face at once familiar and horrible. A
well-known face, yet so ghastly in its bloody disfigurement that Blaine
shivered, drew back, then bent downward and forward.
"Finzer!" he gasped. "My God! Is this you?"
The one eye left faintly opened and the gashed lips muttered, though
Blaine shuddered as he saw by the flashlight that the man's face and
head were so torn by machine gun spatter that it was only a question of
minutes, if not seconds, before he would be dead.
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