Ahead of him, beyond a rippling stream, lay certain
trenches held, he felt sure, by his own side. But could be reach them?
Far behind the noise of battle rumbled. Where was Buck? Somehow he
had lost sight of his comrade within the last few minutes.
"Buck is a good, bang-up fellow. We ought to go back together."
But his power was waning. Try as he might, the plane was sagging
groundward. Only Blaine's skillful efforts kept it from dropping with
a crash which he knew would probably be the end of him -- Lafe Blaine.
What was that just below him which some scraggy shell-torn timber had
kept him from seeing before?
"Looks like a piece of a house," he muttered.
Stoutly he tried to make the small open space around this half ruined
hovel. Almost he made, it. But just beyond a crumbling stone wall,
that once must have been the enclosure of a tidy yard, the tail of his
machine dipped all at once. It struck the wall, causing the heavier
bow, weighted with the propellers, the petrol tank and the machinery,
to crash downward with force.
The recoil sent Blaine, now at the last physical gasp, plunging forward
over the almost perpendicular machine. He struck the earth heavily,
and lay there almost insensible, while the vanquished plane fell
sideways, striking wall and ground, then, with a last respiration not
unlike that of its master, it lay still, a wreck for the time being.
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