"Yes; but you were dreaming," she said, in the most soothing tone of her deep voice. "You just had a bad dream----"
"No, No! It was what happened," he said hoarsely. "They were trying to bring me in after I'd crashed. Those blighters ... turned a machine-gun on to them. They did in five. I--I saw it!"
She could only look at him, only give him the comfort of her touch, could only put out to him, silently, all the pity that was in her.
He took one hand away for a moment, passed it back over his hair in the known gesture of the flyer who adjusts his crest like cap, then returned his clasp to her arm.
"I ... I never take an Australian's salute in the street without remembering ... that!... I had to lie there ... couldn't lift ... finger. Five of them, were stretched out ... killed.... Just for me! My God! Think of it----" He seemed about to break down once more.
"Hush!" Mrs. Cartwright said, steadily. She bent her eyes upon his. "Hush! One can't think like that. It's impossible."
"S'sh! Remember only that they were killed doing one of the finest things a soldier is called to do," interrupted the soldier's widow, quickly. "Remember that their people would be proud to know how it happened. They volunteered to save you; took their chance. Think how your own people would have been proud, Mr. Awdas----"
"Yes," he muttered, letting her hold his eyes, clinging to her for the strength that had slipped.
She repeated, firmly: "When you see Australians in the street, think only of _that_!"
"Yes," said the youngster, simply. "Yes.... All right, I will."
When he next spoke there was a thought less strain in his husky voice.
"I'm everlastingly sorry, routing people up like this. They got quite fed-up in the hospital.... I couldn't help it.... Falling, falling--oh, it's beastly.... So weird, too.... You wouldn't think.... Well, I couldn't _take_ more than about two and a half minutes to crash, could I?"
"I suppose not," she said, forcing herself to be as matter-of-fact as Captain Ross had been.
"Two and a half minutes; well, it seemed a _week_, at least. Absolutely. It always seems a week till I come down.... Down, down, down--I seemed to have time to think ... no end of things. I yelled out to my observer.... That's why I always shout in those dreams of mine.... I was falling, falling; and calling out to my observer, trying to make him hear. He was killed."