Page:Air Service Boys Flying for Victory.djvu/23

Rh "Here, let me have a look at that left arm of yours, Raymond, while I'm about it," said the surgeon, noticing that the pilot kept wiping drops of blood from his fingers with a handkerchief that had begun to assume a gory appearance.

This satisfied Tom, and the wound was speedily attended to, a bandage being bound in place. The only thing that was troubling the young airman was a haunting fear that he might be kept out of the fighting for several days; and at this exciting stage of the advance that would seem like a real calamity to so ambitious a pilot.

"I suppose you'd kick like a steer," said the surgeon, with a smile, "if I advised you to keep quiet for a day or two, because I know your breed; but if you must join in, be easy on that arm, Raymond. It might give you some trouble if inflammation should set in."

"Oh, I've had much worse scratches than that and never been laid up, Doctor," Tom remarked, with the assurance that goes hand in hand with youth and abounding good health. "But I will favor it all I can. Couldn't keep me out of this riot unless you chained me to earth. There's something that keeps calling me up there, something that's mighty hard to resist."

"Yes, I know. You're all alike, you daring air pilots," said the other, shaking his head disapprovingly. "But you're splendid, splendid!