Luckily, we were flying straight into the sun. At high altitude you cannot go up fifteen hundred feet higher without giving a couple of miles to your game. It was possible therefore that they might lose us entirely in the sun by the time they had reached our altitude and recovered their speed.

“Still after us, gunner?”

“Still after us, sir.”

“We gaining on them?”

“Well, sir. No.... Perhaps.”

It was God’s business—and the sun’s.

Fighters do not fight, they murder. Still, it might turn into a fight, and I made ready for it. I pressed with both feet as hard as I could, trying to free the frozen rudder. A wave of something strange went over me. But my eyes were still on the Germans, and I bore with all my weight down upon the rigid bar.

Once again I discovered that I was in fact much less upset in this moment of action—if “action” was the word for this vain expectancy—than I had been while dressing. A kind of anger was going through me. A beneficent anger. God knows, no ecstasy of sacrifice. Rather an urge to bite hard into something.

“Gunner! Are we losing them?”

“We are losing them, sir.”

Good job.

“Dutertre! Dutertre!”

“Captain?”

“I ... nothing.”

“Anything the matter?”

“Nothing. I thought... Nothing.”

 

I decided not to mention it. No good worrying them. If I went into a dive they would know it soon enough. They would know that I had gone into a dive.

It was not natural that I should be running with sweat in a temperature sixty degrees below zero. Not natural. I knew perfectly well what was happening. Gently, very gently, I was fainting.

I could see the instrument panel. Now I couldn’t. My hands were losing their grip on the wheel. I hadn’t even the strength to speak. I was letting myself go. So pleasant, letting oneself go....

Then I squeezed the rubber tube. A gust of air blew into my nose and brought me life. The oxygen supply was not out of order! Then it must be.... Of course! How stupid I had been! It was the rudder.