Archie felt cold and hot by turns.  Then his arm became painful.  The pain was all that made him keep consciousness, he thought afterward.  At last his own lines were passed.  He felt a strange weakness, and began to lose interest.  Carleton’s inert body swayed to one side, and called Archie’s attention to the fact that he was custodian of another life, as well as his own, if life was still in Carleton’s body.  Archie felt, somehow, that Carleton was not dead.  That thought keyed him up to still greater effort.  He throttled his engine and started downward, the warmer airs welcome as he came lower.  At last he was in home air.  A final decision to buck up and hang on was necessary to urge his weak muscles to act.  He swayed in his seat.  His eyes closed and his grasp on the levers slackened.  Again he saw that senseless form strapped in the observer’s seat.  Poor Carleton.  He had been hard hit.  Nothing for it but to land him as gently and as safely as possible.  Will power overcame the growing weakness and inertia for one more struggle against the darkness that threatened his consciousness, and Archie, striving with every element of his being against falling forward insensible, threw back his elevator and made a good landing.

As the machine came to rest the mechanics ran up to it and found both observer and pilot apparently lifeless in their seats.  Willing hands soon had the two young men out of the machine and in the orderly tent under the eye of the doctor.  Carleton was the first to regain consciousness.  He was sorely wounded, a machine-gun bullet having struck him in the neck and another in the leg.  Archie’s wound was not so bad, but the hard fight to keep going and bring Carleton and himself back home safely had told on his nervous system.  At last he opened his eyes, and smiled to hear his C.O., who was standing beside him, say:  “Carleton says you both got it well on the Boche side of the line, and that you must have done wonders to get away and get home.  We won’t forget your pluck, young fellow.  Now let them take you away and patch you up as soon as they can.”

It was not often that the chief distributed praise, which made it the more sweet.  Archie was sent back to hospital, to spend many weary weeks there, but to come out well and fit again at last.  Carleton was much longer in the doctor’s hands, and months passed before he again saw the front.

CHAPTER XIII

THE RAID ON ESSEN

A new triplane of great climbing power and high speed came to the airdrome.  Joe Little fell in love with it.  Twice he took it on bombing expeditions and twice returned with reports of real damage to enemy supply stations and communications.

One night round the dinner table the boys of Joe’s squadron planned a raid of some magnitude, and later asked permission to carry it into effect.  It was a scheme to drop a load of bombs on the great Krupp works at Essen.  This had been done by one or two individual fliers from Allied units, but the boys planned that with six of the new type triplanes, if they could be procured, a really effective raid on the great German productive center could be carried out.