see it.
Carleton unbuckled the strap that held him in his seat, rose, and
looked over the top plane.

There, just above and well out of range, was an enemy fighting plane.
The machine had apparently dropped from the clouds above, and with
great good fortune gained an ideal position. Before Archie could
swing his "bus" around so that Carleton could get his Lewis gun to
work on the Boche another salvo came from the enemy machine-gun.

That belt of cartridges found its mark. Both Carleton and Archie
were hit, the former badly. The young officer dropped back into his
seat. Archie saw that the lad had sufficient presence of mind to
hastily buckle his belt round his waist again, then, his right
shoulder numb, he dived steeply, bringing his plane up and straightening
it out after a sheer drop of a thousand feet.

The German machine tail-dropped alter the American one, but by a
stroke of good luck the enemy pilot seemed to have some difficulty
in righting. When Archie headed for home the Boche flier was far
below.

Carleton had become unconscious. Archie's head began to swim. His
right arm became stiff, and the blood from a wound in the shoulder
trickled down his sleeve. He dared not try to stop the bleeding,
and decided to trust to luck and make for home as fast as he could.
Periodically he became dizzy and faint, and once, when he thought
he was going to lose consciousness, he was roused by an anti-aircraft
shell that burst but a few feet from one of his wing tips. He managed
to dodge about and tried a half circle to get out of range of the
guns below.

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. Poo