I twisted round and saw from the negligent way his feet came out
from under the engine that he must be dead. And dark red stains
with bright red froth--

"Of course!

"There again the chief feeling was a sense of oddity. I wasn't
sorry for him any more than I was for myself.

"It seemed to me that it was all right with us both, remarkable,
vivid, but all right. . . ."



8


"But though there is little or no fear in an aeroplane, even when it
is smashing up, there is fear about aeroplanes. There is something
that says very urgently, 'Don't,' to the man who looks up into the
sky. It is very interesting to note how at a place like Eastchurch
or Brooklands the necessary discretion trails the old visceral
feeling with it, and how men will hang about, ready to go up,
resolved to go up, but delaying. Men of indisputable courage will
get into a state between dread and laziness, and waste whole hours
of flying weather on any excuse or no excuse. Once they are up that
inhibition vanishes. The man who was delaying and delaying half an
hour ago will now be cutting the most venturesome capers in the air.
Few men are in a hurry to get down again. I mean that quite apart
from the hesitation of landing, they like being up there."