A glance at the slumped figure of Tex O’Grady sobered him. Curly Levitt had finished bandaging the captain, and Fred Marmon was helping to lift him out of his seat. The two men lugged their wounded pilot back toward the tail and laid him down, wrapped in their coats. “What are the Old Man’s chances?” the young co-pilot asked, as the navigator returned. “It’s hard to tell how deep those shell fragments in his side have gone,” Curly answered. “He’s lost a lot of blood, too. All we can do now is hope.... Hold steady, now, while I swab out that cut in your scalp—oh-oh! I can feel something there.” “So can I!” grunted Barry. “Take it easy, fella!” Curly’s fingers touched the cut again, cautiously. Barry felt a stabbing twinge. “There it is, Mister!” the navigator shouted. “A bit of shrapnel as big as my thumbnail. If your head weren’t solid bone, as I’ve always suspected, we’d be minus a co-pilot.” He held the scrap of jagged metal in front of Barry’s nose for a second, then stuck it in his pocket. “When you tie it up, be sure to leave the bone in,” Barry answered with a grin. “When this war is over you can get yourself a nice job in a butcher shop. It would just suit your rough-and-ready style.” “That’s base ingratitude!” Curly retorted, applying the bandage. “I hope Soapy Babbitt is more appreciative when I fix him up. He got a smashed shoulder when the top turret was wrecked.” As Curly left him, the full weight of his responsibility settled upon Barry’s mind. Had the Old Man been at the controls, _Rosy O’Grady’s_ crippled condition would not have worried him particularly. If it were possible to bring a ship home on only one engine, Barry would have trusted his captain to do it. Now, however, both the wounded plane and her wounded crew depended on him. With little more than training school experience, could he land them safely? As he struggled against such fears, Fred Marmon’s voice sounded in his ears. “I’ve got bad news for you, Lieutenant,” the engineer announced. “The same burst of flak that jammed the bomb doors washed out the electrical system. Your landing flaps won’t work and your wheels won’t come down. Looks like we’ll all have to bail out and let _Rosy_ crash.” Barry’s first feeling was one of relief. Now, at least, he wouldn’t have to risk the lives of everybody aboard, landing a shot-up plane on a jungle field. But, wait! How about Old Man O’Grady? Even if somebody pulled the chute’s cord for him and dumped him out, the landing would kill him. A parachute lets you down with about the same shock you’d feel if you jumped out of a second story window. A half-dead man could never survive it, even if he didn’t land in the jungle and break his back.