But in the train, when we came to look at the date,
we saw that we'd miscalculated. Unless Jimmy'd been able to get extra
leave we'd miss him altogether. His mother said that would be too bad to
be true. We hoped and prayed to find him at the Ritz. Instead, we found
news that he had fallen in his first battle."
The interviewer went on, upon his own account, to praise "Jimmy"
Beckett. He described him as a young man of twenty-seven, "of singularly
engaging manner and handsome appearance; a graduate with high honours
from Harvard, an all-round sportsman and popular with a large circle of
friends, but fortunately leaving neither a wife nor a fiancee behind him
in America." The newly qualified aviator had, indeed, fallen in his
first battle: but according to the writer it had been a battle of
astonishing glory for a beginner. Single-handed he had engaged four
enemy machines, manoeuvring his own little Nieuport in a way to excite
the highest admiration and even surprise in all spectators. Two out of
the four German 'planes he had brought down over the French lines; and
was in chase of the third, flying low above the German trenches, when
two new Fokkers appeared on the scene and attacked him. His plane
crashed to earth in flames, and a short time after, prisoners had
brought news of his death.
"Mr. and Mrs. James W. Beckett will have the sympathy of all Europe as
well as their native land, in these tragic circumstances," the
journalist ended his story with a final flourish.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25