Johnny answered my next unspoken question. "We're moving back," he frowned. "The Germans have advanced further and retaken a lot of territory." Looking down at me from where he was seated he suddenly smiled his cold smile.

So he made his ten. Good for him. I was about to feel rather pathetic, what with the rapid loss of my plane and all, but before I could wallow too far into the self-pity Stathmore interrupted me.

"You're a bloody hero, did you know that?" he said with a sincere look on his face.

I cocked an eyebrow and rasped out, "Me? All I did is crash."

Johnny and Stathmore both nodded and then, unexpectedly, they laughed.

"I have never seen anything like it," Stathmore said, his eyes gleaming. "There you were, completely bent out of shape." Johnny was nodding beside him in agreement. "No bloody hope of recovery, we all saw it, even the WC saw it. You were all flopped over looking like a dead fish."

"We all thought you were gonna crash on top of that tank. Instead...," Stathmore clapped his hands and stomped his feet in glee, "instead you line him up and shot him. You shot him!" Stathmore was beating on Johhny's shoulder in his excitement.

Johnny was simply sitting there nodding and grinning. I was too embarrassed to stop and correct them. I wanted to tell them that I had nothing to do with it, that it was all an accident really, and everything I had tried actually went quite wrong.

"Even though you were almost sure to die, you opened up on him! Crazy!" Stathmore finished and wiped his eyes.

"Ballsy man," Johnny interjected. "Really ballsy".

Stathmore nodded toward Johhny in agreement, then turned back to me and continued. "When the Tiger blew and we saw you fighting to recover, we all heard you yelling, 'We gotta Stuka the rads, we gotta Stuka the rads, we gotta Stuka the rads'."

This caused both Johnny and Stathmore to break out into further peels of laughter. I guess they found my panic amusing. The medic looked over with a a half-smile on his face, then turned his attention back to the other patients in the truck.

"You kept yelling about the rads over and over as your plane fell all the way to the ground, then the last thing we heard was 'oof'" Johnny laughed, picking up where Stathmore left off, adding a visual element to the story with his hands. Pilots throughout time have loved to demonstrate an aircraft's maneuvers with their hands. You don't even really have to listen. Just watch the hands.

"Everybody started attacking them from the top," Stathmore said. He and Johnny were tag teaming the story. "The tactic worked like a charm, and soon the Tigers were going up like fireworks. It was amazing." He reached over and gave my shoulder a tight squeeze.

I blushed. "There was nothing amazing about it. I lost my stinking plane," I croaked.

They both laughed.

"That you did," Johnny said. "But... Well, if I had known you had moves like that I would have spoken the to WC to get you transferred over to us in the fighter wing long before now. That twist-out was sweet. It would have worked too... if you had, oooh...," Johnny winked at Stathemore, "... 1500 more feet...?"

"... and no AA...," chimed in Stathmore.

"... or 109s." added Johnny.

We all laughed.

Sadly, thanks to the cracked ribs, laughing caused me to gasp in pain at the same time. Each "ha" came with a companion "ah". Of course (curse the Gods) I was left sounding a bit like a donkey. This caused even more laughter from my companions. It was not long before the quote, "We got to Stuka the rads, eeh haw eeh haw", was a running joke on the base.

Oh well. I guess it's a sign of their deep admiration and respect.

Ha! Yeah right.

I'll never live this down.