Douglas Bader

  b. 1910; d. 1982 | English pilot

At The Bottom

— 1931

His face pale and waxen and his face covered in a mist of sweat...

Douglas Bader, pilot in the Royal Air Force, lay in a hospital bed, his face pale and waxen and his face covered in a mist of sweat.  The morphine only barely numbed the pain as his eyes darted around the room.  He drifted in and out of consciousness as members of his family drifted in and out of the room.  Before long, he felt a strange but pleasant sense of relaxation, telling himself that “I’ve only got to shut my eyes now and lean back and everything’s all right.” Bader had lost both of his legs — crushed in an accident that took place as Bader was performing aerial stunts for friends — and he was in fact dying.  His promising career as an RAF pilot was over, and it seems as though his life would soon follow.  When he learned of a fellow pilot who’d died in an accident, Bader grumbled that his friend was the fortunate one.  “I’d rather be killed outright,” he said, “than left like this.”