That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
Saxham's eyes followed the direction of the Chief's glance. He said, and
his face looked hard as a mask of stone:
"Your memory for faces is correct as usual. The lady with the
terra-cotta hair is my late brother's daughter, Patrine."
The Chief's familiar whistle filled in a space of silence, with a
pensive little fragment of Delius' _Spring Song_, while Saxham's frown
grew deeper and his jaw thrust out more angrily. Then the well-known
voice said:
"I am sorry that Miss Patrine has been tempted to follow the fashion.
But I regret still more her choice of friends! I refer to the German
officer in whose company your niece arrived here, in a yellow Darracq
car, about half-an-hour ago." The speaker made sure, with a rapid
glance to right and left, that no listener was standing near them, and
added: "I know that I may trust you as myself in any private or official
matter. Between ourselves frankly, I am here to-day for the purpose
of--keeping an eye on this particular man!"
The Doctor's vivid blue eyes darted rapier-points at the other, from
caves that had suddenly been dug about them. The General went on:
"The man himself is no common spy, though he may on occasion act as an
agent or post-box for Secret Intelligence communications. He is an
extraordinarily able young officer, a squadron captain in their Field
Flying Service, with some astonishing records to his credit, though he
was an Engineer Lieutenant in 1907 when he came to England as
chauffeur-officer attached to the Kaiser's Personal Staff. For a
comprehensible reason his superiors desired him to improve his knowledge
of the topography of the British Isles. He certainly did so, but"--the
keen eyes twinkled--"the record runs accomplished by von Herrnung with
the All Highest as passenger, were not unattended, or unobserved by us.
That he is well-born and well-looking is undeniable, and these
advantages, with other social gifts, may easily attract your niece, like
any other of Eve's daughters. But to say the least it is inadvisable
that she should encourage the advances of this man, or of any other
German officer,--when the next forty-eight hours may see Britain and
Germany at grips in War."
"That is your opinion?"
"It is my plain, unvarnished opinion, speaking as one of those who are
admitted behind the scenes. Not that I am infallible, but the Signs and
the Tokens all lead one way." He lifted his lean brown hand and pointed
eastwards. "For years they have been making ready, but now--what a
frenzy of ordered preparation. What secret councils, what reiteration
of orders, what accumulations of stores, what roaring of electric
furnaces--I'd give my little finger to know what chemical they're making
in huge bulk at the Badische Anilin-und-Soda Fabrik, and hundreds of
other dye and bleaching-powder works in Germany and Austria!--every one
backed up by the German Imperial State or the Dual Monarchy on the
understanding that at the signal, they are to turn to and turn
out--what? Benzine for phenol, phenol for picric, and toluene for
Super-Explosive, that's understood. But this stuff puzzles me. Do you
see the Senile Arc in my eyes yet, Saxham? It must be that I'm getting
old!"
He smiled his whimsical smile and went on:
"A day or two after the burial of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his
morganatic partner, murdered by some fanatics among the Greater Serbs, a
huge majority among the German military and naval officers doing duty in
their Colonies, or on political service in Africa, were recalled by
Wireless. Leave has been stopped. Rolling-stock in inconceivable
masses is being concentrated on the greater strategic railways, while
the official and semi-official Press prates and gabbles of peace and
neighbourly goodwill!" He shrugged. "Things were safer when they
yelled and foamed in convulsions of Anglophobia. Then one doubted....
Now one is sure! ... Ah, I thought I wasn't mistaken. Here's Sherbrand
coming down!"
*CHAPTER XXVIII*
*THE GOD FROM THE MACHINE*
The dazzling turquoise of the sky was now streaked with milky bands of
haziness. Dappled golden-white cloudlets at the zenith made what is
known as mackerel sky. Trails of rounded stratus floated low in the
east and south-east. Long shadows of hangars, pylons, semaphore and
electric searchlight-stations, stretched over the turf from westwards,
crossed by perambulatory shadows of people moving about. These became
stationary, betokening that popular interest was newly awakened.
Umbrellas and sticks flourished towards the sky. Bawne gave a little
crow of delight as the whitish-brown, shining shape of the monoplane
dived down out of the empyrean, travelling with a bold, beautiful
swooping glide that took away the gazer's breath.
"Look, oh look!" Bawne gasped, leaning against Patrine. Now her tardy
interest was genuinely awakened. Reaching the end of its glide, the
monoplane had regained the horizontal position. As she flattened out
and hung well-nigh motionless in mid-air with the sunlight beating on
and drenching her fragile, lacy structure, she was a thing of beauty and
of wonder. The humming of her tractor came to you mingled with the
buzzing of her gyroscopic hoverer, like the incessant vibration of
living, sentient wings.
She seemed to tire of hanging between earth and heaven, ceased buzzing,
tilted a wing sharply and began to frolic after it as a kitten runs
after its tail on a hearthrug, or as a swallow gambols on a chase after
gnats, always turning towards the West, whilst her greyish shadow danced
and skipped upon the gold-white cloud-surfaces to eastwards a long way
below her, like the ghost of an aeroplane. All the time she was
gobbling up distance, steadily descending. She presently reversed her
sun-worshipping tactics, dived, and spiralled, banking, from west to
east. You saw plainly the helmeted heads and slightly hunched shoulders
of the pilot at the controls and the mechanic strapped in the forward
cockpit.
Soon she hovered again and swooped, so suddenly that Patrine nipped
Bawne's shoulder, saying "Great Scott!" under her breath. Another long
sweeping glide brought her close to the green turf of the aerodrome.
Then, with an adroit flexing of the wing-tips, she balanced, flattened,
and landed lightly within the huge white circle, rocking a little on her
tyred wheels.
The man with the stop-watch checked the mechanism, the bearded man with
the big binoculars lowered and closed them, scribbled in a
memorandum-book and came down the judge's stand. The Bird of War's
mechanic stayed in his place, the pilot unhitched his body-strap, pushed
up his goggled visor, threw a long leg over the fuselage and jumped
lightly to the ground. He staggered as he reached it, recovered himself
and stood breathing quickly, as a man overcoming giddiness, or other
physical sensation of distress.
Tall, young, and lightly built, with long active limbs and a physique
suggestive of youth and courage and enterprise, as he stood motionless,
his eared and goggled cap now in hand, the play of sunlight upon his
thin brown waterproof gabardine and overalls made him look like a statue
of Mercury wrought in pale new bronze. And with a lifting of her sick
heart as though it had suddenly spread wings, and soared into a region
of unlimited space and glorious freedom, Patrine recognised her Flying
Man of the Jardin des Milles Plaisirs.
From what airt, of what world unknown, did it blow, that cool, fragrant
wind that then and always heralded for Patrine his coming? It took her
by surprise; lapped her delicately about; enveloped her from head to
foot in its pure invisible waves. The hot, sore places in her heart
were bathed and healed, the deep caverns filled, the little thirsty
rock-pools set awash and brimming. When the sough of it was no longer
in her ears or the tug and flutter of it among the folds of her
garments; when she ceased to be conscious of the cool resilient pressure
upon cheek and neck and forehead--her brief sweet hour of joy was over.
Sherbrand had gone away again.
"_Cela ira-t-il, monsieur? Je suis pret a faire une nouvelle
demonstration si vous n'etes pas satisfait._"
His clear, strong voice speaking in laborious public school French gave
her a delicious shock of pleasure. He was addressing the stout, bearded
Frenchman who, accompanied by the thinner man who had timed Sherbrand by
the stop-watch, now walked across the turf to shake the aviator's hand.
As Sherbrand spoke, he drew a white handkerchief from the sleeve of his
gabardine and wiped from the corners of his mouth some little blobs of
foam, slightly bloodstained. The stout, friendly Frenchman glanced at
him, and uttered an exclamation. Sherbrand shook his head in vigorous
protest and laughed, repeating his offer to demonstrate again. Upon
which the bearded man, who had also a moustache with thick, stiff waxed
ends, and wore a large checked-pattern summer suit with a white drill
waistcoat, a low collar and a necktie with flowing ends, and was topped
with a high-crowned straw hat that suggested Trouville in mid-season,
negatived the proposal with a vivacious gesture, pouring forth a stream
of words:
"_Au contraire, Monsieur, je suis convaincu que vous avez une idee
superbe. Nous vous avons observe avec la lunette Zeiss, pendant votre
vol, et nous avons constate le temps tres soigneusement: vous avez
maintenu le bruit et la stabilite pendant cinq minutes de plus que les
vingt-cinq minutes stipulees. Permettez moi comme une simple formalite
de voir votre altimetre?_"
"By all means!" Sherbrand returned.
They went back to the aeroplane together, and Sherbrand reached over and
unhooked the altimeter from a board in the pilot's cockpit, and the
bearded man examined it, and then cordially shook hands.
"Within two days, at latest. Possibly sooner!" Patrine heard the
straw-hatted, bearded gentleman say in English, pronounced with a strong
French accent. "Believe me," he added, "I shall represent most strongly
the usefulness of your invention to the Chief of the Etat de l'Aviation.
_Au revoir, Monsieur, et encore mes felicitations!_"
Then he went away with the small dark man who had used the stop-watch,
and who carried the Zeiss binoculars slung in their case.
During this business interview Patrine had felt Bawne panting and
wriggling close beside her, like an excited, but well-mannered
fox-terrier waiting to be whistled for. But Sherbrand, though he
glanced at the boy smilingly, had turned aside to engage in conversation
with Saxham, and the Chief Scout, whom Sherbrand saluted in orthodox
Scout fashion, flushing red under the clear sunburn that darkened his
fair skin.
"He's one of Us!" Bawne whispered to Patrine, his own young face alight
with pleasure. "He was Scoutmaster of a troop in the North, he told me,
and I know he must have been a splendid one. He's the kind of chap
who'd be prepared for anything. Don't you think he looks like that?"
Patrine did not answer. She was feeling "cheap," as Lady Beauvayse
would have expressed it. She had put the man out of her thoughts
because she had taken it for granted that Fanshaw's instructor could not
be a gentleman. Now, as she watched Sherbrand in conversation with the
elder man, his manner of quiet, well-bred deference, mingled with a
pleasant courtesy, showed her beyond all doubt that his place was above
the salt.
He had looked towards her, when he had smiled at Bawne, and his glance
had swept over her without recognition. She would have known him
anywhere, while he----! She had forgotten her preposterously-coloured
hair.
How sweet the breeze was, bringing from the west the smell of