That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
"Damn you, I will gif you ten pounds!" Von Herrnung's face was wrung
and streaked with passion. He breathed hard, and the brown leather
satchel jumped and wobbled in his shaking hand.
"It isn't any use," said Sherbrand, "really! Money doesn't count with
Davis where his off-time's concerned. Davis doesn't want to go up again,
and I've not another man of his weight available. What do you turn the
scale at? I should guess 16 stone or thereabouts?"
"I weigh 16 st. 8 lbs. in my ordinary clothes."
"Well, I tot 11 st. 6 lbs. in the fullest of flying-rig, and Davis only
8 st. 5 lbs. And the Bird is built to carry in addition to her
engine--what with the instruments, so forth, and man-freight, a cargo of
something like 22 stone. You see, even with Davis, you'd load the
machine a good bit over her"--he smiled at the conceit--"her Plimsoll
mark. Again, I'm sorry. It's your luck! No flying for you to-day!"
"It is damnably annoying! But"--von Herrnung's red-lashed blue eyes
were busily scanning Bawne's face and figure--"but suppose I could get a
boy of 6 stone to go up with me? Merely as ballast, for I do not
require an assistant--the difficulty might be got over in this way?
What you say, my little English fellow?" He turned on the boy with a
great air of jovial patronage. "Are you plucky enough? Shall we go for
a voyage together in the sky?"
"Yes--please!"
The dark blue eyes met the hard light ones bravely, though every vestige
of colour had sunk out of the young face. Then back to lips and cheeks
the banished colour came racing. Bawne flushed crimson, as von Herrnung
held up a bright bit of gold, and sharply shook his head.
"_Was_? Will you not take the sovereign?" von Herrnung demanded. "Are
you a faint-heart after all?"
The boy bit his lip and said, clenching his small fists desperately:
"It's against the rule for Scouts to take tips. So I don't want the
money. But I'm ready to come with you!"
"Look here, old fellow!" Sherbrand was beginning anxiously. The boy
stopped him with:
"Really and truly I'm not funky--and you said I was to have another
flight."
"So I did, and so you shall," agreed Sherbrand. "But this won't be just
a 'bus trip around the aerodrome. It will be climbing and spiralling
and hovering, and all the rest!"
Bawne persisted:
"You could strap me in. And I'm not afraid--really!"
"And," von Herrnung interposed, "I shall not ascend higher than three
thousand. Probably less will do for my purpose. The boy will be quite
safe. Surely you are able to trust him with me?"
Sherbrand hesitated, then said to Bawne in a relieved tone: "Well,
there's the Doctor talking to a tall lady in white with a hat that
glitters. Run across to your father and ask him whether you may go?"
"I'd rather you asked him--if you must--and let me stop here!"
"_Gut! Sehr gut!_" Von Herrnung's tautened nerves would have been
relieved by some hard Prussian swearing. He jangled out a laugh instead.
He caught hold of the boy under the armpits and lifted him high above
his head. "What is your weight? Six stone? Come now, have I not
guessed nearly!" He had not relinquished his grip on the leather
satchel, and as it banged against his ribs, Bawne realised that it was
quite light.
"Papers inside!" he said to himself. Something quite hard was under the
leather at the corners, perhaps the thinnest of metal plates. Its
contact with the boy's body seemed to sober von Herrnung's exultation.
He dropped Bawne unceremoniously, and straightened himself again.
"How much petrol has been used?" he asked hastily of Davis, going over
to the Bird and mounting on the landing-carriage to look at the gauges.
"Because when I fly I never take risks. You will have to fill up the
tank again. Do you hear, my fellow?"
"If Mr. Sherbrand orders me," Davis spat out another piece of grass,
"dessay I shall do it!" He eyed von Herrnung with surly disapproval as
he craned over the Bird's fuselage, while audibly commenting to an
acquaintance who had strolled up:
"Sheer blinders, I call 'em, these ere Fritzies! Walk into Buckingham
Pallis next minute and ask to look into the Privy Puss. 'Ope the
Governor comes back before 'e gits Nosey Parkerin' into the 'orizontal
'overing gear! Perish me if I ever met a bloke with such a nerve!
Watto, old sonny?" He addressed himself to the boy. "Ain't you feelin'
up to the posh?"
"I am quite all right, thank you!" Bawne responded, while his heart
bumped against his ribs. In his brain words and sentences kept forming:
"I'm only a little chap. And this is--a Big thing! Bigger than the
Chief expected, perhaps! And he said he'd be back in half an hour."
Half an hour meant thirty minutes. He glanced at the big round
white-faced clock above the entrance of the cafe restaurant. More than
fifteen minutes of the half-hour had gone.
To stick to the big, brutal German was his--Bawne's--Secret Mission.
And the inspiring, uplifting voice that thousands of boy-hearts thrill
to all the big world over had said to him:
"Quit yourself like a man!"
*CHAPTER XXX*
*THE REAPING*
To Patrine, when the shadow of the familiar figure of the Doctor mingled
with hers upon the dry green grass, and Saxham's voice called her by her
name, it was as though his presence had a weight that physically
oppressed her, and his scrutiny seared her flesh like the approach of
white-hot iron.
Through her mind passed swift sentences: "_Yet another of us has
disgraced him! My father and mother are not the only traitors of our
name!_" In the rawness of her mental anguish every sense was
unnaturally exaggerated. The ticking of Saxham's watch, that the
furious beating of her heart could not drown, tormented by its
iteration. And worst of all, was the consciousness of defilement in the
physical sense.
"Did not your mother give you my message?"
Always pale, her pallor did not demand particular attention, save that
under their ruddy salve the edges of her lips showed white. She
answered, forcing the lips to smile, compelling her eyes to meet
Saxham's.
"About coming to see you?" She remembered and drew from her gilt-chain
vanity bag the letter she had not posted: "This was written to you
to-day. Then I thought I would have been able to look in at Harley
Street, and in the end----"
"In the end you neither paid the visit nor posted the excuse. Well, be
more considerate in future to those who love you. Sincere, clean love
does not grow on every gooseberry bush, my dear!"
The curt speech, made in the Doctor's brusquest tone, conveyed to
Patrine an impression of exquisite kindness. So many boons, so many
benefits had been conferred in that grim, curt way. She had wept and
would not weep again, but her hard bright eyes grew misty as she thanked
him, and asked after Lynette, with a touch of wistfulness that recalled
to the Doctor that unforgettable time when greedy Death had threatened
to rob him of his joy. He answered her cheerfully, and they found
themselves chatting of familiar, everyday matters across the gulf that
yawned between. And then, warned by some swift change of expression in
her face, Saxham glanced up to see Sherbrand approaching.
"Doctor!" he called. "Sorry to interrupt, but would you listen a
minute?"
The tall, lightly-built, lightly moving figure came swinging towards
them. He still carried the eared cap with the goggled visor, his thick,
silvery-blonde hair was darkened at the temples with the dampness
generated under the close covering of waterproof. His light grey-blue
eyes were smiling, yet there was a pucker of anxiety between his
eyebrows, as he put von Herrnung's case.
"So," he ended, "instead of taking a second flight in the Bird with me
as we arranged, would you trust your boy to this foreign crack who's in
a hole for a passenger? He is Captain von Herrnung of the German Flying
Service--winner of the two-days' flight from Hanover to Paris in
April--a famous run!" He added, "I need hardly say that with such a
record as von Herrnung holds you cannot be apprehensive of any rashness
or neglect on his part. But I'll own I would rather take Bawne up
another day myself. Still, von Herrnung----"
"I am aware of the reputation held by the person you mention. I am
going now to speak to him."
The Doctor's face was devoid of all expression. But he battled, as he
spoke, with a masterful desire to forbid Bawne the expedition. To
assert parental authority on this point would have been the mode of
dealing approved by one of the two men who dwelt within the Dop Doctor.
The other Saxham said "Hold!"
Dare you place your paternal love, that other Saxham asked--between your
son and his duty? Because it would be so easy to do it, is the reason
why you should refrain! The Doctor had walked a few paces towards the
object of his troubled reflections. He wheeled abruptly, returned, and
presented Sherbrand to his niece.
A faint blush rose in Patrine's white cheeks as her eyes met those of
the tall young aviator. They looked at her without any sign of
recognition, and the conviction, "_He has forgotten!_" shot stingingly
across her mind. "_He did not think me worth remembering_" came next.
And then she could have laughed, recalling that she had dismissed him
from her own thoughts on the discovery of his connection with Fanshaw's.
She had made so certain that a teacher of Flying couldn't be a
gentleman.
Now, face to face with him again, in his upright easy bearing, in his
straight and fearless regard, in the pleasant well-bred voice that
addressed her in a brief conventional sentence or so, she read his
patent of gentlehood.
From whatever root it sprang, the flower was noble. Her swift eyes shot
a glance at the bigger figure in grey. What a hoggish knight of the
dunghill, what a high-born clown had she not distinguished by her choice
and selection. The smile of scorn that curved her mouth was suddenly
banished by the sudden recollection of Bawne.
"Uncle Owen, you have not yet told Mr. Sherbrand whether Bawne may go up
again or not. I am sure--if you won't think me--if you don't mind my
saying so!--that he has had enough for to-day! I think it would be
better if you would not----"
It was not the deep warm voice of Patrine's characteristic utterance,
but a weaker, thinner voice that hesitated and faltered and trailed
away. It recalled nothing to Sherbrand. He looked at her and
transferred his gaze to Saxham, who asked:
"Does this German officer intend climbing to any high altitude, or
perpetrating anything in the nature of a display?"
Sherbrand explained:
"He does not want to go higher than three thousand. Just to try the
hoverer, regarding which some business friends of his are bitten with
curiosity. My mechanic is not able to go up with him, and he wants a
light-weight passenger. He is over sixteen stone himself, and the Bird
has been built to carry me with Davis. I calculated her wing-area
to----"
Sherbrand travelled into the realm of technicalities, using terms that
were Volapuk and Esperanto to Patrine. He had supple, finely-shaped
hands, and used them as he talked with vivid illustrative gestures.
"So," he ended, "as your plucky youngster asked to go, it seemed a way
out of the difficulty, provided you weren't dead against the thing. Of
course we'll swadd the little chap in a sweater or so under the
pneumatic jacket. It'll be a bit parky, even at three thousand, now the
sun's beginning to down."
He added:
"I'll see to the strapping myself. You may rely upon it, Doctor."
Saxham said with a look of kindness at the handsome face with the clear
candid eyes: