The Boy with Wings
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THE BOY WITH WINGS
The Boy With Wings
By BERTA RUCK
(MRS. OLIVER ONIONS)
AUTHOR OF
"His Official Fiancee,"
"The Wooing of Rosamond Fayre,"
"In Another Girl's Shoes," Etc.
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1915,
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Published in England under the title of
"The Lad With Wings."
DEDICATED, WITH AFFECTION
TO THAT BRAINLESS ARMY TYPE.
MY YOUNGEST BROTHER
"The men of my own stock
Bitter-bad they may be,
But at least they hear the things I hear.
They see the things I see."
KIPLING.
CONTENTS
PART I
_MAY, JUNE, JULY, 1914_
CHAPTER PAGE
I AERIAL LIGHT HORSE 3
II THE BOSOM-CHUMS 19
III THE EYES OF ICARUS 34
IV THE SONG OF ALL THE AGES 54
V THE WORKADAY WORLD 62
VI THE INVITATION 71
VII A BACHELOR'S TEA-PARTY 75
VIII LAUGHING ODDS 82
IX A DAY IN THE COUNTRY 89
X LESLIE, ON "THE ROOTS OF THE ROSE" 107
XI THE HEELS OF MERCURY 122
XII THE KISS WITHHELD 128
XIII THE FLYING DREAM 144
XIV AN AWAKENING 152
XV LESLIE ON "TOO MUCH LOVE" 168
XVI THE AEROPLANE LADY 178
XVII LESLIE ON "MARRIAGE" 186
XVIII THE OBVIOUS THING 193
XIX THE SEALED BOX 212
PART II
_JULY, AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, 1914_
I THE AVIATION DINNER 223
II THE WHISPER OF WAR 235
III THE LAST SUNDAY OF PEACE 241
IV THAT WEEK-END 259
V THE DIE IS CAST 265
VI HER GUARDIAN'S CONSENT 267
VII HASTE TO THE WEDDING! 280
VIII THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 293
IX THIS SIDE OF "THE FRONT" 300
X LESLIE, ON "THE MOTLEY OF MARS" 310
XI A LOVE-LETTER--AND A ROSE 321
PART III
_SEPTEMBER, NINETEEN-FOURTEEN_
I A WAR-TIME HONEYMOON 335
II THE SOUL OF UNDINE 345
III A LAST FAVOUR 350
IV THE DEPARTURE FOR FRANCE 361
V THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT 364
VI THE WINGED VICTORY 370
POSTSCRIPT--MYRTLE AND LAUREL LEAF 376
PART I
_MAY, JUNE, JULY, 1914_
CHAPTER I
AERIAL LIGHT HORSE
Hendon!
An exquisite May afternoon, still and sunny. Above, a canopy of
unflecked sapphire-blue. Below, the broad khaki-green expanse of the
flying-ground, whence the tall, red-white-and-blue pylons pointed giant
fingers to the sky.
Against the iron railings of the ground the border of chairs was
thronged with spectators; women and girls in summery frocks, men in
light overcoats with field-glasses slung by a strap about them. The
movement of this crowd was that of a breeze in a drift of coloured
petals; the talk and laughter rose and fell as people looked about at
the great sheds with their huge lettered names, at the big stand, at the
parked-up motors behind the seats; at the men in uniform carrying their
brass instruments slowly across to the bandstand on the left.
At intervals everybody said to everybody else: "Isn't this just a
perfect afternoon for the flying?"
* * * * *
Presently, there passed the turnstile entrance at the back of the parked
motor-cars a group of three young girls, chattering together.
One was in pink; one was in cornflower-blue. The girl who walked
between them wore all white, with a sunshine-yellow jersey-coat flung
over her arm. Crammed well down upon her head she wore a shady white
hat, bristling with a flight of white wings; it seemed to overshadow the
whole of her small compact, but supple little person, which was finished
off by a pair of tiny, white-canvas-shod feet. She was the youngest as
well as the smallest of the trio standing at the turnstile. (Observe
her, if you please; then leave or follow her, for she is the Girl of
this story.)
"This is my show!" she declared. Her softly-modulated voice had a trace
of Welsh accent as she added, "I'm paying for this, indeed!"
"No, you aren't, then, Gwenna Williams!" protested the girl in pink
(whose accent was Higher Cockney). "We were all to pay for ourselves!"
"Yes; but wasn't it me that made you come into the half-crown places
because I was so keen to see a flying-machine _close_?... I'll pay the
difference then, if you _must_ make a fuss. We'll settle up at the
office on Monday," said the girl who had been addressed as Gwenna
Williams.
With a girlish, self-conscious little gesture she took half a sovereign
out of her wash-leather glove and handed it to the tall, be-medalledd
commissionaire.
"Come on, now, girls," she said. "This is going to be lovely!" And she
led the way forward to that line of seats, where there were just three
green chairs vacant together.
Laughing, chattering, gay with the ease of Youth in its own company,
the three, squeezed rather close together by the press, sat down;
Gwenna, the Welsh girl, in the middle. The broad brim of her hat brushed
against the roses of the pink-clad girl's cheaper hat as Gwenna leaned
forward.
"Sorry, Butcher," she said. She moved.
This time one of the white wings caught a pin in the hat of the plump
blonde in blue, who exclaimed resignedly and in an accent that was
neither of Wales nor of England, "Now komm I also into this hat-business
of Candlestick-maker. It _is_ a bit of oll right!"
"_So_ sorry, Baker," apologised the girl in white again, putting up her
hands to disengage the hat. "I'll take it off, like a matinee. Yes, I
will, indeed. We shall all see better." She removed the hat from a small
head that was very prettily overgrown with brown, thick, cropped curls.
The bright eyes with which she blinked at first in the strong sunlight
were of the colour of the flying-ground before them: earth-brown and
turf-green mixed.
"I will hold your hat, since it is for me that you take him off," said
the girl whom they called Baker.
Her real name was Becker; Ottilie Becker. She worked at the German
correspondence of that London office where the other two girls, Gwenna
Williams and Mabel Butcher, were typists. It was one of the many small
jokes of the place to allude to themselves as the Butcher, the Baker,
and the Candlestick-maker.
All three were excellent friends....
The other two scarcely realised that Gwenna, the Celt, was different
from themselves; more absent-minded, yet more alive. A passer-by might
have summed her up as "a pretty, commonplace little thing;" a girl like
millions of others. But under the ready-made muslin blouse of that
season's style there was ripening, all unsuspected, the dormant bud of
Passion. This is no flower of the commonplace. And her eyes were full of
dreams, innocent dreams. Some of them had come true already. For hadn't
she broken away from home to follow them? Hadn't she left the valley
where nothing ever went on except the eternal Welsh rain that blurred
the skylines of the mountains opposite, and that drooped in curtains of
silver-grey gauze over the slate roofs of the quarry-village, set in
that brook-threaded wedge between wooded hillsides? Hadn't she escaped
from that cage of a chapel house sitting-room with its kitchen-range and
its many bookshelves and its steel print of John Bunyan and its
maddening old grandfather-clock that _always_ said half-pastt two and
its everlasting smell of singeing hearthrug, and _never_ a window open?
Yes! she'd given her uncle-guardian no peace until he'd washed his hands
over Gwenna's coming up to London. So here she was in London now, making
fresh discoveries every day, and enjoying that mixture of drudgery and
frivolling that makes up the life of the London bachelor-girl. She was
still "fancy-free," as people say of a girl who loves and lives in
fancies, and she was still at the age for bosom-friendships. One
sincerely adored girl-chum had her confidence. This was a young woman at
the Residential Club, where Gwenna lived; not one of these from the
office.
But the office trio could take an occasional Saturday jaunt together as
enjoyingly as if they never met during the week.
* * * * *
"Postcards, picture postcards!" chanted a shrill treble voice above the
buzz of the talking, waiting crowds.
Before the seats a small boy passed with a tray of photographs. These
showed views of the hangars and of the ground; portraits of the
aviators.
"Postcards!" He paused before that cluster of blue and white and pink
frocks. "Any picture postcards?"
"Yes! Wait a minute. Let's choose some," said Miss Butcher. And three
heads bent together over the display of glazed cards. "Tell you what,
Baker; we'll send one off to your soldier-brother in Germany. Shall we?
All sign it, like we did that one to your mother, from the Zoo."
"Ah, yes. A _bier-karte_!" said the German girl, with her good-natured
giggle. "Here, I choose this one. View of Hendon. We write '_Es lassen
gruessen unbekannter Weise_'--'there send greeting to Karl, the
Unknown.'"
"Oh, but hadn't we better send him this awfully nice-looking airman,
just as a sort of example of what a young man really can do in the way
of appearance, what?" suggested Miss Butcher, picking out another card.
"Peach, isn't he? Look! He's standing up in the thingamagig _just_ like
an archangel in his car; or do I mean Apollo?--Gwenna'd know.... Which
are you going to choose, Gwenna?"
Gwenna had picked out three cards. A view of the ground, a picture of a
biplane in mid-air, and a portrait of one of the other airmen.
He had been taken in his machine against the blank background of sky.
The big, boyish hands gripped the wheel, the cap, goggles in front, peak
behind, was pushed back from the careless, clean-shaven lad's face, with
its cheeks creased with deep dimples of a smile.
"This one," said Gwenna Williams. And there was no whisper of Fate at
her heart as she announced lightly, "This is _my_ love." (She did not
guess, as you do, that here was the portrait of the Boy of this story.)
The other girls leaned across her to look as she added: "_He's_ the most
like Icarus, I think."
"Who's Icarus, when he's at home?" inquired Miss Butcher. And Gwenna,
out of one of her skimmed books, gave a hurried explanation of Icarus,
the first flying-man, the classic youth who "dared the sun" on wings of
wax.... Together the girls inspected the postcard of his modern type,