The Boy with Wings
"I am sure that girl must be devoted to you. Isn't she? The one you want
to see? Oh, yes! Well, think if it were _she_ who begged to be with
_you_," pleaded Gwenna softly and deadly calm. Her knuckles were white
on the hands that she held clasped against her breast. "Think if she
begged for one last, last little time!"
"Look here; it's imposs----"
"I never begged for any one anything before, in my whole life. Never!
Not even my husband. Only you! It's the first--the last favour, Mr.
Ryan! You used to say you'd do anything----"
"No, please; I say----!"
"He's always said he would take me. You can follow us on. Yes, indeed it
will be all right----"
Here Paul, passing with the Aeroplane Lady at the end of the yard, on
his way to the machine in the field, saw by the steam reservoir his
young wife talking earnestly to the red-haired Ryan chap, who was to be
his passenger. He heard her say: "You must, Peter, you _must_!"
He hadn't known that the Little Thing called that fellow by his
Christian name, but he thought he knew the kind of thing that she would
be saying to Ryan; begging him to keep an eye upon her husband, to do
anything he could for him (Paul) since they were both going over to
France together.
"It will be all right," repeated Gwenna to young Ryan in a settled kind
of tone. "You'll give me your things, and then you'll stay here, out of
the way until we've gone. You will!"
Thereupon Mr. Ryan became firmer than ever.
"Can't be done, Mrs. Dampier," he said curtly. "Afraid that ends it!"
* * * * *
In the meantime Paul was making a last tour of the P.D.Q.
"Just start her, will you?" he said to one of his mechanics.
A harsh roar rattled out over the countryside. Paul touched parts here
and there.
"All right," he said; and the engine was shut off again. Then he turned
to Mrs. Crewe.
"Well," he said, "if you don't mind----" He glanced first at his
wrist-watch and then in the direction of the buildings. The Aeroplane
Lady smiled.
"I think you'll find her in the office," she replied.
He crossed the field and walked straight into the office, but Gwenna was
not there. He passed into the Wing-room where he had seen her at work.
She was not there, either; only two of the lads in blue overalls were
bringing in a wing. He said to them: "Is Mrs. Dampier in the central
shop? Just tell her I'm here, will you? I shall have to be off very
soon." In a moment one of the lads returned to say that Mrs. Dampier was
not in the shops.
"Go out that way and find her, will you, then?" he said. "I'll go out
the other way; ask her to wait for me in the Wing-room if you find her
first." He went out to search for his wife. He sought her in the shops
and in the sheds. She was not to be found. He came back to the
Wing-room; it was empty, except for the Great Dane, lying in his corner
blinking wisely, with his head on his paws. Dismayed (for he would have
not more than a moment to spare with her now) young Dampier came out and
sent a lad on a bicycle up to Mrs. Crewe's cottage to find out if his
wife were there. Perhaps the Little Thing had forgotten the
cap-comforter she was going to give him, and had gone to fetch that.
Mrs. Crewe herself walked back from the field, and found him almost
running about the yards again.
"What, haven't you found her? Isn't she anywhere about?" cried the
Aeroplane Lady in astonishment. "This is most extraordinary. She must be
here somewhere----"
"I've been and I've sent all over the place," said the young aviator,
distressed. "Here, I've got to start in a minute, and she isn't here to
see me before I go. I can't imagine what's become of her!"
The Aeroplane Lady could imagine. She had had the quick thought that
Gwenna Dampier, at the last moment, had gone away, hidden herself from
that ordeal of last farewells. "Perhaps the little creature couldn't
stand it," she thought. It was, when all was said, a heart-breaking
moment....
The Aeroplane Lady said softly: "Perhaps your wife's one of the people
who don't want to say any good-bye, Mr. Dampier. Like some people
thinking it's unlucky to watch people out of sight!"
"Well, I've hunted all over the place," he said, turning away, agitated
and dismayed. "Tell her, will you, Mrs. Crewe, I shan't be able to wait
any longer. I was to start at midday. I shall be late. You explain to
her, please. Where's Ryan--ah, there he is."
For across the field he saw a short, muffled-up, brown figure, climbing,
rather hurriedly, into the passenger's seat. It sat, waiting without
looking round.
The last stroke of twelve sounded from the clock of the factory. The
whistle blew. The men trooped out of the works; every one of them cast a
glance towards the field where the biplane was ready. Several of them in
a group turned off there to watch the start.
Paul joined them and walked across the field.
His brows were knitted; it was dashed hard lines that he couldn't see
_her_ for good-bye. His wife! She ought to have seen him off.... Poor
Little sweet Thing, she thought she couldn't stick it---- He wondered
where on earth she'd gone and hidden herself.
CHAPTER IV
THE DEPARTURE FOR FRANCE
Gwenna sat, for the first time in her life, in an aeroplane.
She had very little actual notion of how she came to be there. It was
all confused in her mind, that which had happened between Mr. Ryan's so
resolute "Can't be done, Mrs. Dampier," and its having been "done." What
had prevailed? Her own begging? Mr. Ryan's wish to see his girl? Or her,
Gwenna's, calm assurances, repeated from that day in Wales, that it
would be "all right"? She wasn't sure which of all these things had
brought her here safely where she was, in the passenger-seat of Paul's
biplane. She hardly remembered putting on the rough and voluminous brown
clothes while Mr. Ryan mounted guard over the little stokehole of the
steam chambers.
She only knew that she had walked, easily and undiscovered, across the
field before the whistle blew. That she'd climbed unassisted into that
small wicker seat, and that she was now waiting there, muffled up to the
tip of her nose, the edge of the cap almost meeting the muffler, goggles
down, and gloves hiding her little hands. She was no more to be
distinguished from a man than if she had been a diver encased for a
descent into the sea.
She did not even trouble to wonder at her own wonderful luck in the
affair.
A thousand little accidents might have betrayed her--and and she had
escaped them all. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to her.
Once or twice one of the men had spoken to her, but a wave of the hand
had been answer enough for him. It had been all right. And of course
everything was going to be all right.
She was not going to be put off by pretexts any longer.
And she was not going to be left behind, without him. In another
minute--two minutes--they would be off, he and she!
Furtively she glanced round.
Paul was holding both the Aeroplane Lady's small, capable hands in those
big boy's paws of his.
"Good-bye," he was saying. "So long, I mean. I say, you'll----"
"I'll look after _her_," promised the Aeroplane Lady, very brightly.
"Thanks awfully. You would," said Paul. "Bless you."
"My dear boy----" began the Aeroplane Lady as if she were going to say
something grave, but she ended lightly, "Well, you've a glorious day for
it. The best of luck!--And to you, Mr. Ryan!"
Again the passenger waved a gloved hand in reply.
Then Gwenna felt the tip and creak of the machine, as Paul climbed into
his place behind her.
Andre dashed up to grasp his hand, calling "_Bonne chance!_"
"Thanks!" said Paul. "Right away."
Then, as the propeller pulsed like an angry nerve, Gwenna gave a start.
An appalling roar and wind seemed all about her. Faintly, very faintly,
the noise of the good-bye cheer rose through it. The hat-waving group of
men with wide-open mouths seemed to slide back. The Aeroplane bumped
over the rough field. And then it ceased to bump. Gwenna drew in her
breath, sharply. To right of her, to left of her, the horizon seemed to
sway ever so gently. She thought, but was not sure, that she heard
Paul's voice behind her, bawling, "Trim."
As she settled herself in her seat, the horizon fell away altogether....
All was sunlit blue! The swiftest run in the motor down the smoothest
bit of hill had been nothing to this that was coming; faster, faster....
"There's only one pity," she thought hastily. "He's thinking now that I
let him go without saying good-bye!"
Here she had a glimpse of the khaki-green earth far below, as blurred
with height and speed as was the raving invisible propeller itself.
For at last--at last--it was flight!
CHAPTER V
THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT
Yes; at last it was flight.
She now, too, was perched up on this structure that had tucked those
little bicycle wheels and skids underneath it, as a bird tucks its no
longer required feet; she, too, was being borne up aloft on those vast
cambered pinions that let the sunlight half through, like the roof of a
transparent marquee. In this new machine of Paul's, the passenger-seat
was set on a slightly projecting platform, with aluminium-like uprights
of a peculiar section. At first, all that Gwenna knew of this easy
balancing and dipping and banking of the machine, was that there was a
bright triangle of sunlight about her feet, and that this triangle grew
sometimes small, sometimes large, and sometimes spread so that half of
her was sitting in the warm September sunlight; presently to swerve into
the shadow again.
Mechanically tightening her grip on one or other of the aluminium stays,
instinctively yielding her body to this unexpected angle or that, she
watched that triangle of sunlight. She was not giddy or breathless; she
felt no fear at all, only a growing triumph and delight as the soaring
biplane sped on--on----
Once she gave a little "Oh, look!" lost in the hum of the engine. It was
when a tiny flicker of shadow fell upon her patch of sunlight and was
gone; the shadow of some bird flying higher than they, a crow, perhaps.
It was just after this that she noticed, near that advancing and
retiring wedge of sunlight at her feet, something else. This was a
little oval hole in the floor of the platform. A hole for observation.
It brought home to her how frail a floor supported her weight and his;
still she felt no terror; only wonder. She smiled under her mufflings,
thinking that hole was like a knot-hole in a wooden bridge over the
river at home. As a small child she had always been fascinated by that
hole, and had gazed down through it at the rushing bottle-green water
and the bubbles and the boulders below. She glanced down this one, but
her unaccustomed eyes could hardly see anything. She leaned forward and
looked down below the machine, but still could distinguish little.
Woods, roads, meadows, or whatever they were crossing, were still only a
warm and moving blur. Once they passed, quickly, a big patch of pink and
purple, she thought it might be a town, but wasn't sure.
She sat up again in her seat, giving herself up to her own feelings in
this new and breathless experience; her feelings, that were as
undistinguishable as the landscape over which the biplane swept--a warm
blur of delights.
She gripped the stays; she laughed happily to herself behind the
mufflings, she even sang aloud, knowing that it was drowned in the noise
of the engine. She hummed the sheerest medley of scraps of things, tags
of Musical Comedy picked up at Westminster--some verses out of Leslie's
love-songs. Once it was the then universal "Tipperary." And presently it
resolved itself into a Welsh folk-song that the singing-class at her