The Boy with Wings

by Berta Ruck

  CHAPTER I

  AERIAL LIGHT HORSE

  Hendon!

  An exquisite May afternoon, still and sunny. Above, a canopy ofunflecked sapphire-blue. Below, the broad khaki-green expanse of theflying-ground, whence the tall, red-white-and-blue pylons pointed giantfingers to the sky.

  Against the iron railings of the ground the border of chairs wasthronged with spectators; women and girls in summery frocks, men inlight overcoats with field-glasses slung by a strap about them. Themovement of this crowd was that of a breeze in a drift of colouredpetals; the talk and laughter rose and fell as people looked about atthe great sheds with their huge lettered names, at the big stand, at theparked-up motors behind the seats; at the men in uniform carrying theirbrass instruments slowly across to the bandstand on the left.

  At intervals everybody said to everybody else: "Isn't this just aperfect afternoon for the flying?"

  * * * * *

  Presently, there passed the turnstile entrance at the back of the parkedmotor-cars a group of three young girls, chattering together.

  One was in pink; one was in cornflower-blue. The girl who walkedbetween them wore all white, with a sunshine-yellow jersey-coat flungover her arm. Crammed well down upon her head she wore a shady whitehat, bristling with a flight of white wings; it seemed to overshadow thewhole of her small compact, but supple little person, which was finishedoff by a pair of tiny, white-canvas-shod feet. She was the youngest aswell as the smallest of the trio standing at the turnstile. (Observeher, if you please; then leave or follow her, for she is the Girl ofthis story.)

  "This is my show!" she declared. Her softly-modulated voice had a traceof 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 placesbecause I was so keen to see a flying-machine _close_?... I'll pay thedifference then, if you _must_ make a fuss. We'll settle up at theoffice on Monday," said the girl who had been addressed as GwennaWilliams.

  With a girlish, self-conscious little gesture she took half a sovereignout of her wash-leather glove and handed it to the tall, be-medalleddcommissionaire.

  "Come on, now, girls," she said. "This is going to be lovely!" And sheled the way forward to that line of seats, where there were just threegreen 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 brushedagainst the roses of the pink-clad girl's cheaper hat as Gwenna leanedforward.

  "Sorry, Butcher," she said. She moved.

  This time one of the white wings caught a pin in the hat of the plumpblonde in blue, who exclaimed resignedly and in an accent that wasneither of Wales nor of England, "Now komm I also into this hat-businessof Candlestick-maker. It _is_ a bit of oll right!"

  "_So_ sorry, Baker," apologised the girl in white again, putting up herhands to disengage the hat. "I'll take it off, like a matinee. Yes, Iwill, indeed. We shall all see better." She removed the hat from a smallhead that was very prettily overgrown with brown, thick, cropped curls.The bright eyes with which she blinked at first in the strong sunlightwere of the colour of the flying-ground before them: earth-brown andturf-green mixed.

  "I will hold your hat, since it is for me that you take him off," saidthe girl whom they called Baker.

  Her real name was Becker; Ottilie Becker. She worked at the Germancorrespondence of that London office where the other two girls, GwennaWilliams and Mabel Butcher, were typists. It was one of the many smalljokes 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 differentfrom themselves; more absent-minded, yet more alive. A passer-by mighthave summed her up as "a pretty, commonplace little thing;" a girl likemillions of others. But under the ready-made muslin blouse of thatseason's style there was ripening, all unsuspected, the dormant bud ofPassion. This is no flower of the commonplace. And her eyes were full ofdreams, innocent dreams. Some of them had come true already. For hadn'tshe broken away from home to follow them? Hadn't she left the valleywhere nothing ever went on except the eternal Welsh rain that blurredthe skylines of the mountains opposite, and that drooped in curtains ofsilver-grey gauze over the slate roofs of the quarry-village, set inthat brook-threaded wedge between wooded hillsides? Hadn't she escapedfrom that cage of a chapel house sitting-room with its kitchen-range andits many bookshelves and its steel print of John Bunyan and itsmaddening old grandfather-clock that _always_ said half-pastt two andits everlasting smell of singeing hearthrug, and _never_ a window open?Yes! she'd given her uncle-guardian no peace until he'd washed his handsover Gwenna's coming up to London. So here she was in London now, makingfresh discoveries every day, and enjoying that mixture of drudgery andfrivolling that makes up the life of the London bachelor-girl. She wasstill "fancy-free," as people say of a girl who loves and lives infancies, and she was still at the age for bosom-friendships. Onesincerely adored girl-chum had her confidence. This was a young woman atthe Residential Club, where Gwenna lived; not one of these from theoffice.

  But the office trio could take an occasional Saturday jaunt together asenjoyingly as if they never met during the week.

  * * * * *

  "Postcards, picture postcards!" chanted a shrill treble voice above thebuzz of the talking, waiting crowds.

  Before the seats a small boy passed with a tray of photographs. Theseshowed views of the hangars and of the ground; portraits of theaviators.

  "Postcards!" He paused before that cluster of blue and white and pinkfrocks. "Any picture postcards?"

  "Yes! Wait a minute. Let's choose some," said Miss Butcher. And threeheads 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-naturedgiggle. "Here, I choose this one. View of Hendon. We write '_Es lassengruessen unbekannter Weise_'--'there send greeting to Karl, theUnknown.'"

  "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 wayof appearance, what?" suggested Miss Butcher, picking out another card."Peach, isn't he? Look! He's standing up in the thingamagig _just_ likean archangel in his car; or do I mean Apollo?--Gwenna'd know.... Whichare you going to choose, Gwenna?"

  Gwenna had picked out three cards. A view of the ground, a picture of abiplane 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, peakbehind, was pushed back from the careless, clean-shaven lad's face, withits cheeks creased with deep dimples of a smile.

  "This one," said Gwenna Williams. And there was no whisper of Fate ather heart as she announced lightly, "This is _my_ love." (She did notguess, 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 mostlike 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 ofwax.... Together the girls inspected the postcard of his modern type,the Hendon aviator. They laughed; they read aloud the name "_P.Dampier_;" they compared his looks with those of other airmen, treatingthe whole subject precisely as they would have treated the dancing orsinging of their favourite actresses in the revues....

  For it was still May, Nineteen-fourteen in Englan
d. The feeling of warmand drowsy peace in the air was only intensified by the brisk, sharpstrains of the military band on the left of the flying-ground, playingthe "Light-Cavalry" march....

  "Dear me! Are we going on like this for ever?" remonstrated Gwennapresently. "Aren't they _ever_ going up?"

  She was answered by a shattering roar from the right.

  It ceased. Then, on the field before her excited eyes, there was broughtout of one of the hangars by a cluster of mechanics in khaki-brownoveralls the Winged Romance that came into this tired and _blase_ worldwith that most wondrous of all Ages--the Twentieth Century. At firstonly a long gleaming upper plane, jolting over the uneven ground, couldbe seen over the heads of the watchers. Then it reached the enclosure.For the first time in her life Gwenna beheld a Maurice Farman biplane.

  And for the moment she was a little disappointed, for she had said itwas "going to be so lovely!"

  She had expected--what? Something that would look more like what it was,the new Bird of man's making. Here the sunlight gleamed on the taut,cambered wings, on the bamboo spars, the varnished blade of themotionless propeller, all shiny as a new toyshop. But the girl saw nograce in it. Its skids rested on the sunburned grass like a couple of_ski_ in the _Sketch_ photographs of winter sports. It had absurdlittle wheels, too, looking as if, when it had finished skiing, themachine might take to roller-skating. The whole thing seemed gaunt andcumbrous and clogged to the earth. Gwenna did not then know that, unlikeAntaeus, this half-godlike creature only awoke to life and beauty when itfelt the earth no more.

  Then, as she watched, a mechanic, the Daedalus who strapped on the wingsfor the Icarus seized the propeller, which kicked thrice, rebelliously,and then, with another roar, dissolved into a circle of mist. Otherbrown figures were clinging to the under parts of the structure, holdingit back; Gwenna did not see the signal to let go. All that she saw wasthe clumsy forward run of the thing as, like a swan that tries to clearits feet of the water, the biplane struggled to free itself from thedrag of Earth....

  Then, as the wonder happened, the untried and imaginative little Welshcountry-girl, watching, gave a gasp. "_Ah----!_"

  The machine was fettered no longer.

  Suddenly those absurd skids and wheels had become no more than the tinyfeet that a seagull tucks away under itself, and like a gull the biplanerose. It soared, its engine shouting triumph as it sped. Gwenna's heartbeat as tensely as that engine. Her eyes sparkled. What they saw was notnow a machine, but the beauty of those curves it cut in the conqueredair. It soared, it banked, it swayed gently as if on a keel. Swiftlycircling, up and up it went, until it seemed to dwindle to something noteven larger than the seagull it resembled; then it was a flying-fish,then a dragonfly wheeling in the blue immensity above.

  Suddenly, like a fog-signal, there boomed out the voice of the man withthe megaphone, the man who made from the judges' stand, behind thecommittee-enclosure all announcements for the meeting:

  "Ladies and gentul MEN," it boomed.

  "Mis ter Paul Dampier on a Maurice Farman bi plane!"

  The huge convolvulus-trumpet of the megaphone swung round. Theannouncement was made from the other side of the stand; the sound ofthat booming voice being subdued as it reached the group of three girls.

  "Mister Paul Dampier----"

  "You hear, Gwenna? It is _your_ young man," said Miss Baker; MissButcher adding, "Hope you had a good look at him and saw if that photodid him justice?"

  "From here? Well, how could I? It's not much I could see of him,"complained Gwenna, laughing. "He only looked about as big as a knot in acat's cradle!"

  Another roar, another small commotion on the ground. Another of thoseramshackle looking giant grasshoppers slid forward and upward into theair. Presently three aeroplanes, then four together were circling andsoaring together in the sapphire-blue arena.

  Below, a pair of swallows, swift as light, chased each other over theground, above their own shadows, towards the tea-pavilion.

  Yet another flyer winged his tireless way across the aerodrome. He was adroning bee, buzzing and hovering unheeded over a tuft of dusty whiteclover growing by the rails that were so closely thronged by humanbeings come to watch and wonder over man's still new miracle of flight.

  "Oh, flying! Mustn't it be too glorious!" sighed the Welsh girl,watching the aeroplane that was now scarcely larger than a winged bulletin the blue. "Oh, wouldn't I love to go up! Wouldn't it be Heaven!"

  "It's been Heaven for several poor fellows lately," suggested theshrewd, Cockney-voiced little Miss Butcher, grimly, from her right."What about that poor young What's-his-name, fallen and killed on thespot at twenty-one!"

  "I don't call him 'poor,'" declared Gwenna Williams softly. "I shouldthink there could be worse things happen to one than get killed,quickly, right in the middle of being so young and jolly and doing suchthings----"

  "Ah, look! That's it! See that?" murmured a voice near them. "Flyingupside down, now, that first one--see him?"

  And now Gwenna, at gaze, watched breathlessly the wonder that seemedalready natural enough to the multitude; the swoop and curve, the loopand dash and recover of the biplane that seemed for the moment a wingedwhite quill held in a hand unseen, writing its challenge on the bluewall of Heaven itself.

  Again the megaphone boomed out through the still and soft June air:

  "Ladies and gentul MEN! Pass enger flights from this aer riodrome may now be booked at the office un der this Stand!"

  "Two guineas, my dears, for the chance of breaking your necks,"commented Miss Butcher. "Three guineas for a longer flight, I believe;that is, a better chance. Well, I bet that if I did happen to have twogleaming golden jimmyohgoblins to my name, I'd find something else tospend 'em on, first!"

  "I also!" agreed Miss Baker.

  Gwenna moved a little impatiently. She hadn't two guineas, either, tospend. She still owed a guinea, now, for that unjustifiableextravagance, that white hat with the wings. In spite of earning her ownliving, in spite of having a little money of her own, left her by herfather who had owned shares in a Welsh quarry, she _never_ had anyguineas! But oh, if she had! _Wouldn't_ she go straight off to thatstand and book for a passenger-flight!...

  While her covetous eyes were still on the biplane, her ears caught astir of discussion that came from the motor nearest to the chairs.

  A lady was speaking in a softly dominant voice, the voice of a classthat recognises no overhearing save by its chosen friends.

  "My dear woman, it's as safe as the Tubes and the motor-buses. Theseexhibition passenger-flights aren't really _flying_, Cuckoo said. Didn'tyou, Cuckoo?"

  A short deep masculine laugh sounded from behind the ladies, then adrawled "What are they then, what? Haw? Flip-flap, White City, what?"

  "Men always pretend afterwards that they've never said _anything_.Cuckoo told me that when these people 'mean business' they can fly_millions_ of times higher and faster than we _ever_ see them here. Hesaid there wasn't the _slightest_ reason why Muriel shouldn't----"

  Here the sound, hard and clear as an icicle, of a very young girl'svoice, ringing out:

  "And anyhow, mother, I'm _going_ to!"

  Glancing round, Gwenna saw a lanky girl younger than herself spring downfrom the big, dove-grey car, and stride, followed by a tall man wearinga top-hat, to the booking-office below the stand. This girl wore a longbrown oilskin coat over her white sweater and her short, admirably-cutskirt; a brown chiffon veil tied over her head showed the shape and theauburn gleam of it without giving a hair to the breeze.

  "Lovely to be those sort of people," sighed the enviously watchingGwenna, as other girls from the cars strolled into the enclosure withthe notice "COMMITTEE ONLY," and seemed to be discussing, laying bets,perhaps, about the impending race for machines carrying alady-passenger. "Fancy, whenever any of _them_ want to do or to see oreven to _be_ anything, they've only got to say, 'Anyhow, I'm going to!'and there they are! _That's_ the way t
o live!"

  Presently the three London typists were sitting at a table under thegreen awning and the hanging flower-baskets; one of a score of tableswhere folk sat and chattered and turned their eyes ceaselessly upwardsto the blue sky, pointed at by those giant pylon-fingers, invaded bythose soaring, whirring, insolent, space daring creatures of man.

  The first biplane had been preparing for the Ladies' Race. Now came thestart; with the dropped white flag the announcement from that dominatingmagnified voice:

  "Mis ter Damp ier on a Maurice Far man bi plane ac companied by Miss Mu riel Con yers----"

  The German girl put in, "Your man again, Gwenna!"

  "My man indeed. And I haven't seen him, even yet," complained the Welshgirl again, laughing over her cup of cooling tea, "only in thephotograph! Don't suppose I ever shall, either. It's my fate, girls.Nothing really exciting ever happens to me!" She sighed, thenbrightened again as she remembered something. "I must be off now....I've got to go out this evening."

  "Anywhere thrilling?" asked Miss Butcher.

  "I don't know what it'll be like. It's Leslie Long; it's my friend atthe Club's married sister somewhere in Kensington, giving adinner-party," Gwenna answered in the scrambling New English in whichshe was learning to disguise her Welshiness, "and there's a girl fallenthrough at the last minute. So she 'phoned through this morning to askif this girl could rake any one up."

  "How mouldy for you, my dear," said Mabel Butcher in her sympatheticCockney as the Welsh girl rose, took up her sunshine-yellow coat fromthe back of her chair and chinked down a shilling upon her thick whiteplate. "Means you'll have to sit next some youth who only forced himselfinto his dress-suit for the sake of taking that 'fallen through' girlinto dinner. He'll be scowling fit to murder you, I expect, for beingyou and not her. (I know their ways.) Never mind. Pinch a couple ofliqueur-choc'lates off the table for me when the Blighted Being isn'tlooking, will you? And tell us what he's like on Monday, won't you?"

  "All right," promised the Welsh girl, smiling back at her friends. Shethreaded her way through the tables with the plates of coloured cakes,the brown teapots, the coarse white crockery. She passed behind thatpark of cars with that leisured, well-dressed, upward-gazing throng. Sheturned her back on the glimpse beyond them of the green field where thebrown-clad mechanics ran up towards the slowly downward swoopingbiplane.

  As she reached the entrance she caught again the announcement of thatdistant megaphone:

  "Ladies and gentul men Pass enger flights may now be booked----"

  The band in the distance was playing the dashing tune of the"Uhlanenritt."

  Gwenna Williams passed out of the gates beside the big poster of theaeroplane in full flight carrying a girl-passenger who waved a scarf. Itwas everywhere, that Spring. So was the other notice:

  "_An afternoon in the country is always refreshing! Flying is alwaysinteresting to watch!_"

  In the dusty bit of lane mended by the wooden sleepers a line ofgrass-green taxis was drawn up.

  Gwenna hesitated.

  Should she----? Taxi all the way home to the Ladies' Residential Club inHampstead where she lived?

  Four shillings, perhaps.... Extravagance again! "But it's not aneveryday sort of day," Gwenna told herself as she hailed the taxi. "Thisafternoon, the flying! This evening, a party with Leslie! Oh, and therewas I saying to the other girls that nothing exciting ever happened tome!"

  For even now every day of her life seemed to this enjoying Welsh_ingenue_, packed with thrills. Thrills of anticipation, ofamusement--sometimes of disappointment and embarrassment. But what didthose matter? Supreme through all there glowed the conviction of youththat, at any moment, Something-More-Exciting still might happen....

  It might be waiting to happen, waiting now, just round the corner....

  All young people know that feeling. And to many it remains the mostpoignant pleasure that they are to know--that thought of "the partyto-night," that wonder "what may happen at it!"