The Boy with Wings

by Berta Ruck

  CHAPTER II

  THE "WHISPER OF WAR"

  She said it after the dinner had broken up.

  In the great hall young Dampier had turned to the Aeroplane Lady withhis offer of motoring her to her Hotel first. She had good-naturedlylaughed at him and said, "No. I'm going to be driven back by therightful owner of the car this time. You take Miss Williams."

  And then she had gone off with some friend of Paul's who had motors tolend, and Paul had taken Gwenna to find a taxi to drive up to Hampstead.

  They drove slowly through Piccadilly Circus, now brighter than atmidday. It was thronged with the theatre-crowds that surged towards thecrossings. Coloured restaurant-coats and jewelled head-gear and laughingfaces were gay in the lights that made that broad blazing belt about thefountain. Higher up the whole air was a soft haze of gold, melting intothe hot, star-strewn purple of the night-sky. And against this theretapered, black and slender, the apex of the fountain, thedownward-swooping shape that is not Mercury, but the flying Love--theLad with Wings.

  Paul Dampier leant back in the closed cab and would have drawn the girlto him.

  She put both hands on his broad chest to hold him a little away fromher.

  "I want to ask you something," she began a little tremulously. "It'sjust--Is there going to be----"

  "Well, what?" he asked, smiling close to her.

  Of all things that he least expected came what the girl had to say.

  "Is there going to be--a War, Paul?"

  "A _what_?" he asked, thinking he had not heard aright.

  She repeated it, tremulously. "A war. Real war."

  "War?" he echoed, blankly, taken aback. He was silent from puzzledastonishment over her asking this, as they turned up Shaftesbury Avenue.They were held up outside the Hippodrome for some minutes. He was stillsilent. The taxi gave a jerk and went on. And she still waited for hisreply. She had to remind him.

  "Well," she said again, tremulous. "_Is_ there going to be?"

  "A war? A _war_ indeed," he said again. "What anextraordinary--Who's--What put such a thing into your head?"

  She said, "_Is_ there?"

  The boy gave a half-amazed, half-uneasy laugh. He retorted, "What d'youmean, Gwenna? A war _where_?"

  She said flutteringly, "Anywhere."

  "Oh," he said, and laughed as if relieved. "Always some war, somewhere.Frontier shows in India, and so on. There is some scrapping going on inEurope too, now, you know. Looks as if Austria and Servia were going tohave a set-to. You mean that."

  "No, I don't," persisted the Welsh girl, to whom these places seemedindescribably remote and beside the mark. "I mean ... a war to do with_us_, like."

  "Us----?"

  "To do with England."

  "But----" he said, frowning. "Why, how absurd! A war with England?Why ... of course not. Why should you think of it?"

  She cleared her throat and answered with another tremulous question.

  "Why should you have--that gun-thing--on your aeroplane?"

  "Not going to. Not on the P.D.Q.," he said, shaking his head. "Only anexperiment, anyhow."

  "Why should you have 'experiments' with those things?" she faltered."'_Have to be a rifle_,' you said. Why should you talk about 'scouting'and 'modern warfare'?"

  "I wasn't!" he said quite hotly.

  "Yes, you were. That day we were together. That day in the field whenyou were talking to me about the Machine."

  "Oh, _then_! Weeks ago."

  "Yes. Why should there _be_ all that, unless you meant that there'd be awar, with England in it. _Paul!_" she cried, almost accusingly, "yousaid yourself that it was '_bound to come_!'"

  "Oh, well! Everybody said _that_," he assured her lightly. "Can't helpseeing Germany and that Fleet of hers, and her Zeppelins and things,going on build, build, build. They don't do that for their health, youbet! Scrap's bound to come; yes. Sooner or later."

  "Yes, Paul; but _when_?"

  "How should I know, my _dear_ child?" retorted the young Airman. "Whydidn't you ask Lord Thingummy, or Conyers at the Club just now?" helaughed. "Good speech of his, wasn't it?"

  "Does _he_ know?" persisted Gwenna, paling. "About the war coming, Imean?"

  "More likely to know than I am, those people. Not that they'd give itaway if they did. It won't be to-morrow, anyway. To-morrow; that'sSunday. _Our_ holiday. Another day we shall have all to ourselves. Tellme what time I'm to call for you at the Club."

  Not to be put off, she retorted, timid, persistent, "Tell me when _you_think it would come. Soon?"

  Half laughing, half impatient, he said, "I _don't_ know. Soon enough forit to be in my time, I hope."

  "But--" she said, with a little catch in her voice, "you're not asoldier?"

  He said quietly, "I'm an aviator."

  An aviator; yes. That was what she meant. He belonged to the most daringand romantic of professions; the most dangerous, but not _that_ danger.An inventor, part of his time; the rest of his time an airman at Hendonwho made flights above what the man with the megaphone called the"Aer-rio-drome" above the khaki-green ground with the pylons and theborder of summer-frocked spectators. _Her_ boy! An aviator.... Wouldthat mean presently a man flying above enemy country, to shoot and beshot at? ("_Fired at by both friend and foe._"). She said quiveringly:"_You_ wouldn't have to fight?"

  He said: "Hope so, I'm sure."

  "Oh, Paul!" she cried, aghast, her hands on his arm. "Just when--whenI've only just _got_ you! To lose you again so soon----! Oh, no----!"

  "Oh, I say, darling, don't be so silly," he said briskly andreassuringly. He patted the little hands. "We're not going to talk aboutthis sort of thing, d'you hear? There's nothing to talk _about_.Actually, there's nothing. Understand?"

  "Yes," she murmured slowly. She thought, "Actually, 'there's nothing totalk about' in what's between him and me. _But it's there all thetime._"

  And then, gradually, that presentiment of War began to fade in thereality of her joy at being with him now, with him still....

  They turned up the Hampstead Road, flaring with naphtha-lights above thestalls, noisy with shouts of costers, crowded with the humble shoppersof Saturday night.

  "Well, and what about to-morrow?" Dampier took up.

  "I _was_ going with Leslie to----"

  "So you said. With Leslie, indeed! D'you think you're going to beallowed to go anywhere again, except with _me_?" he muttered as he puthis arms about her.

  He held her as close as he had done on the scaffolding, that afternoonwhen he had arranged with himself never to see the Little Thing again;close as he'd done next time he did see her, at the Factory.

  "Oh, _you_ don't know!" he said quite resentfully (while she laughedsoftly and happily in his hold), "you _don't_ know how I've wanted youwith me. I--I haven't been able to think of anything--You _have_ got afellow fond of you in a jolly short time, haven't you? How've you doneit? M'm? I--Here!" he broke off savagely, "what _is_ this dashed idiotstopping the taxi for?"

  "Because I get out here. It's the Club," Gwenna explained to himgravely, opening the door of the cab for herself. "Good-night."

  "What? No, you don't," protested the boy. "We're going up the SpaniardsRoad and down by the Whitestone Pond, and round by Hendon first. I musttake you for a drive. It's not so late. Hang it, I haven't _seen_ you tospeak to----"

  She had made a dash out and across the lamp-lighted asphalt, and nowshe nodded to him from the top step of the house, with her key alreadyclicking in the lock.

  "There," she thought.

  For even in the tie that binds the most adoring heart there is twistedsome little gay strand of retaliation.

  Let _him_ feel that after a whole evening of sitting in her pocket hehadn't seen anything of her. She'd known that sort of feeling longenough. Let _him_ take his turn; let _him_ have just a taste of it!

  "Good-night!" she called softly to her lover before she disappeared."See you to-morrow!"