by Berta Ruck
CHAPTER V
THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT
Yes; at last it was flight.
She now, too, was perched up on this structure that had tucked thoselittle bicycle wheels and skids underneath it, as a bird tucks its nolonger required feet; she, too, was being borne up aloft on those vastcambered pinions that let the sunlight half through, like the roof of atransparent marquee. In this new machine of Paul's, the passenger-seatwas set on a slightly projecting platform, with aluminium-like uprightsof a peculiar section. At first, all that Gwenna knew of this easybalancing and dipping and banking of the machine, was that there was abright triangle of sunlight about her feet, and that this triangle grewsometimes small, sometimes large, and sometimes spread so that half ofher was sitting in the warm September sunlight; presently to swerve intothe shadow again.
Mechanically tightening her grip on one or other of the aluminium stays,instinctively yielding her body to this unexpected angle or that, shewatched that triangle of sunlight. She was not giddy or breathless; shefelt no fear at all, only a growing triumph and delight as the soaringbiplane sped on--on----
Once she gave a little "Oh, look!" lost in the hum of the engine. It waswhen a tiny flicker of shadow fell upon her patch of sunlight and wasgone; the shadow of some bird flying higher than they, a crow, perhaps.It was just after this that she noticed, near that advancing andretiring wedge of sunlight at her feet, something else. This was alittle 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 theriver at home. As a small child she had always been fascinated by thathole, and had gazed down through it at the rushing bottle-green waterand the bubbles and the boulders below. She glanced down this one, buther unaccustomed eyes could hardly see anything. She leaned forward andlooked down below the machine, but still could distinguish little.Woods, roads, meadows, or whatever they were crossing, were still only awarm and moving blur. Once they passed, quickly, a big patch of pink andpurple, 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 inthis new and breathless experience; her feelings, that were asundistinguishable as the landscape over which the biplane swept--a warmblur of delights.
She gripped the stays; she laughed happily to herself behind themufflings, she even sang aloud, knowing that it was drowned in the noiseof the engine. She hummed the sheerest medley of scraps of things, tagsof Musical Comedy picked up at Westminster--some verses out of Leslie'slove-songs. Once it was the then universal "Tipperary." And presently itresolved itself into a Welsh folk-song that the singing-class at herschool had practised over and over again--"The Rising of the Lark," ablithely defiant tune that seemed best to match her mood as the biplanesped.
Yes! All the bird-like, soaring spirit in her had come to its own.Everything else was cast behind her.... She'd always felt, dimly anduncomfortably, that a great part of herself, Gwenna, was just anuninteresting, commonplace little girl.... That part had gone! It hadbeen left behind her, just as her bodily form had been left sleeping onher bed, that midsummer night, while her soul flew through dreams.
"Dreams!" she thought incoherently. "It's _not_ true what people sayabout the dream-come-true, and how one's always disappointed in it. I'mnot--ah, I'm not! This flying! This is more glorious than Iexpected--even with _him_----!"
Then came a thought that checked her singing rapture.
"If only _he_ knew! But he doesn't."
Behind her, Paul, driving, had made no sign to the passenger. She couldguess at the busyness of him. His dear, strong hands, she knew, were onthe wheel. They were giving a touch to the throttle here and there. Hisfeet, too, must be vigilantly busy; now this one doing somethingessential, now that. She supposed his whole body must be dipping fromtime to time, just as that triangle of sunlight dipped and crept. Itwas all automatic to him, she expected. He could work that machinewhile he was thinking, just as she herself could knit and think.
"He's thinking of me," she told herself with a rueful little pang. "He'swondering about my not saying good-bye. He must have minded that.That'll be all right, though. I'll let him know, presently; I'll pulldown my muffler and look round. Presently. Not yet. Not until it's toolate for him to turn back or set me down----"
And again she hummed to herself in her little tune; inaudible, exultant.The shining triangle of sunlight disappeared from the platform. Allbecame level light about her. It seemed growing colder. And beyond her,far ahead, she spied a sweep of monotonous grey.
She guessed what that meant.
"The sea!" she told herself, thrilled. "We'll be flying over the seasoon. _Then_ he can't do anything about sending me back. Then I shallput up these goggles and push this cap off my curls. Then he'll see.He'll know that it's me that's flying with him!" And she held away fromherself that thought that even so this flight could not last for ever,there would be the descent in France, the good-bye that she hadevaded--No! It must last!
Again she forgot all else in the rushing joy of it.
Suddenly she felt something jolt hard against her left arm, for thefirst time Paul was trying to attract his passenger's attention. Twiceher arm was jolted by something. Then she put out her brown gloved handto it, grasping what had jolted her. She drew it forward as he loosed itto her clutch.
It was a gun; a carbine.
What--Why----?
She remembered something that she had heard Paul say, dim ages ago, whenshe had watched him in the office, consulting with the Aeroplane Ladyover that machine-gun with that wicked-looking little nozzle that he haddecided not to mount upon the P.D.Q.
"_It'll have to be a rifle after all._"
Little Gwenna in her brown disguise sat with this rifle across herknees, wondering.
Why did Paul wish Mr. Ryan to be armed with this? Why hadn't he handedover that carbine just when they were about to start? Why only now, justwhen they had got as far as the sea?
For she was certain now that what was below them was the sea. There wasa bright, silvery glitter to the right, but the floating floor of thebiplane shut that out again. To the left all was of a slaty grey. Thesun's level rays shot along the length of the biplane as if it were downa gallery.
Gwenna sat there, holding that carbine across her brown wrapped knees,and still puzzling over it. Why had Paul handed the thing over, sosuddenly? She could not see the reason.
Even when it appeared she did not at first see the reason.
Paul Dampier had been quicker to see it than she.
Of a sudden there broke out--there is no other word for it--a silencemore startling than all that harsh raving of the propeller that had beenstopped. At the same instant Gwenna felt the floor fall away suddenly onher left and mount as dizzily on her right. The biplane was tilted up inthe air just as a ladder is tilted against the side of the house. Andthe engine was giving short staccato roars into the silences as Paulkept her going. He had shut off, and was making a giddy swoop down, downto the left. She heard his voice. Sharply he cried out:
"There! Out to the left! The Taube! There he is!"
The next moment the engine was roaring again. The biplane had lifted tothe opposite curve of a swooping figure eight.
And now the girl in the passenger-seat saw in the air beside them,scarcely two hundred yards away, what the pilot had seen.
It was another aeroplane; a monoplane.
