The Boy with Wings Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  THE WINGED VICTORY

  Now Gwenna, although she'd been clerk and assistant to the AeroplaneLady herself, and although she loved the idea of aeroplanes as othergirls have loved the idea of jewels, scarcely knew one pattern ofmonoplane from another.

  They were all the same to her as far as overlapping the seams with thedoped strips was concerned. Nevertheless, in this machine that seemedsuddenly to have appeared out of nowhere, there struck her somethingthat was quite unfamiliar. Never before had she seen that littleblade-shaped drag from the tips of the wings. It gave to this machinethe look of a flying pigeon.... She had only noticed it for a moment, asthe monoplane had lurched, as it were, into view over the edge of theirown lower plane. Then it lurched out of sight again.

  Again their engine was shut off; and again she heard Paul's voice,excited, curt.

  "Can you get him, do you think?"

  Get him? Bewilderingly she wondered what Paul could mean. Then cameanother staccato rush of sound. Then another silence, and Paul's voicethrough it.

  "All right. I'll get above him; and you can shoot through the floor."

  The engine brayed again, this time continuously.

  "Shoot!" gasped Gwenna.

  Shoot at that machine through the hole in the floor of this one? It wasa German craft, then? And Paul meant Mr. Ryan to shoot whoever was inthat machine. And she, Gwenna, who had never had a gun in her handsbefore in her life, found herself in the midst of War, told to shoot----

  Hardly knowing one end of the thing from the other, she grasped thecarbine. She guessed that the flyer in the other machine must haverealised what Paul meant to do.

  They were rising; he was rising too.

  And suddenly she became aware that there was sunlight about them nolonger. All was a dun and chilly white. Paul, trying to get above theother, and the other trying to prevent him, had both run up togetherinto a cloud. Once before the Welsh girl had had this experience. On arocky mountain-path up Cader Idris she had walked into a thick mist thatwrapped her from seeing anything in front of her, even though she couldhear the voices of tourists just a little ahead.

  And now here they saw nothing, but they could hear.

  Even through the noise of their propeller Gwenna's ears caught a smallernoise. It seemed to come from just below.

  She had got the muzzle of the carbine through the hole at her feet.Desperately, blindly she fumbled at what she thought must be thetrigger. Behind her goggles, she shut her eyes tightly. The thing wentoff before she knew how it had done so.

  Then, nothing....

  Then the propeller had stopped again. She felt her shoulder touchedfrom behind. Paul's voice called, "Got him, Ryan?"

  "I--I don't know," she gasped, turning. "I--_Paul! It's me!_"

  It was a wonder that the biplane did not completely overturn.

  Paul Dampier had wrenched himself forward out of the straps and hadtaken one hand from the wheel. His other clutched Gwenna's shoulder, andthe clutch dragged away the muffler at her white throat and her gogglesslipped aside. Aghast he glared at her. The Little Thing herself? Here?

  "Good---- here, keep still. Great----! For Heaven's sake, don't move.I'll run for it. He can't catch me. I was trying to catch him. He can'ttouch us---- We'll race--hold tight, Gwen--ready." He opened the throttleagain; while Gwenna, white-faced, took in the tornado of wind withparted lips and turned sideways to stare with wide-open eyes.

  Then a number of things seemed to happen very quickly.

  The first of these was a sharp "Ping!" on one of the aluminium stays.Gwenna found herself gazing blankly at the round hole in the wing a yardto the right of her. The next thing was that the fog--mist--or cloud,had disappeared. All was clear sky about them once more. The third thingwas that, hardly a stone's toss away, and only missed by a miracle inthe cloud, they saw the monoplane and the aviator in her.

  He was bareheaded, for that blind, wild shot of the British girl's hadstripped away his head-covering, and there was a trickle of scarlet downhis cheek. His hair was a gilded stubble, his eyes hard and blue andTeutonic. His flying-gear was buttoned plastron-wise above his chest,just as that white linen jacket of his had been; and Karl Becker,waiter, spy and aviator, gave a little nod, as much as to say that herecognised that they were meeting not for the first time....

  One glimpse showed all this. The next instant both German and Englishmanhad turned to avoid the imminent collision. But the German did more thanturn.

  He had been fired on and hit; now was his shot. Dampier, with no thoughtnow but to get his wife out of danger, crowded the biplane on. As themachines missed one another by hardly ten feet, she heard the fourcracks of Paul's revolver.

  Little Gwenna thought she had never heard anything so fascinating,horrible, and sweet. He was fighting not for his own life only. And hewas not now being fired at, far from her, hoping that she need neverknow. For she also, she was in danger with him; she who did not want todie before him but who would not wish to live for one moment after him.

  Moments? When every moment was a whole life, what could be moreperilously, unimaginedly sweet than this?

  "I knew I had to come," she gasped to herself. "Never away from himagain! Never----"

  Her heart was racing like the propeller itself with just such speed,such power. More love than it could bear was crowded into every throb ofit. For one more of those moments that were more than years she mustlook at him and see him look at her....

  One look!

  As they tore through the air she turned in her straps, pushing the curlsback from her brow. Her eyes met his, set and intent over the wheel.

  She smiled at him.

  Up out of the depths of his intentness she saw the answering smile comeinto his own eyes. He nodded. He meant that it was all right. His lipsmoved.

  "He can't--touch--us!" he was shouting. His girl threw back her head asfar as it would go, offering her face for the kiss that she knew hecould not give. He nodded again, laughed outright, and stretched his ownhead forward. It was all a kiss, despite the constraining straps--oralmost all.

  More of a kiss than many lovers know, more of a marriage!

  For then it was that the German's shot rang out, completing theircaress. Never was dearer nor more precious union, never less pain, solost was it in rapture. As gently as if he had only just said Good-nightthe boy's head sank on the wheel; as for hers, it never moved. She stilllay, leaning back with lips parted, as if to-morrow would see her kissedawake again.... His hands twitched once only. That movement cut off thethrottle. Again, for the last time, the propeller stopped.

  The Taube was already a vanishing speck in the distance....

  The P.D.Q. yawed, hung poised, began to slide tail first, and gatheredspeed.

  Up, up came the silver waves of the English Channel.