THE MILITARY CROSS
The machine was brought together bit by bit, from this hiding-place
and that. The little engines were assembled and tested. The car was
put together and the engines were fastened in place. Gaspard and
Mick, and even Catherine, could scarcely believe their dizzied eyes
when the little engines first turned the thin blades of the
propeller over, and then over and over until nothing was to be seen
of those blades but a gray vortex into which they had dissolved and
out of which roared a wind that threatened to blow the barn
inside-out. The noise of that wind frightened fur folk great and
small miles away and sent crows cawing and flapping out of distant
tree-tops. It almost stunned the secretive squaw with terror—for I
think her conscience was not quite at ease; and it even distressed
Catherine. But Catherine was not feeling up to the mark at this
time. She had caught a slight cold, she thought; so she drank a
little ginger-tea and said nothing about it.
One evening in the first week in May an Indian came to the house and
asked if his squaw and pappoose were here and, if so, how they were
getting along. He looked an honest and somewhat dull young man and
complacent beyond words.
“You Gabe Peters from Tinder Brook,” said Mick Otter.
The visitor nodded. Then Mick took him by an elbow, backed him to
the threshold of the open door and talked to him swiftly in the
Maliseet tongue. The other replied briefly now and then. Mick became
excited. His excitement grew by leaps and bounds; and at last he
turned Gabe Peters of Tinder Brook completely around, kicked him
from the threshold into the outer dusk and shut the door with a
bang.
Gaspard and Tom were stricken voiceless with amazement by Mick
Otter’s treatment of the visitor. Catherine seemed scarcely to
notice it, however. Mick turned from the door and went straight to
the girl, where she sat close to the stove.
“You go to bed,” he said. “Take plenty medicine an’ go to bed darn
quick.”
She protested, but without much spirit.
“Go to bed!” cried the old Maliseet, violently.
The girl stood up and moved toward the steep stairs. Tom hastened to
her, took her hands and looked at her closely.
“What is it, Cathie?” he asked. “Your hands are hot, dear.”
“I have a cold, I suppose,” she replied. “My head aches—and I think
Mick is crazy. But I’ll go to bed,—just to keep him quiet. Don’t
worry.”
She went up to her room. Mick got Tom and Gaspard each by an elbow.
“Diptherie at Tinder Brook,” he whispered harshly. “That why Gabe
Peters’ squaw run ’way with pappoose. He don’t have it but he bring
it here, I guess. Cathie gettin’ sick, anyhow. Guess she need doctor
pretty darn quick.”
Gaspard Javet groaned. He had been so happy of late—or had his
happiness been only a dream? He sat down heavily in the nearest
chair. Tom Akerley paled but did not flinch. He looked steadily at
the old Maliseet and in a steady voice said,
“It may not be anything more than a cold, Mick. I’ll get a doctor
immediately—but you don’t think she is seriously ill, now, do you?”
“Dunno. Take too darn much chance a’ready, anyhow. Where you get a
doctor quick, hey? No doctor at B’ilin’ Pot. Go way out to Millbrow
an’ find one darn poor doctor maybe. Take a’mighty long time
anyhow—an’ maybe we don’t find him.”
Tom opened the door and looked up at the sky. It was a fine night.
He aroused Gaspard and sent him up to Catherine to consult her in
the matter of treatment for her own cold. Then, with two lanterns,
he and Mick Otter went out to the big barn. Tom set to work
immediately. Mick visited the mother and baby. He found Gabe Peters
there and devoted a few minutes to telling all three what he thought
of them. He was particularly severe with the squaw, because of her
secretive behavior. Then he returned to the work-shop and assisted
Tom for three hours.
Tom was the first of the household to wake next morning. The first
thing he did was to go out and look at the weather. There was not a
breath of wind. The dawn of a fine spring day was breaking in silver
and gold along the wooded east. He woke Gaspard then, lit the fire
and dressed. Gaspard went up to Catherine’s room and found her
sleeping—but she tossed and moaned in her sleep. Her face was
flushed.
Tom opened the doors of his work-shop wide and fell to work by the
level morning light. Mick Otter cooked the breakfast. Gaspard looked
after Catherine, who drank a little weak tea and complained of a
sore throat.
Breakfast was eaten in ten minutes. Mick fed the three unwelcome
guests and locked them in their quarters. Then Tom, Mick and Gaspard
worked like beavers for two hours; and by the end of that time the
’plane squatted wide-winged before the barn, like a wounded goose of
gigantic proportions. The three wheeled it to the top of the oldest
and levelest meadow.
Tom donned his leather coat and went to the house. He entered and
called up the stairs to Catherine. She answered him and he went up.
He found her lying bright-eyed and flushed of face, staring eagerly
at the door.
“Oh, I am glad you are real!” she cried. “I was queer last night—and
I thought you weren’t real.”
He laughed.
“I am one of the realest things you ever saw, of my own kind,” he
said. “I’m no dream, Cathie. And now I’m going to make a little
journey, to fetch you a doctor—so when you hear my engines wish me
luck, girl—put up a little prayer for me.”
He stooped, touched his lips lightly and quickly to her hot
forehead, and left her. He ran to his machine and started the
engines. He put on his cap and goggles. He twirled the propeller;
and suddenly it hummed.
“Stand clear!” and he scrambled to his seat.
The old bus thrilled, lurched, then moved forward down the field,
slowly for a few yards, then less slowly, then fast. Gaspard and
Mick stared after it, frozen with awe; and when they suddenly
realized that the little wheels were no longer on the mossy sod they
felt as if their hearts were stuck in their windpipes. Yes, the
little wheels were off the ground! And the wide wings were climbing
against the green wall of the forest; now they were swooping around;
and now they were against the morning blue; and still the great bird
circled as it rose. Now it was high over the house, high above the
blue smoke from the chimney. Now it was over the barns, and over the
woods beyond, still circling and rising. Four times it circled the
clearings, flying wider and higher each time; and then it headed
north and flew straight away into the blue.
Then those two aged woodsmen suddenly recovered the use of their
lungs and limbs. They shouted triumphantly and waved their arms in
the air. They leaped together and embraced.
The frail thing that flew northward with so much of their pride and
love dwindled and dwindled and at last vanished from their sight.
“An’ that’s the man Ned Tone fit with,” said Gaspard, in a voice
thrilled with pride and shaken with awe.
“An’ you an’ me help him fasten it together,” said Mick Otter, in
tones of reverence and satisfaction.
Gaspard returned to the house, and Mick went to the barn in which he
had shut the people from Tinder Brook and unlocked the door. The man
and the woman were in a tremor of fear. The fierce song of the
birdman’s flight, striking down at them through the roof, had
chilled them with a nameless dread. Mick gave them provisions,
blankets, a kettle and frying-pan, and told them to get out and
travel quick. They obeyed with alacrity. He told them that if they
ever mentioned the great sound they had heard that morning a
terrible fate would overtake them swiftly, no matter how far they
traveled or where they hid; and they believed him, for truth gleamed
in his eyes.
Gaspard found Catherine sitting straight up in a tumbled bed,
staring at the window.
“Has he gone?” she cried. “Was it Tom? Has he flown away?”
“Now don’t ye worry, Cathie,” returned the old man, with an
unsuccessful attempt to speak calmly. “Yes, it was Tom. An’ he
flew—ay, he surely flew. He’ll fetch in a doctor for ye, girl, if
thar be a doctor in the world to fetch. I’ve saw eagles an’ hawks
fly in my day, an’ wild geese an’ ducks an’ crows, but nary a bird
o’ the lot could fly like Tom. The sight of it shook me to the
vitals. If I was a young man only a few years younger, nor what I
be, I’d sure git him to larn me how to do it. It was the
shiverin’est sight I ever see—shiverin’er nor the swash an’ wollop
an’ windy roar o’ fifty gray geese gittin’ up all of a suddent out
o’ the mist at yer very feet; an’ ye mind how that sets yer heart a
gulpin’, girl.”
Catherine lay back heavily on her pillow.
“Yes, I mind,” she said. “All the great wings beating the air. I
wish I had seen Tom fly. Now that my head feels so queer it all
seems like a dream to me—all about Tom—how he flew down to us that
night, to the light of our open door—and how brave and strong he is.
I wonder if it is true.... I wish I had a drink, Grandad. My throat
is burning—and it aches.”
Gaspard hastened away, pottered about the stove and the dairy, and
soon returned with milk hot and cold, cold spring water and hot tea.
She drank thirstily of the cold milk and water, talked for a few
minutes in a vague and flighty vein that terrified the old man, and
then drifted off into a restless doze.
* * * * *
Tom Akerley flew straight and swift, high up in the spring sunshine,
into the clean bright blue of the northern sky. He held his course
by compass and sun, and read his progress on the ever unrolling
expanse of hill and vale and timbered level beneath him—so far below
him that the mightiest pines looked smaller than shrubs in a
window-box and forests through which he and Mick Otter had toiled
for weary hours were scanned from edge to edge at a glance. He saw
the silver shine of lakes and ponds like scattered coins and bits of
broken glass; black and purple vasts of pine and spruce and fir;
gray dead-lands and brown barrens; and here and there his exploring
eyes caught a flush of red-budded maples, a pale green wave of
poplars in new leaf, and a smudge of yellow where crowded willows
hung out their powdery blooms. A flock of geese flying northward
with him at the same altitude, swerved from their course by a few
points as they came abreast of him and drew slowly ahead and away.
His machine was not the swiftest in the world, by any means, but it
slid along those free tracks of air at an unvarying rate of sixty
miles an hour; its taut sinews humming against the wind of its
flight and its trusty engines singing full and strong and smooth
with a voice of loyalty and power.
Doctor Smith and Mrs. Smith, of Timbertown, lunched that day with
one of the windows of the dining-room wide open, so bland and bright
was the air. They had trout from the mill-pond—the first of the
season—and steamed apple-pudding. Their trusty cook, who also waited
on table, had the platter of trout bones in one hand and the pudding
in the other, and was on the point of removing the first from before
the doctor and replacing it with the second, when a shadow fell
across a corner of the table. All three looked up and beheld a
bare-headed young man in a leather coat at the window.
The cook set the pudding down with a thump that split it from top to
bottom; but as the doctor and his wife jumped to their feet without
so much as a glance at the wrecked pastry, the cook also ignored it
and retired hastily with the platter of bones.
“Hello!” exclaimed the doctor. “Speak of the—we were just talking
about you, major. Come in. Glad to see you.”
“I’d better not,” replied Tom. “I’ve come to take you to Gaspard
Javet’s clearings. His grand-daughter is ill, and Mick Otter thinks
it is diphtheria,—thinks it came with some Indians from Tinder
Brook. The bus is about two miles away,—so if you’ll give me a tin
of gas and come along, I’ll be greatly obliged.”
The Smiths looked greatly concerned.
“I’m with you,” said the doctor. “A tin of gas? Right-o. Better put
on furs, hadn’t I? Eat something while I hustle. Feed the major,
Dickon.”
As Tom persisted in his refusal to enter, from fear that he might
have the germs of diphtheria on his person, Mrs. Smith fed him on
the window-sill with cold ham and pudding and coffee.
“We were speaking of you just a little while before you appeared,”
she said. “Last week’s Herald arrived this morning, with good news;
and we were just wondering how we could get word to you; and here
you are—with bad news. But you mustn’t worry, major. Jim is a great
doctor.”
“I know he is,” replied Tom. “I’ve seen him at work. He is a
two-handed man. And I haven’t wasted any time. Mick Otter threw the
scare into me last night and I nailed the old bus together and
started this morning.”
“I am glad you hurried—but you’ll be careful, won’t you? Try not to
crash with Jim, please.”
“I’ll do the very best I know how, you may be sure. I promise you
that I’ll bring him back just as carefully as I take him away. I
can’t say more than that.”
“No, indeed. Now where is that Herald? Here is it.”
The lady picked up a newspaper from the floor and began to search
its columns for a particular item; but before she had found what she
wanted the doctor entered the room. He wore a fur cap and carried a
fur coat on his arm; in one hand was a professional bag and in the
other a can of gasoline. The lady folded the paper small and stuffed
it into one of his pockets.
“Take it with you,” she said. “It should bring you luck on the
journey.”
He set his burdens on the floor and embraced her.
“Don’t expect me back till you hear us coming,” he said. “And don’t
worry, Dickon. If I had the pick of the whole Air Force for this
trip I’d pick the major.”
He took up his burdens and left the room, joining Tom in front of
the house. Tom led the way at a sharp pace to where the aëroplane
lay in a secluded clearing about two miles from the outskirts of the
town. The doctor had picked up a slight knowledge of air-craft
during his service in the army, so together they filled the
petrol-tank and went thoroughly over the machine. The result of the
inspection was satisfactory. Then Tom stowed the doctor and his bag
aboard and donned his cap and goggles.
It was exactly three o’clock when the old bus took wing and flew
straight away into the south.
Mick Otter was the first of the family to catch the song of the
homeward flight. He was out in the wood-yard at the time, splitting
up an old cedar rail for kindlings. He dropped his ax and cocked his
head. He scanned the clear horizon and the blue vault above it,
blinking his eyes when he faced the west. At last he spotted it, and
it looked no bigger than a mosquito. It grew steadily in his vision
and yet did not seem to move; grew to the size of a snipe—continued
to grow, hanging there against the sky, until it looked like a
lonely duck homing to its feeding-grounds. And the sound of its
flight grew too, droning in from all round the horizon. Little
Blackie heard it then and crawled apologetically under the back
porch.
[Illustration: “HE ... THRUST HIS HEAD AND SHOULDERS OUT OF THE
WINDOW.”]
Gaspard Javet heard it. He left his chair beside Catherine’s bed,
crossed the floor on tip-toe and thrust his head and shoulders out
of the window. He saw it, rubbed his eyes and looked again to make
sure, then withdrew from the window and turned to the girl in the
bed.
“Here he comes,” he said.
Catherine moved her head restlessly on the pillow. Her eyes were
wide open, but she paid no attention to her grandfather’s remark.
Instead, she put out a hand gropingly toward a mug of water which
stood on a chair beside the bed. Gaspard went to her in one stride,
raised her head on his arm and gave her a drink. She swallowed a sip
or two with difficulty.
“Hark, Cathie girl,” he whispered. “Don’t ye hear it now? the hum o’
Tom’s flyin’-machine?”
“I’ve heard it for hours,” she answered faintly. “It isn’t true. It
is in my poor head.”
“But I see it this very minute dear, when I looked out the winder.
Thar it was, plain as a pancake, a-hummin’ home like a big June-bug.
It’s Tom, I tell ye, and if he ain’t got a doctor with him then all
the doctors has died! Don’t ye hear it gittin’ louder an’ louder?”
“Yes, it is growing louder,” she said, slowly, “louder than the
noise in my head has ever been—as loud as when Tom flew down out of
the dark that night and frightened you into the woods.”
Gaspard lowered her head to the pillow and hastened from the room in
his socks. He was in such a hurry that he left the door open behind
him and took the short, steep stairs at a slide. He got outside in
time to see the ’plane sink below the top of the dark wall of
forest, flatten out and run on the sod. He raced Mick Otter to it,
shouting as he ran.
The doctor went up alone to see Catherine; while Tom, Mick and
Gaspard sat on the back porch and stared at the resting ’plane
without a word. Tom still had his great gloves on his hands, his
goggles on his eyes and his fur-lined cap on his head.
The doctor returned to them in fifteen minutes; at sight of the
expression on his face they all sighed with relief, and Tom pulled
off his gloves and head-dress.
“Mick, you were right,” said the doctor. “That’s what is the matter
with her, but it hasn’t got much of a hold. And she is strong and
I’m here in plenty of time.”
Mick Otter nodded his head just as if this good news was no news to
him. Gaspard leaned heavily on Tom’s shoulder. Tom took off his
goggles and fell to polishing them diligently with a handkerchief.
“Bless that old bus,” he said, making a swift and furtive pass with
the handkerchief across his eyes.
Doctor Smith pulled a cigarette-case and a folded newspaper from a
side-pocket of his coat. He lit a cigarette and then unfolded the
paper.
“Ah! here it is,” he said. “Dickon and I were wondering how we could
get word to you about it, Tom. Here you are.”
He handed the big sheet to Tom, indicating this official
advertisement with a finger.
“Major Thomas Villers Akerley, M. C. This officer is
hereby instructed to apply at his early convenience for
transfer to the Reserve of Officers, with his present
rank and seniority, and to return to any Officer of the
Permanent or Active Militia, with a complete statement
attached, all such Government Property for which he is
officially responsible. Major Akerley will understand
that, in consideration of his distinguished services,
fine record and good character and the peculiar
circumstances of his case, his compliance with these
instructions will cause the cessation of all Official
action in the matter.
(Signed) T—— W——
Deputy Minister of Militia.”
Tom read it three times, very slowly. The full meaning of it struck
him suddenly, and he trembled. The wide sheet shook between his
hands, fluttered clear and swooped to the floor. Mick Otter picked
it up and stared at it like an owl.
“I see the mark of your finger in that,” said Tom to the doctor.
“And of the fingers of every other old soldier in Canada,” returned
the doctor.
“When may I show it to Catherine?” asked Tom.
“To-morrow, I think. I am counting on that bit of news to save me a
lot of medicine and professional effort.”
Six days later, very early in the morning, Tom Akerley and Dr. Smith
flew away from Gaspard’s clearings—but not northward across the
height-of-land toward Timbertown. They carried the Winter’s catch of
furs with them, which included several exceptionally fine pelts of
otter and mink and a few of “patch” fox. Tom wore the same clothes,
ribbons and all, in which he had landed so violently amid the young
oats on that June night, now almost a full year ago.
They passed high over Boiling Pot and made a landing in a meadow on
the outskirts of a small town. There they attracted a good deal of
attention; so they took flight again as soon as the doctor had
dispatched a telegram to Timbertown and procured petrol and a map.
Their second and last landing was made in the Agricultural
Exhibition Park of a city. Leaving the machine in the charge of a
policeman, and taking the package of pelts with them, they went to
the nearest hotel. From the hotel Tom rang up Militia Headquarters
and the doctor rang up a dependable dealer in furs.
An hour later, Tom gave his name to an orderly. The orderly was back
in fifteen seconds.
“The general will see you now, sir,” he said. “This way, if you
please.”
He opened a door and backed inwards with it, keeping his hand on the
knob.
“Major T. V. Akerley, M. C.,” he announced; and as Tom crossed the
threshold three paces, halted with a smack of his right heel against
his left and saluted, the door closed behind him.
The Inspector General, a large man in a large suit of gray tweed,
looked up from some papers on his desk and said, “How are you,
Akerley? Glad to see you.”
“Thank you, sir,” returned Tom, standing very stiff.
The general left his desk, advanced and extended his hand. Tom
grasped it.
“Glad to hear the machine is all right,” said the general. “You have
had a long flight. Loosen up, my boy. You are not on the carpet, I’m
glad to say.”
Tom’s back and shoulders relaxed a little.
“I can scarcely believe it, sir,” he replied. “May I ask how it
happened? Did Colonel Nasher say how the trouble began?”
“Something like that,” said the general. “Not of his own free will,
of course. It came hard, but we scared it out of him. One of your
men, Dever by name, told of your speaking to him of poor Angus Bruce
just before you flew away that night. And we had Nasher’s letter
objecting to Bruce’s name on the list of posthumous awards; a letter
fairly reeking with cowardly spite. A disgraceful letter. I looked
into that matter and learned that Nasher and the father of Angus
Bruce were enemies of long standing in their home town. I was
inspired to put one and one together and suspect the result of being
two; so I sent for Nasher, to see if the answer really was two. He
came; and I saw at a glance that his wind was up already. The Vets
were hot on his tracks by that time, you know. Half the old soldiers
in Canada had pen in hand, most of them painting you in colors
almost too good to be true; and the remainder demanding to know why,
when and by whom, a person like Nasher had been given a commission.
So, when I asked Nasher, in this very room, what he had said to you
about your friend, young Bruce, fear shook enough of the truth out
of him to satisfy me that you had done exactly what I should have
done in your place.”
“You would have knocked his head clean off, sir,” said Tom.
The general grinned and walked across the room to an open window. He
stood there for half a minute, with his hands behind his back. He
turned suddenly, strode back and laid a hand on the airman’s
shoulder.
“If you feel fit for it, Akerley, I shall be glad to have you carry
on,” he said. “The past year can be called sick-leave. There was
something of the sort due you, anyway.”
Tom changed color several times before he found his voice.
“I feel fit for a fight, sir—but not for peace-time duty, I’m
afraid,” he replied. “I feel that I need to be in the woods, sir,
where I’ve been ever since last June. But if you will put me in the
Reserve, sir, so that I may come back if needed—to fight, you
know—I’ll be very much obliged,—as I am about everything now—more
than I can say.”
“That shall be done,” said the general. And then he added, “So
you’ve been in the woods? What did you do in the woods?”
“Farmed and trapped, sir. It’s a great life.”
“I believe you. Have you bought land?”
“Not yet, sir; but I hope to do so.”
“That reminds me! You must go to the Pay Office. Show them this
receipt for the machine you brought back.”
Then the general walked Tom to the door, still with a hand on his
shoulder, and opened the door. They halted and faced each other on
the threshold.
“Did Angus Bruce get his M. C., sir?” asked Tom.
“He did,” replied the general. “His mother has it. And that reminds
me! You are improperly dressed, Akerley.”
“I am sorry, sir,” returned Tom, in confusion. “I hadn’t any other
clothes to put on.”
“That’s not what I refer to,” said the general, placing a finger-tip
on the ribbon of the Military Cross on Tom’s left breast. “You have
been awarded a bar to this. Get it and put it up before you go back
to the woods, or there’ll be trouble. Send me your permanent
address. Good-by. Good luck.”
It was a long and round-about journey back to Gaspard’s clearings.
But Tom Akerley made it with a light and eager heart, thinking
fearlessly of the past and dreaming fearlessly of the future.