THE AIRMAN
She had seated herself on a stool by the hearth. Presently she spread her
apron with trembling fingers, took the glazed bowl of soup upon her lap
and began to eat, slowly, casting long, unquiet glances at him from time
to time where he still at table leaned heavily, looking out into the rain.
When he caught her eye he smiled, summoning her with a nod of his boyish
head. She set aside her bowl obediently, and, rising, brought him his
crutches. And at the same moment somebody knocked lightly on the outer
door.
Marie-Josephine had unpinned her coiffe. Now she pinned it on over her
_bonnet_ before going to the door, glancing uneasily around at him while
she tied her tresses and settled the delicate starched wings of her
bonnet.
"That’s odd," he said, "that knocking," staring at the door. "Perhaps it
is the lost Englishman."
"God send them," she whispered, going to the door and opening it.
It certainly seemed to be one of the lost Englishmen--a big,
square-shouldered, blond young fellow, tall and powerful, in the leather
dress of an aëronaut. His glass mask was lifted like the visor of a
tilting helmet, disclosing a red, weather-beaten face, wet with rain.
Strength, youth, rugged health was their first impression of this
leather-clad man from the clouds.
He stepped inside the house immediately, halted when he caught sight of
Wayland in his undress uniform, glanced involuntarily at his crutches and
bandaged leg, cast a quick, penetrating glance right and left; then he
spoke pleasantly in his hesitating, imperfect French--so oddly imperfect
that Wayland could not understand him at all.
"Who are you?" he demanded in English.
The airman seemed astonished for an instant, then a quick smile broke out
on his ruddy features:
"I say, this _is_ lucky! Fancy finding an Englishman here!--wherever this
place may be." He laughed. "Of course I know I’m ’somewhere in France,’ as
the censor has it, but I’m hanged if I know where!"
"Come in and shut the door," said Wayland, reassured. Marie-Josephine
closed the door. The aëronaut came forward, stood dripping a moment, then
took the chair to which Wayland pointed, seating himself as though a
trifle tired.
"Shot down," he explained, gaily. "An enemy submarine winged us out yonder
somewhere. I tramped over these bally moors for hours before I found a
sign of any path. A sheepwalk brought me here."
"You are lucky. There is only one house on these moors--this! Who are
you?" asked Wayland.
"West--flight-lieutenant, 10th division, Cinque-Ports patrolling
squadron."
"Good heavens, man! What are you doing in Finistère?"
"_What!_"
"You are in Brittany, province of Finistère. Didn’t you know it?"
The air-officer seemed astounded. Presently he said: "The dirty weather
foxed us. Then that fellow out yonder winged us. I was glad enough to see
a coast line."
"Did you fall?"
"No; we controlled our landing pretty well."
"Where did you land?"
There was a second’s hesitation; the airman looked at Wayland, glanced at
his crippled leg.
"Out there near some woods," he said. "My pilot’s there now trying to
patch up.... You are not French, are you?"
"American."
"Oh! A--volunteer, I presume."
"Foreign Legion--2d."
"I see. Back from the trenches with a leg."
"It’s nearly well. I’ll be back soon."
"Can you walk?" asked the airman so abruptly that Wayland, looking at him,
hesitated, he did not quite know why.
"Not very far," he replied, cautiously. "I can get to the window with my
crutches pretty well."
And the next moment he felt ashamed of his caution when the airman laughed
frankly.
"I need a guide to some petrol," he said. "Evidently you can’t go with
me."
"Haven’t you enough petrol to take you to Lorient?"
"How far is Lorient?"
Wayland told him.
"I don’t know," said the flight-lieutenant; "I’ll have to try to get
somewhere. I suppose it is useless for me to ask," he added, "but have
you, by any chance, a bit of canvas--an old sail or hammock?--I don’t need
much. That’s what I came for--and some shellac and wire, and a screwdriver
of sorts? We need patching as well as petrol; and we’re a little short of
supplies."
Wayland’s steady gaze never left him, but his smile was friendly.
"We’re in a tearing hurry, too," added the flight-lieutenant, looking out
of the window.
Wayland smiled. "Of course there’s no petrol here. There’s nothing here. I
don’t suppose you could have landed in a more deserted region if you had
tried. There’s a château in the Laïs woods, but it’s closed; owner and
servants are at the war and the family in Paris."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody has cleared out; the war has
stripped the country; and there never were any people on these moors,
excepting shooting parties and, in the summer, a stray artist or two from
Quimperlé."
The lieutenant looked at him. "You say there is nobody here--between here
and Lorient? No--troops?"
"There’s nothing to guard. The coast is one vast shoal. Ships pass hull
down. Once a day a coast guard patrols along the cliffs----"
"When?"
"He has passed, unfortunately. Otherwise he might signal by relay to
Lorient and have them send you out some petrol. By the way--are you
hungry?"
The flight-lieutenant showed all his firm, white teeth under a yellow
mustache, which curled somewhat upward. He laughed in a carefree way, as
though something had suddenly eased his mind of perplexity--perhaps the
certainty that there was no possible chance for petrol. Certainty is said
to be more endurable than suspense.
"I’ll stop for a bite--if you don’t mind--while my pilot tinkers out
yonder," he said. "We’re not in such a bad way. It might easily have been
worse. Do you think you could find us a bit of sail, or something, to use
for patching?"
Wayland indicated an old high-backed chair of oak, quaintly embellished
with ancient leather in faded blue and gold. It had been a royal chair in
its day, or the Fleur-de-Lys lied.
The flight-lieutenant seated himself with a rather stiff bow.
"If you need canvas"--Wayland hesitated--then, gravely: "There are, in my
room, a number of artists’ _toiles_--old chassis with the blank canvas
still untouched."
"Exactly what we need!" exclaimed the other. "What luck, now, to meet a
painter in such a place as this!"
"They belonged to my father," explained Wayland. "We--Marie-Josephine and
I--have always kept my father’s old canvases and colours--everything of
his.... I’ll be glad to give them to a British soldier.... They’re about
all I have that was his--except that oak chair you sit on."
He rose on his crutches, spoke briefly in Breton to Marie-Josephine, then
limped slowly away to his room.
When he returned with half a dozen blank canvases the flight-lieutenant,
at table, was eating pork and black bread and drinking Breton cider.
Wayland seated himself, laid both crutches across his knees, picked up one
of the chassis, and began to rip from it the dusty canvas. It was like
tearing muscles from his own bones. But he smiled and chatted on,
casually, with the air-officer, who ate as though half starved.
"I suppose," said Wayland, "you’ll start back across the Channel as soon
as you secure petrol enough?"
"Yes, of course."
"You could go by way of Quimper or by Lorient. There’s petrol to be had at
both places for military purposes"--leisurely continuing to rip the big
squares of canvas from the frames.
The airman, still eating, watched him askance at intervals.
"I’ve brought what’s left of the shellac; it isn’t much use, I fear. But
here is his hammer and canvas stretcher, and the remainder of the nails he
used for stretching his canvases," said Wayland, with an effort to speak
carelessly.
"Many thanks. You also are a painter, I take it."
Wayland laid one hand on the sleeve of his uniform and laughed.
"I _was_ a writer. But there are only soldiers in the world now."
"Quite so ... This is an odd place for an American to live in."
"My father bought it years ago. He was a painter of peasant life." He
added, lowering his voice, although Marie-Josephine understood no English:
"This old peasant woman was his model many years ago. She also kept house
for him. He lived here; I was born here."
"Really?"
"Yes, but my father desired that I grow up a good Yankee. I was at school
in America when he--died."
The airman continued to eat very busily.
"He died--out there"--Wayland looked through the window, musingly. "There
was an Iceland schooner wrecked off the Isle des Chouans. And no
life-saving crew short of Ylva Light. So my father went out in his little
American catboat, all alone.... Marie-Josephine saw his sail off Eryx
Rocks ... for a few moments ... and saw it no more."
The airman, still devouring his bread and meat, nodded in silence.
"That is how it happened," said Wayland. "The French authorities notified
me. There was a little money and this hut, and--Marie-Josephine. So I came
here; and I write children’s stories--that sort of thing.... It goes well
enough. I sell a few to American publishers. Otherwise I shoot and fish
and read ... when war does not preoccupy me...."
He smiled, experiencing the vague relief of talking to somebody in his
native tongue. Quesnel Moors were sometimes very lonely.
"It’s been a long convalescence," he continued, smilingly. "One of their
’coal-boxes’ did this"--touching his leg. "When I was able to move I went
to America. But the sea off the Eryx called me back; and the authorities
permitted me to come down here. I’m getting well very fast now."
He had stripped every chassis of its canvas, and had made a roll of the
material.
"I’m very glad to be of any use to you," he said pleasantly, laying the
roll on the table.
Marie-Josephine, on her low chair by the hearth, sat listening to every
word as though she had understood. The expression in her faded eyes varied
constantly; solicitude, perplexity, vague uneasiness, a recurrent glimmer
of suspicion were succeeded always by wistful tenderness when her gaze
returned to Wayland and rested on his youthful face and figure with a
pride forever new.
Once she spoke in mixed French and Breton:
"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques, _mon chéri_?"
"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do you?"
"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"
"He has the tricks of speech. Also his accent is of an English university.
There is no mistaking it."
"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed in the universities of England?"
"Yes.... But----"
"_Gar à nous, mon p’tit_, Jacques. In Finistère a stranger is a suspect.
Since earliest times they have done us harm in Finistère. The
strangers--God knows what centuries of evil they have wrought."
"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned again to the airman, who had
now satisfied his hunger and had already risen to gather up the roll of
canvas, the hammer, nails, and shellac.
"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially. "I’ll take these articles,
if I may. It’s very good of you ... I’m in a tearing hurry----"
"Won’t your pilot come over and eat a bit?"
"I’ll take him this bread and meat, if I may. Many thanks." He held out
his heavily gloved hand with a friendly smile, nodded to Marie-Josephine.
And as he hurriedly turned to go, the ancient carving on the high-backed
chair caught him between the buttons of his leather coat, tearing it wide
open over the breast. And Wayland saw the ribbon of the Iron Cross there
fastened to a sea-grey tunic.
There was a second’s frightful silence.
"What’s that you wear?" said Wayland hoarsely. "Stop! Stand where you----"
"Halt! Don’t touch that shotgun!" cried the airman sharply. But Wayland
already had it in his hands, and the airman fired twice at him where he
stood--steadied the automatic to shoot again, but held his fire, seeing it
would not be necessary. Besides, he did not care to shoot the old woman
unless military precaution made it advisable; and she was on her knees,
her withered arms upflung, shielding the prostrate body with her own.
"You Yankee fool," he snapped out harshly--"it is your own fault, not
mine!... Like the rest of your imbecile nation you poke your nose where it
has no business! And I--" He ceased speaking, realizing that his words
remained unheard.
After a moment he backed toward the door, carrying the canvas roll under
his left arm and keeping his eye carefully on the prostrate man. Also, one
can never trust the French!--he was quite ready for that old woman there
on the floor who was holding the dead boy’s head to her breast, muttering:
"My darling! My child!--Oh, little son of Marie-Josephine!--I told thee--I
warned thee of the stranger in Finistère!... Marie--holy--intercede!...
All--all are born to grief in Finistère!..."