tell.” Her brow wrinkled. She was thinking of the hole in the ground
where an ancient playhouse had once stood. “How about a tramp to the
village?” she suggested.
“O. K. by me,” said Dave. “I’ll see if my boots are finished.”
The boots were not finished. But then, boots at the cobbler’s never
are—at least, not the first time you call.
“You’ll have to pardon the delay,” the old man apologized. “So many boys
from the airdrome have brought in their boots.
“But things will go faster now.” His face brightened. “You see I have a
helper.”
For the first time Dave noticed a short, sturdy young man sitting in the
corner. He was sewing on a sole and never once looked up.
Dave thought with a start, “He has a vaguely familiar look. But I’ve
never seen him before, that’s certain.”
“He does very fine work.” The old man rubbed his hands together. “Very
fine indeed.”
Appearing a little disturbed by Dave’s lingering look at the stranger,
old John followed him out of the shop to close the door behind him.
“He’s quite proper,” he said, jerking a thumb backward toward the shop.
“He looks like a German, but he’s a refugee, a Hollander. You
understand?”
“Yes,—I”
“His papers are in perfect order. I saw to that you may well believe.”
The old man laughed a trifle uncertainly. “Our local magistrate looked
over those papers for me,” he went on. “We can’t take chances. But this,
you see, is a rare opportunity. I’ve never made any real money, not in
all my long life. And now, with all these fliers coming in—”
“Gives you a break,” said Dave. “I wish you lots of luck.” As it turned
out, the old man was to need it,—lots and lots of luck.
When the cobbler opened the door to retrace his steps, Flash, the
collie, who had come up as a sort of vanguard to Alice, put his nose in
at the cobbler’s door, gave a long sniff, then uttered a low growl.
“Well now, I wonder what he means by that?” Dave thought as he hurried
away to join Alice.
That night, after the others had retired, Mrs. Ramsey, Dave and Brand
sat for a long time silently watching the fading glow of the wood fire.
“Mother,” Brand said suddenly, “I’d like to join the Royal Air Force.”
“Oh! No!” The mother’s words came short and quick. “You are needed here.
Besides, there’s little enough for our aviators to do now. After the
beating up we gave them, the Jerries, as you call them, are only coming
over at night. You can’t find them at night. That’s work for the
anti-aircraft batteries.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Brand murmured beneath his breath. “But
mother,” his voice rose, “the Huns may come over, a million of them, by
air and sea, perhaps tomorrow. We must be prepared!”
“And we must be fed,” his mother replied quietly. “Perhaps later—” She
did not finish. She knew a great deal about war, did the brave-hearted
English mother.
“Wars,” said David, speaking before he thought, “are wrong. There should
be no wars.”
Instantly the woman’s slow, steady gaze was upon him. “She’s angry with
me,” he thought. His lips were parted for the words, “I’m sorry.”
But she spoke first. “You are exactly right, David. Wars are terrible. I
should know. Wars have cost me those I loved far more than life. Now
another war may cost me my son, and perhaps my daughters.
“Some of us,” she went on, “did what we could to prevent this war. We
failed. Why? Perhaps none of us will ever know for sure.
“However,” her voice was steady and sure, “we have a war. We have no
choice but to fight it. We must fight or be enslaved. Our enemy has left
no room for doubt there. England has always been free.”
After that for some time, save for the slow, steady tick—tock—tick—tock
of the dependable old English clock in the corner, there was silence in
the great room.
Later, as they stood outside beneath the stars, Brand told Dave that for
more than a year the Young Lord had been training him, teaching him how
to become a fighter. “And he’s a real fighter himself, you may be sure
of that.” His voice was low and strong. “He’s no braggart like some of
those flying Huns. He has a real record all the same. He flew in France
during the Blitzkrieg. Sometimes it was ten Messerschmitts to his one
Hurricane. He got two of them. That was just one time. There were many
others. You just wait!” His voice rose sharply. “I’ll be right up there
beside him in a Tomahawk one of these days!”
Would he? Dave wondered.
_Chapter_ X
First Blood
Next day, just after lunch, feeling very much like a small boy slipping
away to go fishing, Dave made his way toward the airdrome. He wanted, he
told himself, to study a Spitfire. He had seen that one in action over
the farm on the day of that air battle. It had fascinated him. Truth
was, he hoped to run across the Young Lord and perhaps to be invited for
one more ride in that two-seater. There was, he realized, a slight
element of danger in such an excursion, just enough to give it tang,
like a frosty morning.
He was not to be disappointed. Lieutenant Applegate was just having the
machine rolled out.
“Greetings!” he cried. “Just in time! But then,” his voice changed. “I
must not tempt you too much. This, you will understand, is our life. It
is easy to ask too much of one who is not in on the great game.”
“I’ll be glad to go up again,” Dave said quietly. “To tell you the
truth, that’s what I had hoped to do.”
“Righto! Climb in!” Applegate exclaimed. “You see,” he added, “we’re
just giving this ship a tryout. Perhaps after we’ve done a stretch of
patrol, we’ll ask the ground crew to run up a sky target and I’ll let
you have a try at it with a few bursts of machine gun fire.”
“Oh!” Dave caught his breath sharply. But if he had known!
“We’ve always got more men than ships,” Applegate went on. “So if two
men in a ship like this, by dividing the things to worry about, like
dials, controls, gun-sights and all, can accomplish more than one, why
then, that’s the berries. What say? Shall we be away?”
Dave nodded. Then they were off and away into the blue.
As on that other day, the sky was magnificent—bright blue, with clouds
like huge cotton balls floating through it. Dave could not recall a
moment in his life he had enjoyed so much. There was the thrill of
speeding through space at three hundred and better miles an hour, and of
looking down upon a world that was entirely new to him. Added to this—a
real dash of red pepper—was the possibility that they might—just might
bump into an enemy craft. Did he wish the last? He could not tell.
Flying was strange. It was like a game, basketball or football—you went
into it cold. As your blood warmed, a certain reckless daring came over
you. You didn’t will it, perhaps did not, in your sober moments, so much
as want it. It was there, and for the time being you could but yield to
its urge.
Today it was just like that. Now diving into a fleecy cloud, they were
lost to the entire world. But not for long. Like a dove flying from a
cloud in a picture postcard, they glided once more into the bright
sunshine.
Little patches and squares, forests, fields, homesteads, lovely villages
all lay beneath them.
Seized with a sudden impulse, Dave spoke hoarsely into his mouthpiece:
“Let me take her for a minute.” Ten seconds later he was working the
joystick and Applegate, like an old lady in a wheelchair, was lolling
back in his place.
But not for long. Suddenly Applegate straightened up, shaded his eyes,
stared straight ahead, reached for his field glass, looked again, then
said in a cheerful voice:
“See that long white cloud over to the left?”
“Ye—yes.” Dave’s heart pounded, he scarcely knew why.
“Swing over into it, then stay in it, going straight down it toward the
channel. It must be all of four miles long. I—I rather smell a Hun.”
Dave obeyed instructions. The world was again lost to view.
Their journey along that cloud could scarcely have lasted two minutes,
but to Dave that seemed a long, long hour. What was beyond the other end
of the cloud? Something, he was sure. Did it mean a fight? He hadn’t
counted on that. This was not his war. Was he sorry? He did not know.
The ways of a human mind are past finding out.
Then, as if their plane had given a sudden leap, they were out of the
cloud. And there, off a little to the right, was a dark spot against the
blue of the sky.
The Lieutenant made one gesture, a stiff arm, pointing. That was all.
They were a full ten minutes coming within striking distance of that
large plane. Every second of that exciting race Dave expected his
companion to take over his controls, and all the time he remained
silent, impassive.
At last, in a calm, even tone, he spoke: “That’s a Dornier. London took
a terrific beating last night. Many women and children were killed or
injured. That Dornier’s been taking pictures so they can find fresh
spots to bomb. His pictures must not reach Allemond. We must get him.”
His words were like rasping steel. Even then he did not take the
controls.
A strange, cold wrath took possession of Dave’s entire being. “Women and
children killed and injured.” He did not want the Young Lord to take the
controls. And he knew what was to be done. He wanted to do it, at all
risks.
Dropping a little below the flying level of the Dornier, he added a
little speed, then streaked straight on. His heart was pounding, but his
head was clear. At last, having risen to the attack, they were within
striking distance.
“It’s football,” he was thinking calmly. “That Dornier’s got the ball.
But in the end, it’ll be thrown for a loss.”
Even as he thought this, the Dornier banked sharply to soar away to the
left. At the same time the air was ripped,—rat—rat—rat. The side shots
from the Dornier went wild.
Once again they were after the foe. Once more they were all but upon the
enemy’s tail when he swung sharply to the left. From the Dornier’s side
came a wild burst of gunfire.
“Wasting his slugs,” Applegate exulted. “Keep right after him.” His hand
was on the firing button. One push and eight guns would spray death,
nearly ten thousand shots a minute. He could wait. It took just ten
seconds when everything was right.
On the tip of Dave’s tongue were the words; “Here, take the controls.”
He did not say them. His tongue would not waggle that way.
The Dornier took a nose-dive. When he came out of it the two-seater was
with him. He tried climbing. No use. They could outclimb him, two to
one.
Once again he straightened out, then curved to the right.
Recalling how so very often a football runner will repeat a pattern, a
dash to the right, one to left, then straight ahead, Dave worked out a
plan. Would it succeed? Only time, a terribly short time, could tell.
True to his pattern the Dornier pilot banked first right, then left, and
after that went into a power dive.
Measuring this dive with greatest accuracy, Dave managed to come out of
his own dive just in time to glide squarely up on the enemy’s tail.
Squinting through his sight, the Lieutenant gripped his gun control and
waited. Dave found himself counting, “One—two—three.” Then came a sudden
burst of sound that all but startled him into a tail spin.
Regaining his control, he shot heavenward.
The Dornier had received a ten-second burst of gunfire, hundreds of
slugs, straight down her pencil-like fuselage. What would be the result?
They must wait and see.
The Dornier lost its steady, straight onward flight. It began to smoke,
then to lose altitude. Just then it went into a cloud.
“Dumb!” said Harmon.
Fearlessly Dave drove into that cloud. It was a long one. A full minute
passed, another, and they were out.
Beyond them now was all clear, blue sky. There was no spot against that
patch of blue.
The Young Lord took the controls. They spiralled downward toward the
sea. At last they were beneath the cloud. There was nothing hiding
there. But on the surface of the sea was a white spot. It was not foam.
There were no white-caps.
“Good!” exclaimed the Young Lord. “We’ll head for home. If we hurry a
bit we’ll be in time for tea.” And they were.
“We got that Dornier right enough,” the Young Lord whispered the minute
they were on solid ground again. “But not a word about this! It’s
frightfully irregular, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sure it is,” Dave agreed.
“And after all, it’s not your war,” his companion added.
“No. Of course not,” Dave agreed. “It’s not my war.” For the first time
in his life those words seemed a bit strange.
At headquarters Dave asked for coffee and got it, good coffee served by
a bright faced English girl.
He had just taken his first swallow when two young men entered. At once
the Young Lord was on his feet.
The slim, dark-eyed one of the new arrivals said: “As you were.” At once
tension relaxed.
“Commander Knox,” said the Young Lord, “I want you to meet my friend
Dave Barnes from America. He thinks he can fly.” He grinned slyly.
“All Americans think that.” The Squad Commander chuckled. “Didn’t you
ever notice that?”
“Yes—yes I have,” the Young Lord agreed. “And mostly they can’t. But
this chap,”—he gave Dave a quick grin—“I shouldn’t wonder if he could
fly. Oh, just the least little bit.”
“You wouldn’t be spoofing us?” said the red-headed companion of the
Commander. He was grinning broadly.
“No one could spoof you!” the Young Lord laughed. “You’ve already been
spoofed.”
“Dave,” he said, turning to his companion, “meet the singing murderer.
We call him the Lark because he sings as he flies. You should hear him
roaring away! He sings ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ while he swoops down on
the tail of some unsuspecting Messerschmitt and blasts him from the
sky.”
“That,” said the Lark without smiling, “may be a joke. It works for all
that. I learned the trick when I was a boy fishing for salmon in
Scotland. If I could whistle, carrying a tune, while I was landing a big
one, I’d not get excited and I’d land my fish. It’s the same with the
sky fighting. If you can carry a tune in the thick of it—”
“If you can,” laughed Dave, “then I’ll say you’re good!”
“He’s right as he possibly can be,” said the Commander.
“The good old Leader of Squadron 73 over in France used to say: ‘Boys,
you may have as many good points as you like, but two are absolutely
necessary: courage that will stick, and an unfailing sense of humor.
Nothing keeps up a fellow’s sense of humor better than a song.’
“Guess we’ll have to toddle along.” The Commander moved away. “Good to
have met you, Barnes. If you can really fly, and I must say you do look
the part, we’ll sign you up just any time you say.” At that he and the
Lark vanished through the swinging doors.
As Dave stared after them, awed respect was registered in his eyes. “So
he was with Squadron 73!” he murmured.
“Sure was.” Applegate beamed. “In France, all the way, right through the
Blitzkrieg. That was the fightingest aggregation that ever flew in
formation. They shot down more than a hundred planes for sure, and sent
a likely hundred more limping home.”
“How many came back to tell the story?” Dave was visibly impressed.
“Nearly all,” was the reply. “I think they lost two commissioned and two
non-commissioned officers. That was all.”
“Sayee!” Dave murmured. “Air fighting is almost as safe as football!”
“Absolutely,” his companion agreed. “Providing you know your stuff and
have been born in the air.”
“And that,” Dave thought, as he started for home some little time later,
“is how I keep out of this man’s war. I’d better look up the plane
schedule to Lisbon tomorrow.” But would he?
_Chapter_ XI
Cobbler or Spy?
Dave walked toward Ramsey Farm in a thoughtful mood. Always for him, in
the past, the ability to do a thing well had meant a clear track ahead.
“But now,” he whispered, stopping stock still in the road to think. With
the Young Lord’s help he had accomplished something that in this
war-shattered land seemed rather more than well worth doing.
There was nothing startling about the part he had played. Back in
America his uncle, a World War ace, had put him through his paces, that
was all. In a staunch old two-seater they had banked, rolled, power
dived and looped the loop until he really knew how. What fun it had
been! He had not thought of it as preparation for anything. Yet today,
when the test came, he was prepared. Yes, the ability to do a thing had
always meant “Go ahead.”
“I could do it all again,” he assured himself as he thought of the day’s
adventure.
For a moment more he stood there looking at the blue sky, white clouds,
and gay autumn leaves that were England at her best. “This is England,”
he whispered, “Bit by bit it is being destroyed by one man’s hate and
lust for power.”
“Damn!” he swore softly. Then he hurried on.
He decided to take the long way home, the road that ran through
Warmington. “Shoemakers,” he thought, “always have your work finished
the second time, never the first. My boots will be done.”
“Here you are, sir,” said old John, handing out a neat package and
taking the pay. “I ’opes you find them satisfactory, sir.”
“Oh, I shall, I am sure,” Dave said absent-mindedly. He was not thinking
of the boots. His eyes were once more upon the young cobbler in the far
corner. As before, his face hidden, he was bent low over his work.
“I ’opes you’ve ’ad a pleasant afternoon,” said old John.
“Oh! Very!” said Dave.
“If he only knew,” he murmured with a low laugh after he had left the
shop.
Across the street was the village Pub. Its sign proclaimed it to be Ye
Old Angel Inn. How long did an angel have to live in order to be
considered really old, Dave asked himself whimsically. He had thought of
angels as being ageless. Perhaps there weren’t any angels after all. He
had once seen a picture of a French war plane going down in flames, and
of two angels waiting, with hands crossed, to catch the unhappy pilot as
he fell. “Shall I ever be in need of two angels?” he asked himself
dreamily.
He crossed the street to enter Ye Old Angel Inn. He liked these English
Pubs. They were village clubs. There was about them a pleasant aroma of
beef roasting over an open fire, of hot toddy and strange English
tobacco. He could, he thought, stand for one more cup of coffee. The
weather had suddenly turned cloudy, damp and cold.
The coffee was good. He lingered over it, then ordered a second cup.
As he sat there he heard voices. Two villagers sat at a table in the
corner drinking hot toddy.
“I’m tellin’ ye now, James,” one voice rose sharply, “’e’s nothin’ more
nor less than a bloomin’ Jerry. ’E’s a spy, that ’e is.”
“Aw now, Danny,” the other admonished, “you know what old John told you
’e is. ’E’s ’Ollander, no more, nor no less. ’Is papers they is all in
horder.”
“I know. I know,” Danny agreed petulantly. “But that don’t make it so.
You know as well as I know ’ow easy as nothin’ it is fer a Jerry to git
papers fixed to suit ’is own self.
“Now look, Jimmy.” Danny’s voice dropped. “Ye mind the last war. There
were our castle, Warmington Castle, as fine an hedifice as there be in
all Hengland. An’ what ’appens? Ramsey, over at the farm, ’e ’ires
’imself a Jerry, a prisoner of war ’e was. ’e treats ’im like a
long-lost brother, Ramsey does. An’ what ’appens? I asks you, what
’appens?”
“It weren’t never proved that it were this Jerry that signaled to the
bloomin’ airplane that come over an’ blasted the castle,” James
protested.
“I know—I know. But who would doubt it?”
And so the argument ended. Dave finished his coffee, then wandered out
into the chill of falling night. Danny and James had given him fresh
food for serious thought.
Cherry was booked for a return to her subway studio on the following
evening. Dave spent the greater part of that day teaching her a new
song. He knew the tune and could pick it out for her on the piano. By
great good fortune he found the words written out in longhand on a scrap
of paper in his Sunday clothes.
“It’s not a new song,” he told her. “In fact, it’s more than twenty
years old. An orchestra leader named Orrin Tucker dug it out of the file
and gave it to his little five-foot singing doll named Bonnie Baker.
It’s gone across America like a Nebraska cyclone. This is it:
“Oh! Johnny! Oh! Johnny!
How you can love!
Oh! Johnny! Oh! Johnny!
Heavens above.”
“Catchy,” said Cherry, beginning to hum it.
Catchy was right, and Cherry was the one person in all the world to set
England on fire with it.
That night in the chill damp of the subway, she sang it over and over.
Next day in the airdromes and factories, barracks, schools, stores and
on the street, one might hear: “Oh! Johnny! Oh! Johnny!”
The song was made. So too was Cherry. In the days that followed she was
to become the sweetheart of all England. Newspapers were to print her
picture in color. These pictures were to appear on the rough board walls
of cantonments all over England, and in the cabins of boats, large and
small, sailing the dangerous North Sea.
She was to be taken up by the nobility. Lady Perkins, a friend of the
Young Lord, who lived in London, was to make her a part of her
household, with privilege of coming and going as she pleased.
Only now and then did she sleep with some working girls in the subway.
Most nights after the “all clear” had sounded, she sped away to creep
beneath downy covers in a wing of Lady Perkins’ mammoth old home.
“It’s not that I crave magnificence,” she confided to Dave, “It’s just
that I must have rest. It—well, you see—it all must seem so simple and
easy, my singing. And it truly is, but,”—she heaved a sigh—“when it’s
all over, I’m a rag.”
“I know,” Dave agreed. “It’s always that way. The thing you do with
apparent ease because you have yourself under perfect carefree control,
is just the thing that takes it out of you.”
By himself later, Dave recalled words of a great old poem:
“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
And walk with kings, nor lose the common touch,—”
“That,” he told himself, “is just what Cherry can do. And nothing can
ever spoil her.”
If he had quoted from that same poem:
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same,—”
he would have been telling Cherry’s fortune, for Cherry was to meet with
both Triumph and Disaster.
_Chapter_ XII
“The House Is Gone”
It happened, or shall we say began, on a Sunday night. During the many
days previous to this, things had picked up little by little in Cherry’s
subway radio studio. One evening the little Irish girl who played the
piano had brought in a young fellow with a shabby violin case under his
arm. “Can you play it?” Cherry asked.
“A little,” was the modest reply.
The young fellow, who had gone through all the horrors of the Battle of
Flanders and Dunkirk, was Scotch. He could do weird things with that
violin. With it alone he could make you believe that a score or more of
bagpipers were marching down the street. And when it came to that mellow
old Scotch song:
“Flow gently, Sweet Afton
Among thy green braes
Flow gently. I’ll sing thee
A song in thy praise.”
he could bring a happy tear to many a tired eye. So he was given a place
on the program, and weary Cherry sang a little less than before.
Other musicians wandered in. Where they all came from no one will ever
know. Next there came a cellist, then a drummer, two bass viols, two
clarinets, two more violins, a gypsy girl with tambourine and
castanets,—all these and half a dozen others wandered in. After that
they had an orchestra. There was not an “artist” in the hard and fast
meaning of the word among them all, but they could roll the barrel, set
Johnny loving, swing the chariot low, roll the old chariot along, and do
a hundred other songs dear to the hearts of the good common people of
old England and to many another who did not consider himself quite so
common.
All this gave Cherry a breathing spell now and then. But when the
members of the orchestra had each done his bit for just so long, there
would come calls from all down the subway:
“Cherry! Cherry! We want Cherry! We want the Singin’ Angel.”
The Singin’ Angel, that is what they came at last to call her. That was
because of Sunday nights, for on that night they left the Old Chariot at
home, put lovin’ Johnny to bed early, rolled the barrel far back in the
corner, and pushed “The Old Rugged Cross” right out in front.
No one seemed to mind. Indeed they appeared to love that hour of the
week best of all. In times such as this people cling to their religion.
One moment “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me” would go rolling on and on from
end to end of the subway.
Some one in the orchestra would start “Throw Out The Lifeline to danger
frought men.”
Then Cherry in her strong young voice would sing:
“When all my trials and troubles are o’er
And I am safe on that beautiful shore
That will be glory, be glory for me.”
“Now!” she would cry. “Everybody sing!”