that had housed the Ramsey tribe for a dozen generations was a wreck. A
bomb had landed on the east end and torn it completely away. Gone was
the prim little parlor with its very formal furniture, gone the cozy
dining room with its array of ancient willow-ware and rare glass-ware.
Gone was the big four-poster bed on which Cherry and Alice had slept
since they were tiny tots, and gone all the countless treasures that had
adorned their rooms.
“Le—t—, let’s have a look.” Brand climbed out of the car. He was trying
to be nonchalant about the whole affair and making a bad job of it.
Dave climbed out after him. Then, after ten seconds of listening, he
flashed on the spy’s powerful light. At once the whole wrecked place
stood out in bold relief.
By some miracle the great chimney had withstood the shock. The fireplace
had been blown clean of ashes.
“Dave, you were a gem.” These were Cherry’s first words. “If there had
been a spark of fire!”
“It’s a miracle that anything is left,” said Applegate. “Of course
you’ll all come up to live with us.”
“Oh, no.” Alice spoke slowly. “The children would worry Lady Applegate.
I—I’m sorry. We still have furniture and cooking things. I’m sure quite
enough. And there’s the Hideout up at the foot of the hill. It’s quite
large and hidden among the trees. We may,” she hesitated, “may need to
borrow a few dishes. We—we don’t seem to have any.”
“There are whole china cupboardsful at our house. I’ll have a car full
of them down first thing in the morning.
“Sure that’s all?” the young Lord asked anxiously.
“No, not quite.” Cherry smiled a shy smile as she whispered hoarsely.
“I—I’m quite sure that Alice’s dream-robes and mine have gone to grace
the Milky Way.”
“That also shall be attended to,” said the young Lord, after they had
enjoyed a good laugh.
The trusty old farm truck was backed out of its shed. Beds, chairs,
blankets, pots, pans, and quantities of food were piled on. Then they
rattled away up the hill to the Hideout.
After building a fire on the wide old hearth they put things in such
order as they could for the night.
After the others had been made comfortable and were asleep Dave and
Cherry still sat by the fire.
“We’re always last,” Cherry whispered hoarsely. “It takes time for our
nerves to run down. They’re like a cheap old alarm clock, I guess.” She
laughed.
“That’s it,” Dave agreed.
“Brand and I are signing up tomorrow,” he said after a time.
“I thought Brand would, after this night. Who wouldn’t?” Her whisper was
tense with emotion. “It’s his country. But why you? It’s not yours.”
“In America,” Dave replied soberly, “we have a saying, ‘A man’s home is
where he hangs his hat’. Your home has been mine. It has been bombed.
And so—”
He did not finish. Just sat there staring at the fire. “There’s a lot
more to it than that,” he went on after a time. “It’s easy enough to
say, ‘It’s not my war’, when you’re far away. But when you are here,
when you see how this war is being fought, defenseless women and
children who never harmed anyone being killed and country homes bombed.
Good God! How can you help wanting to fight?
“And there’s still more to it,” he added after a moment’s silence. “This
flying sort of gets you. I’ve been within its grip since the first time
I went up.
“And flyer fighting.” He took a long breath. “It’s like our American
football. It’s a game. The other fellow has the ball. You go after him.
You have the ball. He goes after you. You dodge this way and that. You
stiff arm him if he gets close. You lean like the Tower of Pisa, you
zigzag and weave like a sapling in the wind. Flyer fighting is like
that.”
“But the score?” Cherry whispered.
“Ah, yes,” Dave murmured. “The score must always be heavy on your side.”
They were silent. At last Cherry whispered: “I seem to hear applause,
the way you hear it on the radio. Per—perhaps it’s the applause of
angels. Perhaps the applause is for you. Anyway, here’s wishing you
luck.” She put out a slender hand to seize his in a quick, nervous grip.
A quarter hour later the girl was beneath the blankets beside her sister
and Dave, rolled in a thick, soft rug before the fire, was fast asleep.
_Chapter_ XVI
Fiddlin’ Johnny
Two nights later they were all seated about the fire in the Hideout.
Their new home was small but not too crowded for company. Young Lord
Applegate and two of his flying buddies were there. Beside the Lord,
whom Dave had met some days before, there was a flyer they had nicknamed
Fiddlin’ Johnny. Johnny was slender, fair-haired and dreamy-eyed. “Just
the sort that doesn’t seem to belong in the air,” Applegate had said to
Dave. “But he’s got a real record. You’d be surprised.”
“Give us a tune, Johnny,” Brand urged, as Alice’s tea warmed their
souls.
“Oh, all right!” Johnny rose awkwardly. “I’m not much of a fiddler, but
anything to please.” After blowing on a strange little pipe, he tuned
his violin, then was away to a good start.
The moment his bow slid across the strings Cherry knew they were in for
a rare treat. Paying little attention to his audience nor even to their
applause, Johnny launched into a series of quaint, melodious, old tunes.
Like a slow-flowing river he drifted from one to another and yet
another. All unconscious of those about him, he played on and on. He
appeared to play not for them but for the few birds lingering among bare
branches of wind-lashed trees outside, or perhaps to the angels in
heaven.
“Oh!” Cherry breathed, when at last he returned his violin to its
battered case. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She turned to the young Lord.
“Why didn’t you bring him to one of our subway songfests?”
“Johnny!” The young Lord laughed. “He’d never remember when to stop.”
“Stop!” the girl exclaimed in her hoarse whisper. “Who would want him to
stop? That—why that was divine.”
“Oh! Thank you! Thank you!” Johnny’s face flushed.
“He’s just the same when he’s in the air fighting,” said the young Lord.
“Flies as if he were in a dream and never thinks to stop. He—”
Suddenly he broke off. Someone had turned on the short-wave radio. It
was low. Reaching over, he turned it louder.
“Get an earful of this.” His lips were curled in scorn.
The man on the radio was saying in fairly good English, “The quality of
the British fighters is laughable.”
“How do you mean?” a voice on the radio asked.
“That’s Helmuth Wick, the boasting Hun,” the young Lord whispered.
“They merely try to stay out of our reach, those English fighters,” said
the boasting German pilot. “This shows that the best English pilots have
already been shot down. They fire furiously but never hit anything. It
must make them very annoyed.”
“Well, thank you, Major Wick,” said the interviewer on the air. “That’s
all we have had time for now. Nice to have had you with us.”
“That broadcast is for America,” the young Lord explained. “It _is_ nice
they had him with them tonight. He won’t be with them long. We’re all
after him. No one loves a boaster. Besides, he’s a dirty fighter.”
“And does he boast!” The Lark put in. “Claims fifty planes shot down, or
is it sixty. No matter. He’s head of a flight and sees to it that he
stays ahead. One of his fighters always protects him from behind. If he
sees one of our planes that’s shot up and wobbling, he just steps in and
finishes them off. And that’s number forty-seven, or fifty-seven. Or
what—”
“We caught up with him once,” the young Lord laughed. “The Lark here
downed the man who protected him from behind. I would have polished him
off right then but I got a slug in my motor. Oil started spurting. So I
had to make a crash landing.
“Too bad, Johnny wasn’t with us,” he added with a good-natured laugh.
“Johnny’d been up there fighting yet.”
“I’ll be with you next time,” Fiddlin’ Johnny said, and he did not
laugh. “Tomorrow,” he went on, “we’ll be up with the dawn. The O. C.
told me that just before I left. Said we could go up in five formation.”
“Who?” Dave sat up quick.
“You’ll be in on it,” Johnny grinned. “You and Brand. Only the O. C.
said we were to watch and see that you don’t do anything rash.”
“You watch them! That’s a joke.” The Lark gave Johnny a slap on the
shoulder. “All you can see when you’re in the air is crosses and
swastikas.”
“All the same,” the young Lord insisted, “Johnny’s one swell little
fighter.”
A half hour later they were gone, leaving Cherry to wonder how many of
them would return, and how soon.
At dawn five Spitfires left the landing field. They flew in formation,
first the young Lord, then the Lark. After these came Dave and Brand.
Fiddlin’ Johnny brought up the rear.
It was a beautiful morning. Red still streaked the eastern sky. Did they
see the sky? Perhaps Johnny did. He saw and heard everything that was
beautiful. Dave did not see the sky. He saw only his instrument board,
thought only of that which might be ahead. For they were the dawn
patrol. And out of many a dawn, when the thin clouds were still red and
gold, had come death. Dave shuddered at the thought but kept straight on
his course.
Of a sudden he caught the young Lord’s voice in the phone. It was high
and cheerful as he shouted:
“Enemy ahead. Let’s tap in.”
‘Tap in’, Dave knew meant ‘have a good time.’ Would they have a good
time? Would they? He wondered. Then, as if he had taken a breath of pure
oxygen, his spirits soared. Have a good time? Why not? This was a game.
In this game one must have a good time or die.
They were putting on speed. At first he did not see the enemy. Then he
saw them all too well. Five Messerschmitts came zooming out of a thin
cloud. The rising sun struck their wings and turned them to burnished
silver.
“Whoops!” shouted the Lark. “Up and at them, boys!”
In a low, sober note the young Lord said, “Boys that’s the bragging Hun,
Wick, or I’m a liar!”
“Correct!” shouted the Lark. “His identical formation, V shape, one
behind on his right, three behind on the left. In a scrap he’s safe.
Perfect, I’d say for a hero.” Then in a roaring voice this red-headed
pilot sang, “It’s a long way to Tipperary. It’s a long way to go.”
Dave didn’t want to sing. Truth was, he could not have said a word. His
tongue at that instant was glued to the roof of his mouth. Only the
night before a veteran fighter had said to him, “Wick may be a coward. I
wouldn’t doubt that. But he’s been a long time in the air. And that
means just one thing, he knows how to pick brave men to do his fighting
for him.”
“Brave men,” Dave whispered as he clutched his ‘joy stick’ with a firmer
grip. Then, through his radio headset, above the roar of motors, he
caught a familiar sound. It was one of the tunes Fiddlin’ Johnny had
played back there in the Hideout. It was “Londonderry Air.” Startled, as
if expecting to see the strange boy fiddling as he flew, he glanced
back. Johnny was in his place, all right, staring straight ahead.
“Whistling!” Dave murmured. “How do they do it?”
“Those Messerschmitts are looking for bombers, not fighters,” he told
himself. “Haven’t seen us yet.”
The young Lord barked an order into his receiver. “We’ll climb into the
sun, then drop down upon them.”
They climbed. They circled until the sun was at their backs. Then, with
motors booming, they swept down upon the enemy.
With a sudden burst of speed the Messerschmitts scattered. Two planes
alone remained in formation.
“That will be Wick and his bravest guard,” Dave told himself as a thrill
coursed up his spine.
He was all for the fight now. Gladly he would have followed that pair,
but it had been agreed that in a case of this kind the flight leader and
the Lark, most experienced men of the flight, should step in where
danger called most loudly.
With the hot blood of battle at last coursing in his veins, Dave went
after a single, fleeing Messerschmitt.
He was faster than the enemy. Now a mile lay between them, now a half
mile, a quarter. The enemy darted this way, then that. “Trying to shake
me off,” Dave muttered. He was thinking at that moment of their
shattered home. He should have sweet revenge.
He was all but upon the Messerschmitt. One more burst of speed. Now it
was time to press the button. One thousand shots a minute! No! He’d
better drop a little, to come up from below. Three hundred and fifty
miles an hour. This was life.
Suddenly the air was torn by the rip and rattle of machine-gun fire, not
his fire but another’s. Slugs tore into his right wing. Gripping his
emergency boost, he set his plane banking madly to the left. Forty
seconds of this, then he let go that emergency lever.
Standing on one wing, he executed a mad whirl, then righted himself.
“What had happened?” As his eyes swept the sky he heard again that weird
whistle, the Fiddler’s, doing “Londonderry Air.”
Next instant he spotted the Whistler. Right on the tail of a plane, he
was at that very instant gripping the firing button. Once again the sky
was torn with the haunting rip-rip-rip that spelled death.
What effect did the fiddler’s shots have upon the enemy? Dave was not to
know, at least not for a long time. At that instant he caught sight of a
Messerschmitt zooming up from behind and below his comrade. He watched
with horror as a great burst of fire seemed to blot Fiddlin’ Johnny from
the sky.
One second the Messerschmitt was there. The next it was gone. With
sinking heart Dave saw Fiddlin’ Johnny’s plane go into a spin, then
spiral down, down until it was lost in a cloud.
He listened. Save for the roar of his own motor, a muffled roar it was
now, he caught no sound. The whistle was dead. But what of the whistler?
Not until then did Dave become conscious of his own motor. He was losing
altitude. His hand was brown with oil. His motor had been hit, perhaps
more than once. Just when a Messerschmitt came zooming at him he slipped
into a cloud.
He was thinking hard and fast now. He was out of the fight, that was
sure. Was he too far out over the ocean to make landing before his motor
died? Where was land? A glance at his compass, a slow half-swing about,
then he flew straight ahead.
He was losing altitude faster now. In vain did he attempt to get more
power from the motor.
There was the sea, and there, seeming far, far away, was land. He’d
never make it. A cold, calm sea lay beneath him. How long could one live
in that water? He’d have a try. Unsnapping his safety belt, he waited.
How long before his ship sank? Not long, he guessed.
Then his eye caught something on the surface of the sea. A boat?
Perhaps. Didn’t look quite like that. At least it was fairly large and
it floated.
Swinging half about, he went into a slow spiral, that would land him, he
hoped, close to that mysterious, floating gray spot.
It did. Leaping from his plane, he did a slow crawl, waiting to see if
his plane would sink. Three minutes more and it was gone.
Turning, he swam toward that floating thing. What was it? He could not
tell. All he knew was that once he reached it he would escape from the
bitter, biting chill of the sea.
_Chapter_ XVII
Playing War
Meantime the young Lord had gone streaking after the self-appointed ace
of the Huns and his most trusted guard. The Lark and Brand had remained
in formation behind their leader. A fast and furious race had followed.
The Nazis had climbed to dizzy heights. Turning on the oxygen, the young
Lord and the Lark followed on their tails, but always a little too far
behind for attack.
Unaccustomed to the climb, Brand was thinking of dropping out. Turning
to look back, he caught his breath, stared again, then leveled off for
greater speed. He had seen Fiddlin’ Johnny go into a spin and had read
in this disaster for his good pal Dave. He went to the rescue but too
late. By the time he reached the scene both Dave and pursuer had
vanished into the clouds.
Swinging about, he searched the sky for the young Lord and his fighting
companion.
“There! There they are!” he exclaimed excitedly. “They win!” He was just
in time to see an enemy plane go streaking down all in flames. At the
same instant, some distance away, he saw a second enemy craft vanish
into a cloud.
“Tough luck,” the young Lord grumbled into his speaker as Brand came up.
“We got Wick’s favorite guard but the big boaster got away. Well, better
luck next time. Where’s Dave and the Fiddler?”
“Johnny’s gone for good.” Brand’s voice was low and solemn. “He seemed a
real fellow. I—I’m sorry. He went down in a spin, quite out of control.
He can’t have come out of it. It’s taps for him.”
“Taps for poor old Johnny.” No more shouting today for The Lark. The
flight’s scant triumph had cost them too dearly.
“I lost Dave in a cloud,” Brand went on. “I—I don’t know about him.”
“We’ll drop down and have a look,” said the young Lord. They did have a
look. They fairly scoured the sea. All that met the eye was wide
stretches of leaden, grey sea—that and a lone flock of wild ducks
streaking away to the south.
“Ducks. Little old wild things,” The Lark grumbled. “Got more sense than
humans.”
And so, with heavy hearts, they turned their planes landward. After that
not a word was spoken until their Spitfires bump-bumped on the landing
field.
That same afternoon Cherry walked alone to the village. She wanted time
to think. And, indeed there was need for thinking. That morning her
mother had driven out and had taken her to the city. There they visited
the office of a famous specialist.
“This,” said Mrs. Ramsey, “is Cherry.”
“Cherry, the Singing Angel!” exclaimed the doctor. “I am surely glad to
meet you. It’s a wonderful work you are doing.”
“That I _was_ doing,” Cherry whispered hoarsely.
“Why! What’s up? Voice troubling you? Let’s have a look! We’ll fix it up
right away.”
After a long and painstaking examination the good doctor looked at her
with trouble in his eyes. “Nothing the matter with your throat,
absolutely nothing,” he said solemnly.
“But I can’t talk. I—”
“Yes, yes, I’m not doubting you.” The doctor walked slowly back and
forth. “It’s just one more case of war shock.
“You see,” he began, after waving the ladies into chairs, “it’s like
this. You, my child, are not afraid of bombs. That is, you are
determined not to be. So are we all. We won’t let the enemy get us down.
That’s grand! Magnificent! The true British spirit.
“But, my dear,” his voice dropped, “that is all in your mind. Your body
has other things to say. It is truly afraid, and you can do nothing
about it.
“In such a case your body breaks down at its weakest point. In your case
it is your voice. I have a patient who buys old stamps. He’s forever
peering through a glass, examining stamps, using his eyes. He wasn’t
afraid of bombs. But his body was. He went totally blind. Since he was
an American, I packed him into the Clipper and sent him home. And now,”
the doctor spread his arms wide, “he’s quite all right again.”
“But doctor, what am I to do?” There was agony in Cherry’s whisper.
“Go to America. Two weeks there and you will be well. Then come back and
take up your work once more. It’s your only chance. Is it worth the
trouble?”
“But I can’t. I—”
“Yes, you can.” Mrs. Ramsey was on her feet. “I have it. The very thing!
The boat sails next Monday.”
“The boat? What boat, mother?” Cherry stared.
“They have chartered a boat to carry refugee children to America. I was
discussing the sending of Peggy and Tillie this very morning. The
welfare workers wish to send a grown person with each group of ten
children to look after them, direct their play, keep them cheerful and
happy. Cherry, you shall be one of these. I shall see to it at once.”
“But mother!” Cherry’s whisper was pathetic. “It’s so sudden. I must
have time to think.”
“Very well,” said her mother, dismissing the whole affair for a moment
by a wave of her hand. “Think as much as you please until this time
tomorrow.”
And so now Cherry, as she walked slowly toward the village, was thinking
hard. Could she do it? Leave Alice, Brand, and Dave, all her friends to
embark on this strange adventure? She had a horror of the sea, yet, if
she went she must be cheerful all the way. “It’s the war,” she was
thinking. “When there is a war we have no choice. Duty calls. We must
go.”
Rounding a curve, a young cyclist came rushing toward her. He slowed up
when he was near. It was Brand. There was a look on his face she had
seldom seen there before.
“Going home?” she asked simply.
“No. Just for a ride.”
A question was on her lips. She did not ask it. There are times when we
do not ask questions of those we love.
“I’m going to the village,” she said simply. “Perhaps I’ll meet you on
the way back.”
“Perhaps.” Again he was on his wheel and away.
“Riding something down,” she told herself. “Something rather terrible.”
Then, as if a chill blast had swept in from the hills, she shuddered.
At the village she came upon more tragedy. Where the shop of Old John,
the shoemaker, had stood was a pit of darkness. On a stake stuck in the
ground someone had hung a bit of black crepe. This was enough. Turning
she walked straight toward home. Her courage was now at the sticking
point. She would go on that ship with the children. It was the only
thing she could do to help. And everyone must do something.
“Perhaps,” she thought, “I shall go to visit Dave’s mother in Florida.”
Florida. At once she was dreaming of soft, lapping waters, gleaming
sands, waving palm trees, and the eternal breath of spring. When one is
young it is not natural to be sad for long.
She had not gone far on her homeward jaunt when a group of school
children on their way home from school caught her eye. Their actions
amazed her. One moment they were marching along engaged in merry
chatter, the next, like a flock of birds escaping a hawk, they dashed
from the road.
At the side of the road was a deep, dry ditch. Into this the children
tumbled pell-mell. When Cherry came opposite them they were staring
open-mouthed toward the sky.
This held for a full minute. Then one pair of eyes wandered. “Cherry!” a
piping young voice cried. “It’s Cherry!” A small pair of legs
disentangled themselves from the mass and a child came racing up to
Cherry. It was Tillie. In the mass, Cherry had not recognized her. Peggy
followed on her heels. Soon, one on each side of the older girl, they
were marching toward home.
“What were you doing in that ditch,” Cherry asked.
“Playing war,” was Peggy’s quick response. “It’s loads of fun. We play
there is a bombing plane right overhead. One of the boys can whistle
just like the siren. You should hear him! He’s wonderful! After that we
all tumble into the ditch and watch for the plane.
“Of course,” the little girl added thoughtfully, “it never comes. But
perhaps some day it really will come.”
“Yes,” Cherry thought. There was a tightness in her throat. “Yes, some
day perhaps it will. And then—”
Yes, she would go with those children to America. She must. It was her
duty.
_Chapter_ XVIII
Dave’s Strange Craft
That boat-like affair on which Dave climbed after a short swim from the
spot where his plane had sunk was strange indeed. Some sixteen feet long
by eight wide, it rested on the surface of the sea. It was not a boat,
for though it had a small cabin above and a large one below, it was
provided with no form of propelling power, not even oars.
The fact that struck the boy with the force of a blow was its
unquestioned Nazi origin. On its side was painted the hated cross. The
cabin below was fitted with all manner of articles for comfort and
convenience, blankets, towels, boxes of biscuits and chocolate, bottles
of soda water, all that a man could ask. Yet even here was the dreaded
swastika. It was woven into towels and blankets and stamped into the
biscuits.
“A Jerry hotel of the sea, a one man’s paradise,” he thought.
Then, of a sudden it came to him. It was a float. He had heard of them.
They were for the benefit of Nazi airmen who fell into the sea.
“Well,” he sighed, “I’m no Nazi, but I am cold and wet. So here goes!”
After stripping off his water-soaked garments he slipped into a coarse,
heavy shirt bearing the hated insignia, a pair of blue trousers, coarse
wool socks and heavy shoes. The shoes were too large, but that did not
count.
“Now,” he sighed, “what next?”
It struck him with sudden shock that the next thing might well be a
routine visit to the float by an enemy patrol boat. After that he would
be “Somewhere in Europe” for the duration of the war.
Climbing to the narrow deck, he scanned the sea. A mist had settled down
over the water. There was a freshness in the air which suggested
impending storm. Here he was. Here he would stay unless—He sat down to
think.