little group from Ramsey Farm prepared to bid goodbye to Cherry, Tillie
and Peggy.
Every one of them knew that their little group was breaking up and
perhaps forever. They had shared joy and sorrow. A brother, two sisters,
a life-long friend, a new-found pal from across the sea and two little
waifs from the slums of London, they silently shook hands in the dark,
then whispered, “Goodbye-Goodbye! Goodbye! And lots of good luck!”
On the way back on the train Alice whispered to Dave, “I wish Cherry
hadn’t gone.”
“Why?” Dave stared.
“I don’t know. I just wish it, that’s all.”
And so, through the blackout, the little English train carried them back
to London.
Next day Alice returned to her improvised buttery and her churn. But the
song that so often had enlivened her task as the dasher went up and down
was silenced.
For Dave the joy of flying increased with every morn. To climb up from
the earth, to greet the dawn, to lose himself in the clouds, ah! that
was joy beyond compare.
“If it only weren’t war,” he whispered to himself. And yet war did give
it an added tang. It was like the nipping frost in the air that greets
the ice-skater or the singing of the sled runners that delights the ears
of the dog-team racer. He did look forward to the day when the young
Lord’s penalty should be paid and the four of them would again be in the
air.
The day came and they thundered away with the break of day. On this day,
however, Heinie apparently was content to stay at home. Not a speck
marred the blue of that little patch of the sky over England they
claimed as their own.
“We’ll meet them again,” the young Lord’s tone was confident, as at last
they returned to earth.
“Wolves, weasels, skunks, and all kinds of varmints visit the same
little corner of the earth time after time. So do the Jerries. That big
boaster, Wick, will return. And then!” It was clear that he had not
forgotten the loss of his most beloved flying mate, Fiddlin’ Johnny.
“I wonder,” Dave said thoughtfully. “Does Wick always fly his men in
that V-shaped formation?”
“Always, I am told,” was the answer.
“He assumes that we want to get at him and that we’ll go for the man
protecting his tail,” Dave said thoughtfully. “That gives his other men
a chance to close in and clean us up. Supposing we fooled him by taking
off his three men on the other line, one at a time?”
“It’s an idea,” the young Lord replied. “Perhaps we’ll try it. Yes, I
think we shall—when the time comes. And it will come, never fear!”
“Alice must be lonesome with Cherry and the children gone,” Dave
suggested to Brand that evening. “Let’s go over.”
“I can’t tonight,” was Brand’s reply. “The Lark is giving me a lesson on
handling a Brownie. You can’t learn too much, you know, not in this
man’s war.”
“Nor half enough,” Dave agreed.
Mounting Brand’s bicycle, Dave rode over the pleasing country roads to
Ramsey Farm. Night was just falling. There was a glorious freshness
about the night air. The war seemed far away. “As if it couldn’t touch
any of us,” he thought. How wrong he could be at times.
He found Alice doing the dinner dishes. Flash was curled up by the fire.
Old Jock was at the stables. Dave grabbed a drying towel and helped with
the dishes. Then they sat by the cheerful fire. He spoke of his day’s
work. “No luck,” he concluded. “Perhaps tomorrow. Brand and I are
getting better with our planes every day. We’ll be fighters yet.”
Alice smiled.
“Tonight _they_ seemed very far away,” she said, after a moment. Her
voice was low. “It’s the first time Cherry and I have been parted for
long.”
He knew who she meant and was silent.
From outside came the sound of a car. It stopped. There was a hand on
the latch. Mrs. Ramsey stepped into the room. A large, healthy,
good-natured woman, on arriving it was her custom to shout a cheery
greeting. Tonight there was nothing of that.
“You’re here, David?” she said as she took his hand. “I’m glad.” She
gave Dave her heavy coat, then took a place by the fire.
“It’s a bit chilly outside tonight,” said Alice.
“Quite.” Mrs. Ramsey’s voice seemed strange.
“But still and peaceful,” Dave suggested. “As if there were no war.”
After that for a full minute there was silence.
When at last the mother spoke her voice was high-pitched and a little
strained. “I don’t know how to say it,” she began. “I’m not good at such
things. I’m always too blunt about my speech. ‘Out with it’, that’s been
my motto.
“You must know how I feel,” she went on after a pause, “So why all the
beating around the bush? A rather terrible thing has happened. The Queen
Bess has been attacked and sunk.”
Dave started and stared, yet neither he nor Alice spoke a word.
“It came to me by secret message,” Mrs. Ramsey went on. “The general
public doesn’t know about it yet.”
“And did—did—” Alice’s words stuck in her throat.
“We have only the most meager details,” the mother said. “It was a sea
raider that did it, not a submarine. The raider came in firing a
broadside. Then it vanished into the night.
“In twenty minutes the Queen Bess was gone, down by the bow. There was a
sea on. Some of the lifeboats were swamped. The children were
magnificent! Perfectly magnificent!” Mrs. Ramsey swallowed hard. “All of
them sang ‘Roll out the Barrel’ through it all.”
“Oh—o!” Alice breathed, then hid her face.
“That’s all there is to tell.” Mrs. Ramsey rose. “I must get back. I
practically ran away. There was a frightful raid last night. All our
wards are full. We—we’ll hope for the best.” She was gone.
They sat there in silence by the fire for a long time, the boy and the
girl, in a troubled world.
At last Dave rose to walk slowly back and forth across the well-worn
floor.
It was Alice who at last spoke. “Dave. She is not gone. She’s out there
somewhere. You can’t kill such a spirit as Cherry’s. You just can’t.”
“That’s right,” Dave agreed. “It can’t be done.” He meant just that.
“Well,” he sighed, “I’ll be going back. Let me know about things. I—I’ll
bring Brand tomorrow night if we can make it.”
“Dave, I’m sorry,” Alice said as she clasped his hand in farewell. She
was thinking of him just then, he knew that. She was trying to tell him
she was sorry their happy evening together had been spoiled. How sort of
magnificent she was! How marvelous these English girls!
_Chapter_ XXIII
Victory
When Dave told Brand and the young Lord the news of the sinking, true to
their British tradition they had little to say. Next day, however, they
appeared on the field prepared for the dawn patrol. Dave saw new, hard
lines about their lips.
“I’d hate to be their enemy today,” he thought, as a thrill ran up his
spine.
They had been cruising, four of them, the young Lord, Brand, The Lark,
and Dave, for an hour when out of a very small cloud, for all the world
as if it had been waiting there for days, came that same formation, five
planes in a V-shape. One plane following the leader on the right and
three on the left.
“Can I believe my eyes?” The Lark shouted into his speaker.
“You can.” The young Lord’s voice was low. “Not another word. No
shouting, please. You all know how we planned it. I’ll take the talk man
of the three on the left. You know the rest. Tallyho!”
“Tallyho,” came echoing from the others. They were away.
Since they were a thousand feet above the enemy and in the end they came
swooping down from above. They were not seen until the young Lord was
all but upon his victim. His was a murderous assault that could have but
one ending. As if in rehearsal, The Lark slipped into the place left
vacant by the young Lord as he dropped into a power-dive. The Lark’s man
went down in flames. Deserting his post, the third man tried flight, but
with the luck of a beginner, Brand shot downward, then climbed straight
up to riddle the Messerschmitt’s motor and send it down in a cloud of
yellow smoke.
As for Dave, the whole affair had gone off with such speed that he found
himself in a half daze, headed straight for the side of a gleaming
Messerschmitt. Then his eyes registered an astonishing fact. He was
facing the boasting Wick himself, he who called himself a deadly killer.
On the tail of his plane was a black blotch. Dave knew this to be
fifty-six black lines, one for each victim Wick claimed. For a space of
seconds Dave’s blood was turned to ice. Then, with a rush, it was like
molten steel.
They were close now, dangerously close, yet each was out of range of the
other. Suddenly gripping his emergency lever, giving his motor its last
ounce of power, Dave banked sharply, saw the terrible Wick rise into his
sight, pressed the firing button, heard for one brief second his
machine-guns speak, then went into a spin. Whirling over and over and
going down, down, down where the good soil of Merry England lies, he
thought, “This is the end!”
He was wrong. He came out of the spin. How? He would never know.
After levelling off he looked up, then down. To the right of him a
Messerschmitt was falling in flames. Even as he looked it exploded in
mid-air.
Far in the distance the one remaining enemy was speeding away. Off to
the left the young Lord’s line was forming. Climbing slowly, Dave at
last joined that line. Then, in the Sky Over England that was once more
England’s own, they cruised the blue until the young Lord gave the word
and they went thundering home.
As they left their ships on the landing field the young Lord walked over
to Dave, put out a hand, gripped Dave’s hard, then without a word walked
away. It was enough. Dave understood and was glad.
Just at mess time that evening an old man, member of the Home Guard
appeared at headquarters. Under his arm he carried a flat, paper-wrapped
package.
“Thought you might like it, sir,” he said as he placed it in the young
Lord’s hand.
As the others gathered around the flight leader unwrapped it, then
handed it to Dave. It was the tail of a Messerschmitt. On it had been
painted two letters, H. W. Below these letters were 56 long, black
lines.
“This,” said Dave, “should be yours.” He gave it back to the young Lord.
“All trophies belong to the leader of the flight.”
“To the entire squadron,” the young Lord replied huskily. “Come. We’ll
put it up where all may see.” He placed it on the mantle. “Not that we
need to boast,” he said quietly, “but that all men may know that the Sky
Over England is England’s alone.”
_Chapter_ XXIV
Searchers of the Sea
Next morning the squadron commander received a strange request. Young
Lord Applegate walked into his quarters, saluted, then said:
“Commander, I wish to ask for a transfer.”
“A transfer?” The Commander sat forward in his chair. “Why? You are
doing magnificently. Only yesterday—”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Applegate broke in, “that has no bearing on
the case. I ask for a transfer to the bomber service that patrols the
sea. I was trained for that work, had a full year’s training. That
should be enough.”
“But you are a born fighter.”
“Perhaps,” the young Lord admitted. “And perhaps too one may fight with
a twin-motored bomber.”
“There’s seldom an opportunity on sea patrol.”
“We will make an opportunity. My men, Ramsey, Barnes and The Lark, wish
to go with me. Old Jock, from Ramsey Farm, a gunner, first-class, who
lost a leg in Flanders, will join us.”
“I still don’t see—”
“Commander,” the young Lord’s face was tense with emotion, “with me this
is a personal matter. You’ve heard of the sinking of the Queen Bess?”
The Commander nodded.
“Cherry Ramsey was on that ship. You know her, I’m sure.”
“I have met her. A charming girl. She was doing a grand piece of work.
Was she lost?”
“Her name is not on the list of those rescued. But it is believed,” the
young Lord’s voice rang with hope, “that one life-boat, not swamped by
the storm, remains unreported.
“If I am granted a transfer to the Sea Patrol I shall ask that we be
allowed to patrol that portion of the air over the Atlantic beneath
which the Queen Bess was fired upon and sunk.”
“I see.” The commander’s face was thoughtful.
“That is not all.” The lines on the young Lord’s brow deepened. “I shall
ask that we be allowed to carry two five-hundred pound bombs and be
commissioned to search for the merciless sea raider that sank that
shipload of children. It is still at large.”
The commander nodded. “She attacked a convoy last night. Gave no
warning. Sank three ships, then was away.”
For a moment the commander sat staring at the wall. “It’s very
irregular,” he murmured.
“This is an irregular war, not fought by rules. Fought by men. Thank God
for that!” The young Lord’s chin was up.
“All right. I’ll see what I can do.” The commander stood up. “Report to
me here at noon.”
The young Lord saluted, then marched away.
An hour later he was engaged in a heated argument with his good friend,
Alice. “But, Alice!” his voice rose. “It’s impossible! A woman on a
sea-patrol bomber! Suppose we catch up with that ruthless pirate.”
“All right.” Alice stood up sturdy and tall. “Suppose we do?”
“It won’t be a one-sided fight. That raider carries anti-aircraft guns.
Death may be waiting at those crossroads of the sea.”
“Death.” Alice’s voice was low. “In this war not just young men are
giving their lives for the land they love. Men and women and children
are. It’s everybody’s war.
“Harm!” (She seldom used that name of other days. In her soul was
written traditional homage to nobility.) “It is Cherry who is out there
on those black waters. Our Cherry! Peggy and Tillie are with her. A
woman’s eyes are always sharper than a man’s. Always when we were
children it was my eyes, not yours, that saw the lark soaring skyward or
the finches hiding in the hedges. Harman, let me go!”
“But the farm, Alice?” The young Lord was weakening.
“Surely you can spare Jeff Weeks and his wife for a few days to look
after this farm.”
“A few days? Yes. But suppose it is forever?” The young Lord’s voice was
low. “Alice, more important than our search for Cherry, much as we all
love her, is to be our hunt for the sea-raider. And if we find it there
will be no quarter! It shall be that ship or our plane. Such is war.”
“If it is to be forever?” There was a smile on the girl’s lips. “We die
but once. The farm will not matter. Let me go!”
The young Lord threw up his hands. “I surrender,” he whispered hoarsely.
And so it happened that, when the transfer had been granted and the
young Lord had been put in command of a sea-scouting bomber, one of the
fastest in the service, and when it sailed away into the blue, it
carried not five but six men. One of these “men” had short, bobbed hair,
and as he stood by the one-legged, gray-haired rear gunner, he looked
remarkably like a girl.
At dawn, in a bomber that made their little Spitfires seem like gulls,
the young warriors rose high in air, far above the clouds, to zoom away.
When land was lost from sight the young Lord studied his compass and his
chart, set a course south by west to at last drop down close to the sea.
After that, hour after hour, with eyes that burned from watching and
hearts that ached with longing, they studied the dark surface of the
never-ending sea.
Twice they came upon British ship convoys and dipped low to greet them.
Once they thought they saw a life-boat and hope ran high. But, as they
dropped low, the supposed boat submerged.
“Whale or a submarine?” the young Lord barked into his receiver.
“Whale,” was old Jock’s instant response. So they soared on.
It was only after their gasoline supply began running low that they at
last rose into the blue to go zooming to a landing field in the north of
Scotland.
There, after darkness had fallen, Alice slipped away to a little hotel
where no questions were asked. When, however, she told what she dared of
their mission, she was accorded the hospitality due a queen and in the
morning not a cent would her hostess accept.
“It’s our own war,” said the good lady, “and may the good Lord bless
you.”
The second day was more than half gone. The girl’s eyes were red with
watching when she called in her phone, “I—I hear the sound of firing.”
Every headset was removed.
“Not a sound but the motors. Not a sound,” was the report.
“Climb. Then shut off your motors,” Alice insisted.
It was done, and from the west to their listening ears came the roar of
heavy guns.
“Prepare for action,” the young Lord barked. “See that the bombs are in
their place. Make all fast.
“And,” he added softly, “say a prayer.”
Their ship was fast. Smoke loomed on the horizon. Ships, a large convoy,
took form. A minor sea-battle was in progress. Doughty captains of
freighters were pitting their small guns against the heavy ones of a
raider.
They were rapidly approaching the scene when with a joyous battle cry
the Lark sang out, “Man! Oh, man! They’ve spotted us. Look! There they
go! Running at full speed.”
“We’re after them.” The young Lord’s lips were drawn into a straight
line.
Old Jock was at the bomb controls, Dave and Brand at the one-pound
cannons, the Lark at the radio.
They climbed a thousand feet, three, five, then twenty thousand feet.
They were all but above the fleeing raider now. Dave tried to imagine
the wild commotion and the frenzied preparation on board that raider at
that moment. Just what the young Lord meant to do, he knew. Life and
death hung in the balance.
As for the young Lord, his brow suddenly wrinkled. He had caught a
glimpse of two specks against the sky.
“Here,” he called to Alice. “Have a look through the glass. Off to the
right! Enemy or friend? Tell me—Quick!”
One look and she told him. “Enemy! Twin motor interceptors. Two of
them.”
“Good! We’ll show them how it’s done.”
Ten seconds later he barked, “All set for a power dive!”
The big ship’s nose pointed toward the sea. Far below the raider seemed
a speck. As it grew in size it could be seen to zig-zag this way, then
that.
“All or nothing,” had been the young Lord’s order. “When I give the
signal release both bombs.”
As Dave watched it seemed they could not win. Yet the young Lord had a
keen mind. He had been well trained.
To the roar of the motor and the screaming of the plunging plane was
added the burst of anti-aircraft fire. Death rode the air.
And then Dave realized that the instant had come. Fascinated, he watched
a bomb glide from its place, then another. A second later there was a
lurch as the plane began coming out of its dive.
To Dave, the time of waiting, only a few seconds, seemed endless. Then
came a boom, followed almost at once by a second. And then a roar far
greater than the others. There was a push that lifted them high, then
all but dropped them into the sea.
“Right on the nose!” The Lark roared from his tail gunner’s position.
“Blew up their magazine. Raider, whose captain has a heart of stone, has
met its end.”
“We’ll let those Nazi planes get what satisfaction they can out of
that,” said the young Lord in a surprisingly quiet tone of voice. “We’ll
just hop over and do what we can for that convoy.
“But stay in your places. Man your guns,” he warned. “Those planes may
attack. If they do, give ’em all you’ve got!”
The enemy planes did not attack. Perhaps they had seen quite enough.
Thankful to be alive, the young Lord and his men flew to the rescue of
those British seamen whose ships of the convoy had been sunk. Never
before had Alice been so close to war as now. Helping these cold seamen,
some of them frightfully wounded, from the water into the wings and into
the cabin of their plane, then to the ships that had escaped the raider,
she realized for the first time what it was costing these men to keep
her native land fed, defended and free.
When their two hours of rescue work were over and they were prepared to
take to the air once again, she was shocked to find that in her work for
others she had quite forgotten her bright-eyed sister who must at this
moment be drifting on this very sea or sleeping far beneath its waves.
It all came back to her like a sudden shock of pain as they rose above
the sea.
Another hour of futile search, then the big ship pointed her nose toward
the home base.
“Orders,” the little Lord explained, “just came in on the radio. The
news of our good stroke has reached London. We are to come in for
reassignment.”
“Reassignment!” Alice stared but said never a word.
_Chapter_ XXV
The Rescue
The news of their success had gone on before them by radio. At the
airdrome they were given a royal welcome. Congratulations were the order
of the day. The entire crew was invited to the Squadron Commander’s home
in a near-by village for dinner.
Somehow the word that Alice had been on the bomber at the moment of its
triumph had got about. Ignoring every precedent, the commander’s wife
invited her to the dinner and fitted her out with a dress suited to the
occasion. She was quite the queen of the occasion.
For all her gayety, deep down in her soul the girl was broken-hearted. A
half hour before they went in for dinner the young Lord had told her in
steady, even tones that only served to reveal his hidden emotion that
the invasion of their land seemed near at hand, that the R. A. F. was
sadly in need of heavy bombers for breaking up troop-concentrations on
the other shore. “Five powerful bombers are waiting, all equipped, on
American shores,” the young Lord had said. “My orders are to pick up
crews for these bombers—they are waiting for me at a Scottish
airdrome—and to fly these crews across the Atlantic.”
“No—no more search?” Alice’s tongue had gone dry.
“Perhaps a little coming and going,” he replied, striving to ease her
pain. “We shall sail over those same waters.”
“Then I shall go with you,” she flashed.
“That is as the Commander may decide.” Once before the young Lord had
tried refusing her. Never again.
“He can’t deny me that much.” Alice’s words were steady and sure. Nor
was she wrong.
As the plane took off next day for its long hop across the Atlantic, it
carried twenty-six men and Alice. Perhaps she had been commissioned to
prepare and serve hot drinks for the long journey. No one knew or seemed
to care. She was there. That was all that mattered.
Every man of the company knew her story. When the time came to sail over
the waters close to the spot where the Queen Bess went down for a full
hour every eye was on the sea. Nothing showed, so at long last they
settled back for the hours that were yet to come.
One hour out of every three Alice busied herself serving refreshments.
She slept a little and thought a great deal. Long, long thoughts those
were. Then they were at their secret destination, a cold, bleak shore
somewhere in North America.
A few hours of sleep, then again they were away. This time six powerful
ships zooming away toward the distant skies that are England’s own.
After weary hours of waiting they found themselves once more above the
waters from whence had come the last S. O. S. of the good ship, Queen
Bess. There were five of them now, Alice, Dave, Brand, the Lark and the
young Lord.
As Alice studied first the compass, then the chart, she looked at the
young Lord who was at the controls and he understood.
He wanted to say, “Alice your hopes last too long. Forget the boat. It
can’t be there.” But “forget” he knew full well was one word not to be
found in the girl’s vocabulary. So, pointing the ship’s nose toward the
sea, then stepping down its speed, he sailed close to sparkling waters.
It was midday. The sun was bright. They could see for miles.
A half hour passed. Hope seemed all but gone when, of a sudden, Alice
gripped the young Lord’s arm.
“Harm!” she screamed in his ear. “Off to the right! See! There’s
something white!”
The young Lord saw nothing. He did bank away to the right.
Then they all saw it, a white spot. It seemed to move backward and
forward. Every muscle tense, they waited. The spot loomed larger.
Beneath it appeared a dark form.
“A boat!” Alice cried. “It is a boat! There are people, living people!
They are waving something white!”
“Steady, girl.” The young Lord framed the words with his lips.
Yes, she knew. Other ships had been lost, other life-boats had wandered
away. And yet. It just must be true. It must be the boat from the Queen
Bess.
As they dropped to the surface of the sea, she found herself holding her
breath. On the prow of the life-boat was a name. Two words. It must be
‘Queen Bess.’ The first letter of each word was large.
“Yes!” she cried at last. “Q. B.—Queen Bess!”
Above the sound of the taxiing motor someone heard her cry. That someone
stood up in the life-boat and screamed,
“Alice! Alice! I know your voice! Oh, thank God we are saved!”
Three minutes more and the girls were in one-another’s arms.