“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.
“Tonighttheyseemed 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!
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.”
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.
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.
“Alice—Alice—I know your voice”“Alice—Alice—I know your voice”
“Alice—Alice—I know your voice”
“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.
“See what a haul we made,” the young Lord exclaimed sometime later. “Seven children, one young lady and fifteen able-bodied seamen.”
“And all because one little lady named Alice would not give up,” Dave replied huskily.
Having watched them as they made their search and noted their landing, the pilot of a huge four-motored bomber came circling back. By code messages they made contact with their headquarters. Plans were made and orders given. The big bomber that had turned back was to supply the young Lord with extra gasoline, then was to pick up the seamen and bring them to England. The young Lord and his crew were to carry Cherry and the seven children to America.
“And after that,” the Squadron Commander’s voice boomed over the air, “the young Lord Applegate and his crew are to have a two-weeks’ leave in America. Good-luck and fine flying!”
“Cherry,” Alice teased, when their supreme moment was at an end, “you have your voice now. You should go straight back to England.”
“Oh, no!” Cherry threw up her hands. “I—I started to America. I’m still on my way. Beside,” she added soberly. “There are the children.”
Ah, yes, there were the children, Tillie, Peggy and five others. How brave they had been through all the long hours, only Cherry could tell. As they climbed aboard the plane, all undaunted, Peggy, the little alley rat from the London slums, struck up, “Roll out the Barrel.” And they all joined in.
“But, Cherry,” Dave asked when once again they were headed for America, “how did your voice come back?”
“Oh!” Cherry laughed. “It was the night our ship was attacked. We had been fired upon, the ship was sinking. Boats were being swamped by the waves. But through it all we must keep the children calm and in line. There’s nothing like singing in a time like that. I thought of a song, a silly, terrible, glorious song. Its words were on my lips. I opened my mouth. The words came out, “Roll out the Barrel.” ‘And we’ll all have fun.
When we roll out the barrel.’
When we roll out the barrel.’
“The children sang. We all sang. We all remained calm. And we got away.
“Some of us got away,” she added soberly. “But my voice, that was a miracle, I guess. God knew I needed it so very, very badly for that trying hour.”
A week later Cherry sat in a great easy chair before a broad window. She was looking out upon a scene of matchless beauty, the broad lawn to Dave’s big old-fashioned, New England home in winter. The first snow. They had decided upon this spot because there, of all places, they could really find rest and peace.
As if dressed for a party, the hedge and great evergreen trees were decked with white. “It is beautiful! Glorious!” She murmured. “And yet—”
Beside her on a small table lay a letter just finished. She had written to her mother. Among other things she had said, “Mother, don’t be troubled. We are going to win the war. We are not alone. More and more, everywhere I go in America I am told that people are coming to feel stronger about this war. They will send us guns, ships and planes. We shall win. We are not alone.”
For some time she sat there quite alone looking away at the winter landscape. Their journey to America had been a glorious adventure. They were being royally entertained. Just now Alice was in the kitchen with the children popping corn. Brand, the young Lord and the Lark had gone hunting.
Yes, they were having a grand time. But her thoughts were far away. Only that morning she had received a letter from her mother. It was full of news. A flying repair squad had put their house back, good as new. “We now have a home again,” was the word. “How good that seems! They are asking for you at the subway. All England calls for their Singing Angel.”
“All England,” she whispered softly.
Slipping in from another room, Dave took a seat beside her.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” He spread his arms to include all out-of-doors.
“Yes,” she agreed. “So beautiful it makes your heart ache. But, Dave, I’m eager to be back in England. I—I just can’t stand the silence. There’s no excitement, no great cause. It—it’s strange. War is terrible! But when you belong in it you want to be there. You just ache to be there. It—it is very strange.”
“You’ll be on your way in a week. Your subway crowd will be waiting for you. But a week, that’s soon enough,” he insisted.
“And you?” Her voice was low.
“I?” He looked into her eyes. “What do you think?”
“I have no way to know.”
“There are many people here in America,” He spoke slowly, thoughtfully, “who say this is not our war. Perhaps it is not. Who knows? That question must be decided by older, wiser heads than mine. But as for me,” his shoulders straightened, “thisismy war. And I’m going back.”
“I’m glad,” she whispered.
“You’ll come to America again sometime,” he whispered after a while.
“Yes, I hope so.”
“Perhaps for good and all?” His voice was low.
“Who knows?” She was staring dreamily at the lovely landscape. Perhaps she was seeing into the future. If so, what did she see? Dave dared not ask.
Had he but known it, at that moment words from a very old book were running through Cherry’s mind, “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried.”
And so that bright day grew dim with the shades of night.