Charles Valentine Smith knocked out the new Captanide pipe and proceededto refill it with the Dunhill Mixture.
"Well, if they don't I think I know a fellow who has a spare. That's theworst of the Beaver," he went on. "Now with an Indian or a Douglas ..."
And off they went again, she as well as he, both talking at once:big-ends, plugs, magnetos: Beaver, Indian, Douglas.... In my youngeryouth I used to ride a tall ungeared ordinary; except for one hellishfive minutes in which I had clung, ardently praying, to Smith'sback-carrier, I know nothing about these modern machines; and how Joanmanaged to keep her sideways seat on that grid of torture over his backwheel passed my comprehension. But ever since the arrival of the hideousthing she had hardly been off it, hair all over the place, anklesstiffly out, skirts rippling like a ribbon on a ventilating-fan, andcauliflowers of dust trailing for a hundred yards behind them. I couldonly conclude that modern love, besides being blind, is deficient in thetactile nerve-centers as well.
It was ten o'clock in the morning, and Philip had set up his easel on asheep-nibbled slope of the cliff-tops. Joan, in her old tweed skirt andnew canary-colored silk jumper, was stretched luxuriously on the thymybents. The amber beads about her neck matched the potentilla on whichshe lay, and I give you your choice which was the bluest--the aimlesslyfluttering butterflies, the nodding harebells, or her demure andreprehensible eyes. Philip had deliberately excluded the blue of the skyfrom his canvas. The picture was simply of Joan herself, the crewel-workof flowers on which she lay, and behind her, red as the habitation ofdragons, the midsummer sorrel that massed itself up the slope.
The talk continued, a fitter's romance: clutches, brakes, front-drives:Minervas, Excelsiors, de Dions....
In my day we played croquet and read "Maud." ...
And then Philip exploded again.
"Oh, _do_ dry up! How do you expect me to paint? Pull that book a bitcloser, Joan, so it throws the light up on your face, and hold your china bit higher----"
As if she spoke to herself I heard Joan's murmur: "Why did the razorbillrazorbill?"
As softly Charles Valentine Smith murmured back: "So the sea-urchincould sea-urchin"; and this last flippancy was too much for Philip. Heput his palette down on the turf and turned to Smith and myself.
"Look here," he said politely, "will you two fellows oblige me bypushing off? Right away somewhere else, please, and now."
"Oh," Joan wailed, "and I shan't have anybody to talk to!"
"You can read your book."
"But it's such a stupid one--all about an old artist, over thirty, whofell in love with his model and bought her alpaca blouses and threadstockings----"
"You shall have a motor catalogue to-morrow. Now sheer off, youfellows."
Obediently I got on to my feet and turned to Smith.
"Come along. We'll give him till midday. Here's your stick."
And I helped him to his feet and bore him off.
II
Ordinarily I do not find it easy to talk to very young men. I have beenas young as they, but they have not been as old as I, and I know thisbut they do not. Young women--that is another matter, and I will make avery candid confession. I now envy these youngsters their youth. Ienvied Smith his youth. Despite his limp, I was conscious of histallness and lissomness as he hobbled by my side. And I will add that itis not an unmixed joy to be asked to do a young goddess's shopping forher because you are "quite the kindest person she knows."
It would hardly be true to say that my acquaintance with young Smith hadmade no progress at all. I had made quite a number of interestingobservations on his idyll of petrol, love and crime. But he for his partwas still at the stage of apology for his "neck" in asking Joan to askme to buy his pipes and tobacco for him, and by way of leveling up theobligation had actually sent for a copy of that dandy book that I as anovelist must on no account miss, _The Crimson Specter of HangmanHollow_. But I was still "Sir" to him and he hardly "Chummy" to me, andour small-talk was quite small. It was certainly small enough as we leftthe thymy hollow and slowly made for the cliff-tops.
"Tell me if I walk too quickly for you," I said. His hurt was to hisright ankle, and his stick left a trail of little round holes in theturf.
"Oh, that's all right, thanks, sir," he said cheerfully, pegging away;and he added with a chuckle, "I say, between you and I, old Philip wasrather in a paddy, wasn't he?"
"Between you and me he was," I said. I corrected him quite deliberately.Now that the failure of the sparking-plug had put this opportunity intomy hands I was determined at all costs to know more of him. Hencemy--well _grossierete_. But he noticed nothing. Instead he broke outwith a feigned enthusiasm.
"I say, these pipes are turning out jolly well! Lovely bit of straightgrain this one! You do know how to choose a pipe, sir! Are they Frenchor Italian briar?"
"French."
"Jolly nice bit of root!"
"I'm very glad."
"Cool as a nut. Joan's quite right about my smoking too many cigarettes.They're all right for the street--I hate to see a fellow smoking a pipein the street--and gaspers smell a bit sickly to other people sometimes,don't you think?"
I agreed with this too.
"I suppose the _Specter_ hasn't turned up yet?" was his next effort, ashe sat down to rest for a minute.
"Not yet."
"I do hope it isn't out of print. How soon does a book go out of print,sir--on an average?"
Weakly I thought of "Why does the razorbill razorbill?" and, I amafraid, found nothing to reply....
Then, as he continued to babble laboriously across the gulf thatseparated us, I remembered again certain tubular parcels that arrivedfor him by post, which, when stripped of their wrappings, turned out tocontain the _Transactions_ and _Proceedings_ of this Society or that.Seeing these left lying about I had peeped into them, and had beenbrought up standing against such intimidating fences as the following:--
"_Aerofoil Sections in relation to Speed Range._"
"_Influence of Wave-friction on Aerodynamic Resistances._"
"_Notes on Lateral Stability._"
My simple literary mind faints in regions such as these. His presumablydid not. This apparently was his ordinary reading, the _Specter_ hisrelaxation.
"--amber beads," the words came across the void that separated soul fromsoul. "Just the shade I meant--neither too yellow nor too brown--I'mafraid it took up an awful lot of your time----"
It was here that I took my plunge.
"What," I said, looking steadily at him, "is the Influence ofWind-friction on Aerodynamic Resistance?"
His jaw dropped, as well it might. I knew that for a moment he waswondering whether I had taken leave of my senses.
"Eh?" he said.
I repeated the question. Of course, I no more wanted information aboutAerodynamic Resistance than I did about briar pipes and amber beads. Itwas information about Charles Valentine Smith that I wanted and intendedto have.
I date my possession of him from the moment that that look ofconsternation came into his face. It broke upon me that I had put himinto some position that he felt he must immediately explain. Indeed hehalf rose, as if, having obtained my acquaintance under false pretenses,he must set himself right or leave me.
"Oh, I say, sir!" he broke anxiously out. "Do you mean those Journalsand things?"
"That's what I had in my mind. Especially the blue-covered ones."
"Oh lord! You don't suppose I can make head or tail of _those_!"
"Not make head or tail of them? But I've seen you reading them."
He seemed positively sick to extricate himself from my too flatteringopinion of him.
"_Me_ understand all _that_! I could kick myself if you think that! Why,that's all designers' stuff--they've got brains, those chaps--shiploadsof them--why, I should never have heard of the things but for----" Hechecked himself.
"But----" I began, puzzled.
He was blushing--blushing like a young girl.
"I know," he said. "I feel a most awfully ass. The fact is, sir, I justmoon over those things, lose myself in 'em, sort of. I don't know thefirst thing about 'em. Of course, there are bits here and there--enginesand practical flying and all that--I know a bit about that--what I meanto say is, a fellow doesn't want to miss anything--it's hard toexplain----"
On the contrary: it was not at all hard to explain. Simply, I had caughthim day-dreaming. That vivid color still in his cheeks told me that Ihad stumbled on a privacy. A young girl approaching womanhood knowsthese soft _oubliances_, these shy yet hardy excursions of the spiritthat lead nowhither and die of their own over-sweetness. It is love ofwhich she dreams; and this was his equivalent. He just "mooned." It wasnot understanding--he "didn't want to miss anything." His was not atechnician's, but a poet's nature. And caught unawares he blushed.
"Of course my real job would be one of these Expeditions," he mumbled.
I pursued him relentlessly. "Which Expeditions?"
"Well, between you and I, they've started work on several of them. InAfrica and India and places. You see I'm awfully keen on Air-geography.If this dashed ankle of mine ever gives me a chance again, that is.Bobby always said that was my line of country. He was the chap for thetechnical end. Thought in surds, Bobby did. He put me on to all thoseJournals and things, and--after--well, I sort-of keep it up. _He_ wasyour man for that."
"By Bobby do you mean your friend Maxwell?"
"Yes. Bobby," he replied, his eyes far out over the sea.
III
He spoke the name with the most perfect readiness and simplicity; therewas neither tremor in his voice nor the faintest sign of pain in hisdark and steady eyes. He was not even self-conscious under my (I admit)prolonged and deliberate gaze. By what mystery of self-absolution he hadexpunged the sinister fact for which Esdaile vouched I could not tell.He repeated Bobby's name.
"Yes, Bobby was your man for all that. Fearfully hot stuff. When Bobbyopened his mouth I used to dry up."
Then, still without removing my eyes from him, "I never knew Bobby," Isaid. "But I know a man who did."
He turned to me swiftly. "Who was that?" he demanded.
"A man called Hanson. An Australian. He says he knew him in Gallipoli."
His brows were knitted. "Hanson? Hanson? What was his other name?"
"Dudley."
"Hanson? Hanson? Did he say he knew me?"
"He wasn't sure. He thinks he ran across you. He knew you by sight,anyway, for he described you to me."
"Hanson? No, I give it up. Don't remember him at all. You met suchcrowds of chaps, you see--sometimes it's just like a dream----"
I appreciated that; but there still remained one thing that was nodream. This was Philip's explicit declaration, "Oh, he remembers allright--it was the other I didn't tell him--that anybody else knew."Philip might now be resolved to let the whole affair sink into oblivion,but Philip after all had not shot anybody. On that morning when I hadhad my talk with Mackwith I had been rather pleased with my acumen inpointing out that whether our Case had legal consequences or not itsmoral consequences were inescapable. Yet here, if I could believe my owneyes, was a man who was escaping them in their entirety. He continued toorder Journals that Bobby had "put him on to," and could speak of hisvictim apparently out of some transcendental state of mind where sorrowwas an anomaly and regret beside the mark. It all appeared to beadmirable, but I found it quite incomprehensible.
"But," I came out of my reverie presently, "you haven't yet told me what'it' was that Bobby knew all about."
"Do you mean those books?" he asked.
"No, I don't mean the books at all. I know a good deal about books. Youcan get so soaked in them that you make a whole artificial world out ofthem, quite self-contained, logical with itself at every single point,and absolutely out of touch with anything that really matters. Do yousee what I mean?"
I wasn't sure that he did, and here was I, who do not talk easily toyoung men, quite anxious that he should.
"Well, let's put it another way. You say Bobby knew all about theseequations and diagrams and things. Did he know what it was all_for_--_really_ for--not just wind-resistance or whatever you call it,but something more--why there should be aeroplanes _at all_, forexample?"
I had said it badly, but I saw his brow clear. There was a kindling inthe eyes he turned to me.
"It's funny you should say that," he said in a rather low voice,"because that's just what Bobby himself used to say. He used to say thatanybody who'd passed his matric. could do what he did, and he alwayswould have it that _I_ was the whole show. I didn't agree with him, ofcourse, but--is that what you mean?"
"It is so far," I said. "What else did he say?"
"Well, he always said it was a jolly good thing I wasn't technical. AndI did see what he meant by that. I mean to say things _are_ simplereally, the big things I mean. You take the sea----" again his eyeswandered far out over it. "People talk an awful lot of bunk about thesea. They think bases are just harbors and ports and coaling-stationsand so on. That a base is something fixed. Why, that's exactly what itisn't. You've got to get your coal and oil and stores, of course, butthat's only like going into a shop and coming out again as quick as youcan. It's only then that the job really begins. I'm afraid I'm talkingan awful lot, sir, but I got it down to this: that a ship's only a shipwhen she's moving. She's no better than a stupid old breakwater when sheisn't. I mean to say her real base is her course. Just an imaginary lineto make a dash from and turn up where the trouble is. Focal points Ibelieve they call 'em. At least that's the way I worked it out formyself."
"And do you mean the air's the same, or going to be?"
The look that I have ventured to call discontent came into his eyes.
"Well, nothing's quite the same as anything else, of course. But I dothink this. There's Germany. Over there----," he nodded out to sea."North Sea or German Ocean we used to call that, and that was there shesaid her future was. Well, it isn't, of course. She hasn't got any coastto speak of, and isn't going to have any. But----"
And this time his eyes went aloft to the immeasurable fields of the air.
"She's got just as much of _that_ as anybody else. Taking a perfectlysound line about it too. And what's the good of our saying she shan'tbuild aircraft as long as the damn dog doesn't know? Of course she'llbuild aircraft. That's where her future is now, and she can afford tohand over ships. But every Zepp or plane you get out of her you'll haveto get with a pair of pincers. Then ... swift? Swift won't be theword.... Oh, don't I wish I could get on one of these Expeditions!"
I made no comment on this, since I know nothing about the air. Thesewere merely the words of Charles Valentine Smith, who did.
IV
He knew very little about himself--hardly seemed aware that there wasanything of importance to know. It was all Maxwell--"Bobby was the wholeshow." And I had a very keen sense of the honor the dead man had donehimself in denying this. "Frightfully hot stuff on maths," said Smith;and the world is full of men who are "frightfully hot stuff on maths,"in that sense; but it is rarely that you find one of these not tooabsorbed in the technique and detail of his own activities to be awareof a vision beyond. I know this in my own business. I see men workingwith an appalling intensity, a new and wild and squandering energy thathas long ago passed from me; but for their Muse I look in vain. An altaris set up, not to any god known or unknown, but to itself. I speakdiffidently, but I seldom see that any flame from Elsewhere descendsupon it. This is hard to say, since I too rub my two sticks togetherwith my fellows, hoping they may kindle. I should not say it except thatI was now trying to arrive at some comprehension of Maxwell, thecompetent and efficient man, exposed to all manner of temptations tonarrowness and complacency and inertia, but who could yet see in thisunsuspecting youngster something he himself did not and could neverpossess.
And add to this that quasi-religious bond of the air that makes of twomen
twins in one womb....
I repeat, Maxwell did himself a quite radiant honor.
"What sort of a fellow was Maxwell to look at?" I asked by and by.
The answer was almost startlingly ready. This lad who had bolted fromMalvern, forced his way into an Embassy and demanded to be taken in theservice of a foreign Power, unbuckled the watch from his wrist.
"Here he is," he said.
I found myself looking at a young but curiously worn face, with a greatwidth of brow, eyes that seemed to hold I knew not what namelessexpression of disillusion and fatality, and a firm and sweet mouth. Thatface had certainly lost nothing spiritually by its ungrudged andgenerous homage. Yet he too had probably jazzed and pink-ginned anddrummed ragtime on cases of stuffed birds. Strange days! Wisdom andexperience under young brilliantined hair, and the bald and reverenddome accepting the result on hearsay! Slang, and an undreamed-of valor;Magalhaens' vision, and a lark at a Grafton Ball! By being "frightfullykeen on Air-geography" Smith merely meant what Columbus and Cabot andthe Navigator had meant; by wanting to "get on one of these Expeditions"he was willing to dare for discovery's sake some monstrous Baffin's Bayof the air. "Not to miss anything," he fumed and fretted over Maxwell'sequations and made them part of the Dream and the Desire. He wasbrooding over it now as we lay there together, I with his watch in myhand.... And all this, I ought to say, was at the time when the last ofthe Santon hay was barely stacked, and John Alcock and Whitten Brown hadjust flown the Atlantic in sixteen hours. It was when the headland waspale cloth-of-gold with the ripening corn, and the R. 34 had crossed toAmerica and returned. It was when the ditches were yellow with hawkweedand the copses pink with campion, and no man living could have told youwhat the intentions of the Air Ministry were. Smith was lying therebrooding, not on the carriage of a few pounds' weight of letters nor onprizes of L10,000, but on the problems of man's unchanged and warringheart. He dreamed of Imperial Defense. He was "keen" on making India andEgypt secure. He was "dead nuts" on the safety of Africa, "all out" forAustralia's protection, and "tails up" if any other nation jolly wellinterfered.
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