Chapter 7. The Airman

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_ CHAPTER VII. THE AIRMAN

She had seated herself on a stool by the hearth. Presently she spread her apron with trembling fingers, took the glazed bowl of soup upon her lap and began to eat, slowly, casting long, unquiet glances at him from time to time where he still at table leaned heavily, looking out into the rain.

When he caught her eye he smiled, summoning her with a nod of his boyish head. She set aside her bowl obediently, and, rising, brought him his crutches. And at the same moment somebody knocked lightly on the outer door.

Marie-Josephine had unpinned her coiffe. Now she pinned it on over her _bonnet_ before going to the door, glancing uneasily around at him while she tied her tresses and settled the delicate starched wings of her bonnet.

"That's odd," he said, "that knocking," staring at the door. "Perhaps it is the lost Englishman."

"God send them," she whispered, going to the door and opening it.

It certainly seemed to be one of the lost Englishmen--a big, square-shouldered, blond young fellow, tall and powerful, in the leather dress of an aeronaut. His glass mask was lifted like the visor of a tilting helmet, disclosing a red, weather-beaten face, wet with rain. Strength, youth, rugged health was their first impression of this leather-clad man from the clouds.

He stepped inside the house immediately, halted when he caught sight of Wayland in his undress uniform, glanced involuntarily at his crutches and bandaged leg, cast a quick, penetrating glance right and left; then he spoke pleasantly in his hesitating, imperfect French--so oddly imperfect that Wayland could not understand him at all.

"Who are you?" he demanded in English.

The airman seemed astonished for an instant, then a quick smile broke out on his ruddy features:

"I say, this _is_ lucky! Fancy finding an Englishman here!--wherever this place may be." He laughed. "Of course I know I'm 'somewhere in France,' as the censor has it, but I'm hanged if I know where!"

"Come in and shut the door," said Wayland, reassured. Marie-Josephine closed the door. The aeronaut came forward, stood dripping a moment, then took the chair to which Wayland pointed, seating himself as though a trifle tired.

"Shot down," he explained, gaily. "An enemy submarine winged us out yonder somewhere. I tramped over these bally moors for hours before I found a sign of any path. A sheepwalk brought me here."

"You are lucky. There is only one house on these moors--this! Who are you?" asked Wayland.

"West--flight-lieutenant, 10th division, Cinque-Ports patrolling squadron."

"Good heavens, man! What are you doing in Finistere?"

"_What!_"

"You are in Brittany, province of Finistere. Didn't you know it?"

The air-officer seemed astounded. Presently he said: "The dirty weather foxed us. Then that fellow out yonder winged us. I was glad enough to see a coast line."

"Did you fall?"

"No; we controlled our landing pretty well."

"Where did you land?"

There was a second's hesitation; the airman looked at Wayland, glanced at his crippled leg.

"Out there near some woods," he said. "My pilot's there now trying to patch up.... You are not French, are you?"

"American."

"Oh! A--volunteer, I presume."

"Foreign Legion--2d."

"I see. Back from the trenches with a leg."

"It's nearly well. I'll be back soon."

"Can you walk?" asked the airman so abruptly that Wayland, looking at him, hesitated, he did not quite know why.

"Not very far," he replied, cautiously. "I can get to the window with my crutches pretty well."

And the next moment he felt ashamed of his caution when the airman laughed frankly.

"I need a guide to some petrol," he said. "Evidently you can't go with me."

"Haven't you enough petrol to take you to Lorient?"

"How far is Lorient?"

Wayland told him.

"I don't know," said the flight-lieutenant; "I'll have to try to get somewhere. I suppose it is useless for me to ask," he added, "but have you, by any chance, a bit of canvas--an old sail or hammock?--I don't need much. That's what I came for--and some shellac and wire, and a screwdriver of sorts? We need patching as well as petrol; and we're a little short of supplies."

Wayland's steady gaze never left him, but his smile was friendly.

"We're in a tearing hurry, too," added the flight-lieutenant, looking out of the window.

Wayland smiled. "Of course there's no petrol here. There's nothing here. I don't suppose you could have landed in a more deserted region if you had tried. There's a chateau in the Lais woods, but it's closed; owner and servants are at the war and the family in Paris."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody has cleared out; the war has stripped the country; and there never were any people on these moors, excepting shooting parties and, in the summer, a stray artist or two from Quimperle."

The lieutenant looked at him. "You say there is nobody here--between here and Lorient? No--troops?"

"There's nothing to guard. The coast is one vast shoal. Ships pass hull down. Once a day a coast guard patrols along the cliffs----"

"When?"

"He has passed, unfortunately. Otherwise he might signal by relay to Lorient and have them send you out some petrol. By the way--are you hungry?"

The flight-lieutenant showed all his firm, white teeth under a yellow mustache, which curled somewhat upward. He laughed in a carefree way, as though something had suddenly eased his mind of perplexity--perhaps the certainty that there was no possible chance for petrol. Certainty is said to be more endurable than suspense.

"I'll stop for a bite--if you don't mind--while my pilot tinkers out yonder," he said. "We're not in such a bad way. It might easily have been worse. Do you think you could find us a bit of sail, or something, to use for patching?"

Wayland indicated an old high-backed chair of oak, quaintly embellished with ancient leather in faded blue and gold. It had been a royal chair in its day, or the Fleur-de-Lys lied.

The flight-lieutenant seated himself with a rather stiff bow.

"If you need canvas"--Wayland hesitated--then, gravely: "There are, in my room, a number of artists' _toiles_--old chassis with the blank canvas still untouched."

"Exactly what we need!" exclaimed the other. "What luck, now, to meet a painter in such a place as this!"

"They belonged to my father," explained Wayland. "We--Marie-Josephine and I--have always kept my father's old canvases and colours--everything of his.... I'll be glad to give them to a British soldier.... They're about all I have that was his--except that oak chair you sit on."

He rose on his crutches, spoke briefly in Breton to Marie-Josephine, then limped slowly away to his room.

When he returned with half a dozen blank canvases the flight-lieutenant, at table, was eating pork and black bread and drinking Breton cider.

Wayland seated himself, laid both crutches across his knees, picked up one of the chassis, and began to rip from it the dusty canvas. It was like tearing muscles from his own bones. But he smiled and chatted on, casually, with the air-officer, who ate as though half starved.

"I suppose," said Wayland, "you'll start back across the Channel as soon as you secure petrol enough?"

"Yes, of course."

"You could go by way of Quimper or by Lorient. There's petrol to be had at both places for military purposes"--leisurely continuing to rip the big squares of canvas from the frames.

The airman, still eating, watched him askance at intervals.

"I've brought what's left of the shellac; it isn't much use, I fear. But here is his hammer and canvas stretcher, and the remainder of the nails he used for stretching his canvases," said Wayland, with an effort to speak carelessly.

"Many thanks. You also are a painter, I take it."

Wayland laid one hand on the sleeve of his uniform and laughed.

"I _was_ a writer. But there are only soldiers in the world now."

"Quite so ... This is an odd place for an American to live in."

"My father bought it years ago. He was a painter of peasant life." He added, lowering his voice, although Marie-Josephine understood no English: "This old peasant woman was his model many years ago. She also kept house for him. He lived here; I was born here."

"Really?"

"Yes, but my father desired that I grow up a good Yankee. I was at school in America when he--died."

The airman continued to eat very busily.

"He died--out there"--Wayland looked through the window, musingly. "There was an Iceland schooner wrecked off the Isle des Chouans. And no life-saving crew short of Ylva Light. So my father went out in his little American catboat, all alone.... Marie-Josephine saw his sail off Eryx Rocks ... for a few moments ... and saw it no more."

The airman, still devouring his bread and meat, nodded in silence.

"That is how it happened," said Wayland. "The French authorities notified me. There was a little money and this hut, and--Marie-Josephine. So I came here; and I write children's stories--that sort of thing.... It goes well enough. I sell a few to American publishers. Otherwise I shoot and fish and read ... when war does not preoccupy me...."

He smiled, experiencing the vague relief of talking to somebody in his native tongue. Quesnel Moors were sometimes very lonely.

"It's been a long convalescence," he continued, smilingly. "One of their 'coal-boxes' did this"--touching his leg. "When I was able to move I went to America. But the sea off the Eryx called me back; and the authorities permitted me to come down here. I'm getting well very fast now."

He had stripped every chassis of its canvas, and had made a roll of the material.

"I'm very glad to be of any use to you," he said pleasantly, laying the roll on the table.

Marie-Josephine, on her low chair by the hearth, sat listening to every word as though she had understood. The expression in her faded eyes varied constantly; solicitude, perplexity, vague uneasiness, a recurrent glimmer of suspicion were succeeded always by wistful tenderness when her gaze returned to Wayland and rested on his youthful face and figure with a pride forever new.

Once she spoke in mixed French and Breton:

"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques, _mon cheri_?"

"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do you?"

"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"

"He has the tricks of speech. Also his accent is of an English university. There is no mistaking it."

"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed in the universities of England?"

"Yes.... But----"

"_Gar a nous, mon p'tit_, Jacques. In Finistere a stranger is a suspect. Since earliest times they have done us harm in Finistere. The strangers--God knows what centuries of evil they have wrought."

"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned again to the airman, who had now satisfied his hunger and had already risen to gather up the roll of canvas, the hammer, nails, and shellac.

"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially. "I'll take these articles, if I may. It's very good of you ... I'm in a tearing hurry----"

"Won't your pilot come over and eat a bit?"

"I'll take him this bread and meat, if I may. Many thanks." He held out his heavily gloved hand with a friendly smile, nodded to Marie-Josephine. And as he hurriedly turned to go, the ancient carving on the high-backed chair caught him between the buttons of his leather coat, tearing it wide open over the breast. And Wayland saw the ribbon of the Iron Cross there fastened to a sea-grey tunic.

There was a second's frightful silence.

"What's that you wear?" said Wayland hoarsely. "Stop! Stand where you----"

"Halt! Don't touch that shotgun!" cried the airman sharply. But Wayland already had it in his hands, and the airman fired twice at him where he stood--steadied the automatic to shoot again, but held his fire, seeing it would not be necessary. Besides, he did not care to shoot the old woman unless military precaution made it advisable; and she was on her knees, her withered arms upflung, shielding the prostrate body with her own.

"You Yankee fool," he snapped out harshly--"it is your own fault, not mine!... Like the rest of your imbecile nation you poke your nose where it has no business! And I--" He ceased speaking, realizing that his words remained unheard.

After a moment he backed toward the door, carrying the canvas roll under his left arm and keeping his eye carefully on the prostrate man. Also, one can never trust the French!--he was quite ready for that old woman there on the floor who was holding the dead boy's head to her breast, muttering: "My darling! My child!--Oh, little son of Marie-Josephine!--I told thee--I warned thee of the stranger in Finistere!... Marie--holy--intercede!... All--all are born to grief in Finistere!..." _

Read next: Chapter 8. En Observation

Read previous: Chapter 6. In Finistere

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