The stout one assumed an injured expression. “What’s wrong? I am starting at the beginning.... We went up along the coast. I took a squadron of ’planes: Flight Leaders: two Canucks, a New Zealander, and an Oxford undergraduate who’d lost his young woman in the Lusitania and didn’t care if it snowed ink: a Yank who’d been in Belgium when the Huns started what he called ‘getting gay’—newspaper reporter or something—and a Yorkshire dog-fancier—a quirk,[6] but full-out. They were all full-out, as a matter of fact: good lads, especially the Yank.” The narrator paused. “He’d seen a baby in a butcher’s shop—in Liège, I think it was. The Huns had cut its hands off and hung it on a hook.... He was not so much a scientific bomber, really, as zealous. Very zealous.... I lost the quirk, and one of my Canucks, but the other got back all right.”
“Alpha and Omega,” cut in Foster. “The beginning and the end. Now, Jerry, let’s have the story.”
“Hang it, I’ve told you the story. You know the rest, anyhow. I dropped my contribution to the gaiety of nations, and the lock-gates went. There were half a dozen destroyers in harbour, and they got the wind up them and bolted for the open sea——”
“That’s when we nabbed ’em,” said Brakespear. “They were trying to nip for Ostend, and they put up a very pretty little scrap, thanks, Jerry. We Destroyers were waiting outside.”
“Not ’t all!” said the Flying Man modestly; “we’d had all the fun we wanted. There was a squadron of Handley Pages there, and some French machines, and they made the oil-tanks look like Cities of the Plain before they went home.” He turned to Longridge. “’Member the review at Spithead before the war—when they had that searchlight display, all the beams whirling round in the sky? You dined with me that night.”
Longridge nodded. “I remember. We went on deck to watch the performance.... It made me sick,” he concluded naïvely.
“Well,” said Jerome, “I looked back over my shoulder on the return journey, and thought of that night at Spithead. The sky looked like a huge Catherine wheel. We made a photographic reconnaissance next day....” he clucked softly with his tongue against his teeth. “Tony,” he said, “that place looked like your face would if you got small-pox after fighting ten rounds with Jack Johnson without gloves.”
“Thank you,” said his host. “Simile seems to be your strong point to-night.”
“It’s the drink,” said Longridge. “He develops a graphic style if you leave the decanter near him and don’t interrupt.”
“Where did you catch ’em, Brakes, you and your precious T.B.D.’s?” asked Foster. “We were going home when the fun started. Laid our eggs early and decided that the quiet life was the thing that really appealed to us.”