The Boy with Wings

by Berta Ruck

Namely that "she was so desperately keen on anything to do with flying and flyers that she'd scrub the floors of the shops for you if you wished it, besides doing your business letters as carefully as if each one was about some important Diplomatic secret ... try her!"

So on the following Monday Gwenna began her new life.

At first this new work of Gwenna's consisted very largely of what Leslie had mentioned; the writing-out of business letters at the table set under the window in the small private office adjoining the great Wing-room.

(Curious that the Wings for Airships, the giant butterfly aeroplanes themselves, should grow out of a chrysalis of ordinary business, with letters that began, "Sir, we beg to thank you for your favour of the 2nd instant, and to assure you that same shall receive our immediate attention," exactly the sort of letters that Gwenna had typed during all those weeks at Westminster!)

Then there were orders to send off for more bales of the linen that was stretched over the membranes of those wings; or for the great reels of wire which strung the machines, and which cost fifteen pounds apiece; orders for the metal which was to be worked in the shops across the parched yard, where men of three nationalities toiled at the lathe; turning-screws, strainers, washers, and all the tiny, complicated-looking parts that were to be the bones and the sinews and the muscles of the finished Flying Machine.

Gwenna, the typist, had at first only a glimpse or so of these other sides of the Works.

Once, on a message from some visitor to the Aeroplane Lady she passed through the great central room, larger than her Uncle's chapel at home, with its concrete floor and the clear diffused light coming through the many windows, and the never-ceasing throb of the gas-driven engine pulsing through the lighter sounds of chinking and hammering. Mechanics were busy all down the sides of this hall; in the aisle of it, three machines in the making were set up on the stands. One was ready all but the wings; its body seemed now more than it would ever seem that of a giant fish; it was covered with the doped linen that was laced at the seams with braid, eyelets and cord, like an old-fashioned woman's corset. The second was half-covered. The third was all as yet uncovered, and looked like the skeleton of a vast seagull cast up on some prehistoric shore.

Wondering, the girl passed on, to find her employer. She found her in the fitter's shop. In a corner, the red-haired pupil, with goggles over his eyes, was sitting at a stand working an acetylene blow-pipe; holding in his hand the intense jet that shot out showers of squib-like sparks, and wielding a socket, the Lady directing him. She took the girl's message, then walked back with her to the office, her tawny dog following at her heels.

"Letters finished?... then I'd like you to help me on with the wings of that machine that's all but done," she said. "That is"—she smiled—"if you don't mind getting your hands all over this beastly stuff——"

Mind? Gwenna would have plastered her whole little white body with that warmed and strongly-smelling dope if she'd thought that by so doing she was actually taking a hand in the launching of a Ship for the Clouds.