“No. It had the heels of all of us. The Hun’s ‘Archies’[2] brought down one of our machines that tried to follow it.”
[2] Soldiers’ slang for anti-aircraft guns.—The Editors.
“Shop” interest waned at this juncture, and the conversation upon which I had been eavesdropping veered off viâ headache-remedies and a pretty Scotch nurse at a hospital in France to the comparative merits of the “Empire” and “Alhambra” choruses; and I was able to turn both ears to Horne, who had been holding forth learnedly for some minutes on the points of the Andean pony-thoroughbred cross as a polo mount.
II
Our fellow diners drifted away as they had come—singly, and in twos and threes—and by ten o’clock Horne and I were alone in the deserted lounge with our cigars and coffee. He was expecting to be rung up at ten-thirty, he said, and as the time approached I could not help noticing that he became distrait and nervous, palpably anxious. The call came promptly, and it was with a look of ill-concealed apprehension on his face that he rose to follow the summoning flunkey to the telephone booth. A minute later he returned walking on air. Twice or thrice he tried to take up the dropped thread of Argentine reminiscence, finally giving it up as a bad job.
“I can’t help telling you that I’ve just had some very good news,” he exclaimed, with beaming face. “For six weeks now I have been haunted by a fear that that last jarring up I got was going to put me out of the game for good. Yesterday I had the doctors go over me, and now, after being kept all day on tenterhooks, comes word that, so far as flying is concerned, I’m going to be as right as rain. Nothing whatever likely to occur to prevent my going back in a fortnight. I think I must be just about the happiest man in London to-night. I——”
He checked himself with a deprecatory gesture. “Really, you’ll have to pardon my outburst, old chap; but I wasn’t half sure that I wasn’t in line for invaliding out. Besides, I’ve been fairly itching to be ‘up’ all day. There’s been witchery in the air ever since sunrise. I’ve never known more perfect flying weather. Which reminds me, by the way, that the Zepps are expected in this vicinity to-night. They were on the ‘East Coast’ last night, you know. It’s just a little too clear for their purposes; but the air itself is perfect—perfect. There haven’t been more than one or two other such days for flying as this one since the war began. You can’t understand it till you’ve been in the air yourself. It was in the blood of all those chaps at dinner this evening. They talked about everything on earth except flying; and were thinking about nothing else but that. Didn’t you notice that they were as restive as the lions in the Zoo an hour before feeding time?”
Throwing aside all reserve, Horne began to speak of his work—his love of it, the fascination of it, the great and increasingly important part it was playing in the war. This was precisely what, hoping against hope, I had been trying to draw him out on all the evening; and so, lighting a fresh cigar, I sank back contentedly in my armchair to play the part of the appreciative auditor. Scarcely was I well settled, however, when Horne abruptly ceased speaking and leaned forward with his head cocked in an attitude of attentive listening.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered; “and that, and that?”
“Nothing but the chatter of the first dribble of the supper crowd,” I answered. “What is it?”