Wild Wings: A Romance of Youth

by Margaret Piper Chalmers

At his insistence however Ruth had finally consented to wear her mother's wedding ring as a sort of shadowy protection. He had an idea that the small gold band, being presumptive evidence of an existing male guardian somewhere in the offing might serve to keep away the ill intentioned or over bold from his lovely little heiress cousin about whom he worried to no small degree.

They had gone their separate ways, he to the fierce fighting of May, nineteen hundred and sixteen, she to her long journey and subsequent strange adventures. At first no one had thought it unnatural that they heard nothing from Elinor. Letters went easily astray those days. Geoffrey was weeks without news even from his wife and poor Roderick was by this time beyond communication of any kind, his name labeled with that saddest of all tags—missing. It was not until Geoffrey was out of commission with that last worst knock out, lying insensible, more dead than alive in a hospital "somewhere in France" that the others began to realize that Elinor had vanished utterly from the ken of all who knew her. Some one who knew her by sight had chanced to see her in California and had noted the wedding ring, hence the "unsubstantiated rumor" of her marriage in San Francisco, a rumor which Nancy half frantic over her husband's desperate illness was the only person who was in a position to explain.

When Geoffrey came slowly back to the land of the living it was to learn that his cousin Roderick was still reported missing and that Elinor was even more sadly and mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth in spite of all effort to discover her fate. It had been a tragic coming back for the sick man. But an Englishman is hard to down and gradually he got back health and a degree of hope and happiness. There would be no more fighting for him but the War Department assured him there were plenty of other ways in which he could serve the cause and he had readily placed himself at their disposal for the recruiting work in which he had already demonstrated his power to success in Australia.

Which brings us to the Canadian training camp and Ted Holiday. Captain Annersley had been asked as he had told Larry to speak to the boys. He had done so, given a little straight talk of what lay ahead of them and what they were fighting for, bade them get in a few extra licks for him since he was out of it for good, done for, "crocked." In conclusion he had begged them give the Huns hell. It was all he asked of them and from the look of them he jolly well knew they would do it.

While he was speaking he was aware all the time of a tall, blue-eyed youth who stood leaning against a post with a kind of nonchalant grace. The boy's pose had been indolent but his eyes had been wide awake, earnest, responsive. Little by little the captain found himself talking directly to the lad. What he was saying might be over the heads of some of them but not this chap's. He got you as the Americans say. He had the vision, would go wherever the speaker could take him. One saw that.

Afterwards the boy had sought out the recruiter to ask if by any chance he knew a girl named Elinor Ruth Farringdon. It had been rather a tremendous moment for both of them. Each had plenty to say that the other wanted to hear. But the full story had to wait. Corporal Holiday couldn't run around loose even talking to a distinguished British officer. There would have to be special dispensation for that and special dispensations take time in an army world. It would be forthcoming however—to-morrow.

In the meantime Geoffrey Annersley had heard enough to want to know a great deal more and thought he might as well make some inquiries on his own. He wanted to find out who these American Holidays were, one of whom had apparently saved his cousin Elinor's life and all of whom had, one concluded, been amazingly kind to her though the blue-eyed boy had gracefully made light of that side of the thing in the brief synopsis of events he had had time to give to the Englishman. The captain had taken a fancy to the narrator and was not averse to beginning his investigation as to the Holiday family with the young corporal himself.

Accordingly he tackled the boy's commanding officer, a young colonel with whom he chanced to be dining. The colonel was willing to talk and Geoffrey Annersley discovered that young Holiday was rather by way of being a top-notcher. He had enlisted as a private only a short time ago but had been shot speedily into his corporalship. Time pressed. Officers were needed. The boy was officer stuff. He wouldn't stay a corporal. If all went well he would go over as a sergeant.

"We put him through though, just at first handled him rather nasty," the colonel admitted with a reminiscent twinkle. "We do put the Americans through somehow, though it isn't that we have any grudge against 'em. We haven't. We like 'em—most of 'em and we have to admit it's rather decent of them to be here at all when they don't have to. All the same we give 'em an extra twist of the discipline crank on general principles just to see what they are made of. We found out mighty quick with this youngster. He took it all and came back for more with a 'sir,' and a salute and a devilish debonair, you-can't-down-me kind of grin that would have disarmed a Turk."

"He doesn't look precisely meek to me," Annersley had said remembering the answering flash he had caught in those blue eyes when he was begging the boys to get in an extra lick against the Huns for his sake.