He bowed, wheeled about and walked from her with his long strides, and the boy, with a face all flushed and quivering, suddenly jumped at her neck and hugged her; bringing with the rough little embrace the queer scent of water-proofed material and dubbined leather, knocking the silver-spangled hat awry, loosening divers tortoiseshell hairpins and an amethyst slide-buckle holding up the heavy tresses of the dead beech-leaf coloured hair, as he whispered:
"Remember I love you, Pat. Don't mind!"
And she shuddered as he freed her, and ran from her, asking herself: How much had the child overheard of von Herrnung's proposal? What had he comprehended of what he had heard?
Next, she was aware of the pleasant voice of Sherbrand calling, and saw von Herrnung imperiously beckoning. A cold sickness of dread assailed her, and her knees trembled underneath her weight. A mechanic came running past, carrying away the chair Davis had brought her. He set it down at a safe distance from the aëroplane, and she staggered to it, leaning on the long staff of her sunshade, and sat heavily down, feeling chilly and old....
Saxham had squeezed Bawne's shoulder and kissed him, and then withdrawn to a distance whence he could see all that took place. He watched Davis and Sherbrand help the boy into the forward cockpit, and fasten about him the safety belt attached to the fuselage on either side of the fixed bamboo seat.
"You are sure you really want to fly again? Mind, I believe you're as safe with him as houses, but if you don't want to go, say the word, and you shan't!"
Sherbrand whispered the words as he busied himself with the boy. And Bawne set his small teeth and squared his sturdy boyish shoulders, registering an unspoken vow to go in spite of all....
One had been told to drop a word to Sherbrand if one found oneself in a tight place. But could one ever hold up one's head again before the Patrol, if one did this? To share one's Mission with another when the Chief had said "I'd rather you'd carry through on your own" wasn't to be thought of. Mother—he swallowed hard at the thought of her—would say so too.
It troubled his faithful little soul that he could no longer see von Herrnung. He heard him talking in his guttural English, to Davis, whom Bawne could not see either—as he stood near the nose of the machine, in readiness to start the tractor—any more than the two mechanics who steadied the Bird, pressing each a toe on the axle of the under-carriage as they held on to a steel rod that ran along under the rearward edges of her single plane.
His final directions sharply given, von Herrnung stepped up on the under-carriage, threw a long leg over the bulwark of the fuselage, and stepped into the pilot's pit. Bawne screwed his head round and saw, through and over a low talc wind-shield, the upright torso of the German, big, hard, and indomitable, the leather satchel still gripped in his strapped-up left hand.