"Mademoiselle, I regret there is but little to tell you. The enemy possesses an aërial organisation of great effectiveness which is being chiefly employed in the killing of harmless civilians and the destruction of unfortified towns. But small success has hitherto attended his efforts in the Channel. Your British Expedition was conveyed across the water without the loss of one piou-piou, or any damage received by the explosion of a German bomb. As for the German aviators of whom I speak, their attitude towards myself and my pilot was modest. Flying their double-seated military Taubes, of which the wings and tail resemble those of the dove after which they have been named, they pursued our biplane half-way from Calais to Dover before deciding to attack."
"Then—" She hesitated, softly clapping her palms together and dimpling like a big child over the telling of a new fairy tale.
"Then one climbed, possessing the advantage of a powerful engine, and dropped a bomb from a height of some 600 mètres which exploded without hitting us and went to the bottom of the sea. While the second aviator, who was armed with a repeating-carbine, wounded my pilot so severely that it was only by a miracle of endurance he preserved consciousness long enough to land without a crash. So I left him at Dover and—with a pilot mechanic from the Air Station, completed my passage, descending at Brooklands at twelve demie."
"Was your pilot hurt very badly? Will he be able to fly back to France?"
"Mademoiselle, being a pious Catholic, he has already flown to Heaven."
"He is dead.... And you can joke!" Patrine reproached him. His face was very wrinkled as he smiled.
"Mademoiselle, if a soldier could not jest at Death upon occasion, Life for a soldier would be impossible! Of verity, the loss of a good pilot-aviateur is not a thing to joke about, but fortunately I have your friend to fill his place."
"Alan! You must not—I will never consent to it!"
All taken aback, her colour banished, she fixed Sherbrand with blazing imperative eyes. He reddened to the hair and his mouth shut firmly. For the first time there was a clash of wills between the pair.
"Alan, why didn't you ask me?"