That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day

by Richard Dehan

He knew it was because he had prayed so hard that the bomb had exploded prematurely. Would the Enemy try again with the one that yet remained? But the Enemy made no sign. One dared not look round or speak to him. Was he in a fit, or sick, or merely shamming? One could feel the big body heaving at one's back as it lay huddled against the canvas partition, with rolling head and arms spread wide, and knees that straddled and sagged.

Jerk! The Taube heaved her after-part as a cow gets up, and nose-dived. Von Herrnung's feet had slipped from the controls, and her rudder was flapping free. As Bawne toed the bar and gripped the guide-wheel, and brought the keel to a level, the blood in his veins tingled and he knew a thrill of joy.

One had borne a lot, but—Man alive!—a moment like this was worth it. What Boy Scout could deny the greatness of this boy's reward? To be master of this giant Bird, rushing at the speed of an express-train over woods and fields and villages, diminished to the patches on a crazy-quilt by the height at which one sped. To hear the shrill breeze harping in the wires and the roar of the flashing tractor, and change the din at a finger-touch to the silence of a glide.

West, where the sun was setting in red fire were signs by now familiar. Linked specks that were big grey German troop-trains ran over the shining gossamer-lines of the railways, going south. Where the shining lines looked like scattered pins, the railways had been blown up by the Belgians, or the British. Things like caterpillars crawling over the white ribbons of the highways were German motor-lorries dragging great howitzers, or Army Supply and Transport, or marching columns of robust, bullet-headed German infantrymen.

A blot of grey upon a town was where a Division rested. Strings of grey spiders hurrying south, would be brigades of cyclist telegraphists or sharpshooters, and processions of drab beetles scuttling along, Field Ambulances, or Staff motor-cars. One would have said that a green-grey blight had fallen upon Belgium, swiftly advancing, stayed by nothing, devouring as it moved.

East, where the shadow of the Taube raced beside her like a carriage-dog, black streaks that were barges still crawled on the canals, and peasants' carts crept over the roads—and there were no columns of troops in view, nor uglier tokens of the War. Though the red and brown towns showed scant signs of life, late root-crops were being harvested; plough-teams were breaking up the stubbles, factory chimneys were smoking, and acres of linen-web yet spread to bleach along the river-banks.

Later in the month the grey-green blight was to sweep over all this region as the Boche retreated before the thrust of the 1st and 4th British Army Corps, from Houthulst Forest to Menin-on-Lys.

Those voices of the guns were nearer now. They talked on incessantly. You felt the air that carried you vibrating as you flew. The solid earth heaved up in waves under the dusty golden smoke-drifts veiling the south horizon. Black pillars of smoke and débris climbed and collapsed against the dusty gold. Grey Imperial Staff cars were parked in the courtyard of a château with pepper-box towers. Officers sat at tables on the vine-covered terrace, while a farm close by was doing duty as a casualty-clearing station. You could pick out the flutter of the Red Cross Flag on a broken tree beside the gateway—and the come and go of the bearers carrying laden or empty stretchers—and the white armlets of the Sanitätskorps men who drove the ambulance-cars. To have seen over and over again what grown folks learned from newspapers was to be a man seasoned in War, whilst yet one's bones were young. Well worth the hardships one had borne, this sheaf of ripe experience. Good to know one had obeyed the Chief who said, "Quit yourself like a man!"

So Bawne flew on. The fiery chrism of a strange second baptism was on his forehead. Gates of wonder seemed opening on the horizon towards which he hastened, guided by the big broad arrow of the reinforced compass and the thudding of those nearing guns.

Some perception of great issues at stake and marvellous impending changes, ushering in the revival of the forgotten days of Chivalry, may have come at this hour to the child so strangely caught and whirled into the dizzy circles of the maelstrom of International War. Did a voice whisper to him that as of old by his Pagan forefathers, babes were sacrificed to Bel and Odin—so for the cleansing of the sick world of to-day from the War-madness begotten by greed and materialism a torrent of rich, warm, generous blood was to be shed from the veins of the young? Could he dream that the lower mankind sank, the higher men were to rise—mounting on stepping-stones of obedience and courage, to those heights where the human may walk with the Divine? That through long years to come, bright boys in myriads would drain the wine of Death from the chalice of Self-Sacrifice, and pass to God who kindled in those clean young souls the fire that made Him burn to die for men.