He did not finish. Just sat there staring at the fire. “There’s a lot more to it than that,” he went on after a time. “It’s easy enough to say, ‘It’s not my war’, when you’re far away. But when you are here, when you see how this war is being fought, defenseless women and children who never harmed anyone being killed and country homes bombed. Good God! How can you help wanting to fight?
“And there’s still more to it,” he added after a moment’s silence. “This flying sort of gets you. I’ve been within its grip since the first time I went up.
“And flyer fighting.” He took a long breath. “It’s like our American football. It’s a game. The other fellow has the ball. You go after him. You have the ball. He goes after you. You dodge this way and that. You stiff arm him if he gets close. You lean like the Tower of Pisa, you zigzag and weave like a sapling in the wind. Flyer fighting is like that.”
“But the score?” Cherry whispered.
“Ah, yes,” Dave murmured. “The score must always be heavy on your side.”
They were silent. At last Cherry whispered: “I seem to hear applause, the way you hear it on the radio. Per—perhaps it’s the applause of angels. Perhaps the applause is for you. Anyway, here’s wishing you luck.” She put out a slender hand to seize his in a quick, nervous grip.
A quarter hour later the girl was beneath the blankets beside her sister and Dave, rolled in a thick, soft rug before the fire, was fast asleep.
Chapter XVI
Fiddlin’ Johnny
Two nights later they were all seated about the fire in the Hideout. Their new home was small but not too crowded for company. Young Lord Applegate and two of his flying buddies were there. Beside the Lord, whom Dave had met some days before, there was a flyer they had nicknamed Fiddlin’ Johnny. Johnny was slender, fair-haired and dreamy-eyed. “Just the sort that doesn’t seem to belong in the air,” Applegate had said to Dave. “But he’s got a real record. You’d be surprised.”
“Give us a tune, Johnny,” Brand urged, as Alice’s tea warmed their souls.