“Well, they’ve passed over once or twice, they say, but I’ve been in bed and asleep. My husband was called up last month, and is now in training down in Kent. Only a week ago he wrote to me saying he hoped I wasn’t frightened by them. Somebody down in Kent had evidently spread a report that they had been over here. But I’m thankful to say I heard nothing of them.”
“Do you ever get aeroplanes over?” asked Beryl.
“Oh, yes, miss! We get some across in the daytime. They must have an aerodrome somewhere on the coast, I think—but I don’t know where it is.”
“Do you ever hear anything of them at night?” inquired the girl.
“Well, just now and then. I’ve been awakened sometimes by the humming of them passing over at night—our patrols, I suppose they are.”
Ronald Pryor exchanged another meaning glance with his well-beloved.
“Do they sound quite near?” he asked.
“Oh! quite—unusually low. I suppose they manœuvre across the moors?” she said. “Mr. Benton, the farmer who lives over at Crosslands, quite close here, was only the other day telling me a curious story. He said he was going home late the other night from Jack Sneath’s, when he heard an aeroplane above him, and he saw the machine making some flashlights—signalling to somebody. It flew round and round, hovering and signalling madly. Suddenly, he told me, the aviator cut off his engine, as though he had received an answer, and sailing over the moor, descended somewhere close by, for the hum of the engine was heard no more.”
“Curious!” Pryor remarked, again glancing at his well-beloved.
“Oh, no, sir!” replied the smiling woman. “It was only the night manœuvres of our splendid aircraft boys. Really everyone must admire them,” she added, unaware of Ronald Pryor’s qualifications as an air-pilot.