  Until one P. M. the next day Cherry was lost to the world. At last she stirred beneath her rare old English blankets, opened her eyes, stared about her, tried to remember, then began trying to forget. In slippers and bathrobe she crept down to the kitchen where the cook served her with very strong tea and a small, delicious meat pie. After that she curled up in the big chair before the fire and once again fell asleep. It was only on the morning of the second day that she found courage to face life as it was. The home in London in which she had been given royal welcome was gone. She could barely whisper. Would her voice come back? What of her people there in the subway? The little Irish girl, the Scotch fiddler, and all the rest, were they carrying on? “Yes,” she assured herself as a fresh glow of hope overflowed her being, “They are right there doing their bit.” Breakfast over, with Flash at her heels, she once again led her small flock of sheep out to the frostbitten, sunlit pasture. There, after spreading a blanket on a rock, she lay for a long time staring up at the sun. It seemed to her, at that moment, that all that terrible war was but a bad dream, that it never had happened, that all the world was as much at peace as was her sunny pasture. The drone of airplane motors, followed by machine-guns tearing at the sky drove this illusion from her mind. The war was real, terribly real. It must be faced with eyes open and mind alert. It was there on the rock that her brother found her. “So they drove you out of London? The dirty Huns!” he exclaimed, dropping to a seat beside her. “Cherry!” There were lines of fierce determination in his face, “I’m going to join up with the Royal Air Force.” For a full minute she made no reply, just sat staring at the cloudless sky. Perhaps she was thinking of the good times they had had together, fishing and swimming in summer, tobogganing and skiing in winter. And on rainy days there had been games before the open fire. “Yes,” she whispered at last, as color flooded back into her face, “you must join up, Brand. Everyone must. Those marvelous people, the women, the children must come out of the subway. They must sleep again in their own homes in peace.” “I—I’m glad you feel that way.” Brand swallowed hard. “That—that’s going to make it easier. You and I have been pals, Cherry, all these years. “I’ll tell you,” his voice picked up. “It’s a great secret. We’ve been training, Dave and I, training for two weeks. Training like everything.” “D—Dave,” she whispered. “Why! He’s an American! This is not his war.” “That’s what he thought,” Brand laughed low. “Perhaps he still thinks it, in a way. But he’ll join up. You wait! The young Lord says he will, and he usually knows.” “The—the young Lord?” Cherry whispered. “Yes, there’s part of the secret. He’s had two week’s leave. He’s been training us in the back pasture. Of course we’ve each done a lot of flying but this is special, regular fighting stuff, parachutes and everything. And, Cherry, cross your heart and hope to die if I tell you?” “Cross—cross my heart.” “All right. Dave’s already been in a day fight. He and the young Lord got a Dornier! Boy, that was great! I wish I’d been in it with them.” “Dave in an air battle?” The girl stared. “Certainly was, and did his part nobly.” While Cherry sat listening, breathless, Brand described Dave’s adventure in the clouds that day over England and the channel. “Dave never whispered a word about it to me,” she said when the story was told. Her shining eyes showed that the American boy stood out in her mind as a hero. “Dave can keep a secret,” said Brand. “That’s why we all like him.” “But you shouldn’t try to drag him into the war,” Cherry replied thoughtfully. “England is not his country.” “He’ll decide about that for himself when the time comes.” Brand sent a small rock skipping down the hill. “He talked it all over with his uncle in London two weeks ago. His uncle advised him to get all the flying experience he could. He thinks America will be in the war soon. Then Dave will be in it for sure. Great old boy, his uncle, a real sport. He was in the other war, an ace flyer. Thinks the air service is trumps. And who wouldn’t?” Brand’s face shone with enthusiasm. “Boy it’s great! All of it.” He sprang to his feet. “Even baling out. First time I stepped into space with a parachute on my back I thought my heart would jump out of my mouth. But when the old silk took hold and I drifted slowly down, Baby! That was swell! I’ve baled out twenty times since then—just practice you know. Now it’s as natural as swimming.” “Brand?” Cherry whispered. “I’ve lost my voice. They say it will come back. I—I don’t know. Can’t do my share. You’ll have to carry on. How I wish I’d been born a boy!” “Buck up, old girl!” Brand exclaimed cheerfully, “you’ll be right back in there again before you know it. “And even if you aren’t,” he added soberly, “you’ve already done more than any other gal in Merry England to help folks keep heads up and hopes high. That’s a whole great big lot.” At that he went marching back down the hill. “Great doings these last two weeks,” he thought to himself. They had worked hard all of them. Truck loads of Brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots, apples and pears had been sent rumbling on their way to London. All their winter’s supplies had been safely stowed away. Beside this they had found time each day for two hours of practice flying. “There’s mother,” he thought soberly. “Somehow, I’ll have to win her over.” Had he but known it his hated enemies, the Jerries, were to give him a lift with his mother. Dave too had been thinking of his mother. As he sat by the open fire with Cherry that evening, he said: “Just had a letter from my mother.” “I hope she’s well,” Cherry replied in her polite, English manner. “Oh! Always!” Dave laughed. “She’s closing our New England home and going with my aunt to Florida. She has an independent income so she gets about.” “What does one do in Florida?” Cherry asked. “Oh, bask in the sun until you’re brown, swim, play tennis, go tarpon fishing,” Dave drawled lazily. “Sounds rather dreamy.” “It is, and unreal too. Do you know?” Dave exclaimed, “I haven’t thought of it before but since I came to England I’ve really just started to live.” “I—I’m glad,” Cherry whispered. “I’ve often thought—” She broke off to listen. “Enemy planes,” she whispered. “Bombers!” Dave nodded. “Sound as if they were right overhead. And they seem so low.” Cherry shuddered. A half minute followed without a sound save the tick-tock of the tall old clock and the drone overhead. Then, of a sudden, with a throaty whisper ten times more startling than a cry, Cherry sprang from her seat. The stillness of the countryside had been shattered by a crash that appeared to come from their own farmyard. Truth was, a bomb had fallen on their village two miles away. |
|
