Air Wonder Stories, August 1929 — page 48: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

=a —. - 142 AIR WONDER STORIES on the Seven, and everything was put in order. We rigged up a pair of collapsible- bunks from the side walls of the cabin, so that our passenger could sleep if he wanted to, and so that Milliken and I could lie down in our off spells. Then we had a little vacuum-box for hot food, and everything necessary for feeding in comfort. At seven o'clock on the Thursday evening, we said good-bye to my father and Dan Lamont, who had come over to see us off, and to a great “Rah-rah!” from the staff of the workshops, we shot off across the bay, the Merlin quietly picking up into her cruising speed of four-fifty kilometres an hour. The weather report had given warning of low storms off the coast, and we climbed high to ride over them, so there was not much to see below us. At three thou- sand odd metres up, we came into a side wind from the north, fairly strong, which must have given us a lot of drift, But the Merlin. was flying easy, and there was no pitching to speak of. Milliken relieved me at eight, and I joined Lord Almeric in some food, for we had not dined before leaving. He was a charming companion, who talked interestingly, and had the knack of making one talk as well. It seemed that there were few corners of the earth he had not visited, and his outlook on life was correspondingly wide. There was nothing insular about him, With his open collar and its old-fashioned broad silk cravat, of the shape the English call “Ascot,” he looked what he was, a very distinguished Englishman of the best type, but the curious thing was that he appeared as much at home in the cabin of the Merlin as he:would have been in his own library. - When I spelled Milliken so that he could have some- thing to eat, Lord Almeric continued his talk with him, charming my: mechanic into.an tnwonted loquacity. It was gently done, and it had its reward, for Milliken when he did talk talked very much to the purpose. Over my shoulder I heard-more of Milliken’s life laid bare to Lord Almeric in half an hour, than I had. got from the mechanic in the years we had been working together. “Now, if you'll excuse me, sir,’ I heard Milliken say, by and by, “I'll just chuck some of this stuff over- board:and wash up.” “Let me bear a hand,” said Lord Almeric. “You wash and F’ll wipe!” “If it comes to that, sir,” said Milliken, “you wash and I'll wipe. I know better than you do where to stow.” “Good. This the grease remover?” Lord Almeric had taken off his jacket. “That's the stuff, sir. And here’s a dish-cloth.” A rush of cold air at this moment made me turn round, Milliken had pried up the hatch with a fork through the ring, and was scraping the refuse through the opening. “All the world is my garbage can, which with this fork Iwill open,” Lord Almeric laughed. “Ah,” said Milliken. ‘“That’s old Pistol, isn’t: it?” “Slightly amended——” They fell to discussing Shakespeare, and by the time they had finished their chores and were lying down on the bunks on the opposite sides of the gangway, they were pooh-poohing the Bacon-Shakespeare theory. They then fell to talking of dry-points and etchings. I could not help thinking the subjects curious common ground for a great banker and a fine mechanic to meet on. - “He was killed at Messines. Milliken: relieved me at midnight, our time, and I took my turn on the bunk, . : es are we now, Jimmy?” asked Lord Almeric sleepily. “Just clearing the Newfotndland Bank, we should be—four hundred odd kilometres west, a point or two south of Cape Race.” “Splendid!” murmured his lordship and fell asleep, an example I proceeded to follow. It was bright day when I woke to relieve Milliken, four o'clock by our timepiece, and about seven in the longitude we were passing. “Passed the Purthalia about fifteen minutes back,” sate Milliken. “I’d say a hundred kilometres to the north,” “Then we've drifted a bit, but not so much as I expected.” “Ah-hah!” he yawned. “Wind shifted round about two—blew us back again.” He fetched me a cup of coffee, and then turned in. Two hours later Ireland came up like a smudge of blue smoke on the horizon to port, and a few minutes later the Lizard widened out into the spear-head of Cornwall and Devon. T can-never fly high over England. I love to see the patchwork of fields, the dark purple of her woods, and the tiny white ribbons of her roads, the slender threads of silver that mark her waterways. I had to come down close enough to get the shape of her red roofs, all the jolly, homey villages, nestling in wooded hol- lows or sprawled over low downs, each with its church spire or tower rising from a patch of green, green sward, white speckled with the headstone above her ancient dead. It was April in England then. A Night in London HERE was no time to saunter, but I wanted-fo, We had to get our passenger into London by one o'clock, English time. Lord Almeric was astir, and had made an astonishingly neat toilet. He was drink- ing coffee, “This is the first time I have been robbed of five hours ina day,” he said. “I am certain I shall order eggs and bacon at lunch from force of habit.” Big Ben on Parliament House chimed out the quarter to one as we dropped: into the basin at Battersea, and before he spoke again at the hour, we were. stepping into the taxi that was to take us to Lord Almeric’s house in Knightsbridge. But I don’t think that Mil- liken was very easy in his mind that the Merlin was safe even in the lock-up shed in which she was berthed. Lord Almeric would not hear of either Milliken or myself going to an hotel. He insisted that we make his house our own. Milliken tried hard to refuse, but his- lordship effectually stopped all protest. He led us to a little nest of rooms, not separate from the house, but somehow possessing an individuality—if one may use the word—of their own. He opened the door of a tidy, mannish sitting-room. “T had a boy at one time, Jimmy,” he said quietly. These are his rooms— just as they used to be when he lived in them. Noth- ing has been touched, though my servants keep them warmed and aired, There are two bedrooms and a bathroom—through there—and another living-room. I have had them made ready for you both. I shall be very, very glad if you and Milliken will occupy them while you remain in London.” T heard a joint in Milliken’s hand crack softly as his comicbooks: (S@) tom ‘ ‘ ae yd a ¥ On A A tel