That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the DayDehan, Richard
General
That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
Dehan, Richard
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
The row broke out in the Promenade as the Royal portrait flashed out and
faded. A German voice swore shrilly, another expostulated, and a woman
screamed and screamed....
"’Ere! What’s up, what’s up now along o’ you, young woman?" demanded a
burly gold-braided Commissionaire, thrusting through the staring crowd
that had gathered. He dragged Lil, still screeching and clawing, from
the windpipe of her dishevelled patron, adding, "Do you call this pretty
be’aviour? I’m ashamed o’ you—I am!"
"He hissed.... The —— hissed the King!" Lil gasped, scarlet and
vituperative and still clawing. "Let me git at ’im! Let me——"
"No, hold her tight! It is a lie! She is drunk!" snarled the German
who had hissed. His necktie, a choice thing in Berlin haberdashery,
much sported on the Unter den Linden, was plucked up by the roots, and a
broad bleeding scratch adorned his flushed and angry features. But at
the suggestion that he should give the offender in charge of the Police,
he melted with his companion into the thinnest of thin air, and Lil did
not spend the night in the cells at Wine Street Police-Station. There
ought to have been a paragraph in the _Daily Teller_ or the _Morning
Wire_, but it was crowded out by the report—in leaded type—of von
Herrnung’s death and that of the boy, his volunteer passenger, the only
son of Dr. Owen Saxham, M.D., F.R.C.S., M.V.O., whose distinguished
share in the Defence of Gueldersdorp would always be remembered, etc.,
etc., even now that the frank, manly, and courageous policy of General
Botha had established permanent and solid ties of friendship between the
Briton and the Boer.
A sudden freak, perhaps a private bet, had induced the deceased officer,
Captain Count von Herrnung of the Prussian Field Flying Service, son of
a distinguished official of the German Imperial Foreign Office, and hero
of the two days’ flight from Hanover to Paris in the previous April,—to
essay the crossing to Germany at a late hour, and in the face of a
threatening gale. Another paragraph recorded how the wreck of the
monoplane, "Bird of War" (wrongly described as "the property of
Fanshaw’s Flying School"), "had been found by a passenger-steamer of the
Hamburg Line, bound for Newcastle, floating derelict in the North Sea."
A telephone-call followed the ring that had heralded the stroke of
Fate’s scimitar on that thick bull-neck of Saxham’s. He answered it
through the roaring in his ears of the North Sea waters that had drowned
the boy.
"Are you there?" came in the voice of the friend so toughly tried, so
faithfully trusted. "You have heard the report? Your voice tells me
you have! Hope, man!—hope!—against everything go on hoping!"
The thick slow answer came stumbling over the wire:
"Have I—grounds for hope?"
Came the prompt reply:
"I say yes! Dare to despair, when you hear that from me!"
"God bless you, General!"
"Have you—you have not told her?"
Saxham answered, steadying his twitching lips:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account