WINGED YOUTH

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 267, 10 November 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

WINGED YOUTH

By CAPT. FRANK. H. SHAW.

Author of "The Haven of Desire," etc.

CHAPTER L Peter Craddqek's Great Day. —there he is!" shouted a single voice. Then the mass of humanity gave tongue. "A proud day for you, sir," said the Secretary of State for Air. "This is history in tho making." "Yes—yes," agreed Grant Craddock. "The boy has done splendidly—splendidly." To himself he added, "He's done it, by Jove!" "finishing -up on his twenty-first birthday, 1 understand," the Secretary of 8-tate. "Yes, yes—odd, isn't it?" All right, Gwen, my dear." Ho squeezed his wife's hand under his elbow. "Exactly to the day—ho set out as a boy and finishes as a man." Harley Street had given him that sleek suavity; his caste forbade outward evidence of excitement. But Grant Craddock was excited. Ho was expert in self-analysis normally, but to-day he was undecided whether he wanted most to cheer or shed actual tears —he, whose favourite prescription was to practise self-control! "Grant—it's Peter, our boy; !jie's— he's—done it!" Mrs. Craddock wanted to exult, too; l'Ut she was a woman, and believed it would bo time for rejoicing when Peter's 'piano landed and he stepped out —unharmed. But the deep (sustained roar of tho Hearing aeroplane was lessening. She had every right to be proud— Peter was her boy and he'd achieved an aerial miracle. This man who was gliding down after having circled tho globe in ten days less than tho previous record was the same baby whose fluffy head had first nestled on her heart 21 years ago to tho day. Tears brimmed her eyes, her throat grew thick. Peter— a hero! Tho aeroplane looped a coquettish loop over the aerodrome, and came down in a perfect landing exactly on tho great white cross that had been drafted on the aerodrome floor. Mechanics rushed at this newly stilled monster. "No—look out—stand back; his mother first!" someone shouted hoarsely above the frantic acclamations, as the Air Minister strode solemnly down the red carpet leading from tho reception stand. Peter Craddock came springing from tho lonely cockpit much as a terrier might leap from the basket in which it has tediously travelled. Ho steadied himself, grinned widely, then yawned. "Hello, mother!" he said. "Done it, eh?" "Oh, Peter, splendid—we'ro awfully proud!" But it seemed that Peter wasn't listening. His eyes were questing away from her —he even avoided his father's beaming pride; he wanted something elee. "Thank God, you're safe, my boy!" Grant Craddock said. "Oh, yea—that's all right, dad. It's been easy." Bright-cheeked, excited girls, like elves, ran to tho barrier to throw posies of flowers at tho latest hero. They kissed their hands; they shrilled. Gwen Craddock hugged her pon'tt arm, that was like, a cable-laid hawser for thickness and rigidity. Covertly she touched his sleeve —reeking of petrol and oil and "dope" as it was —with her moist cheek.

"Oh, Peter, dear —I'm so happy!" "Why, why—that's all right, mater — so'm I."

"Aren't you thrilled, dear?" Mrs. Craddock whispered through the ponderous platitudes of the orating Minister, and the crashing cheers. "Yes, I suppose lam a bit." Of course Peter Craddoric was thrilled, but his brain was still half-numbed by the roar of the Zutro's engines and the rush of parted air past his cars. "Old bird seems to be talking through his hat!" Peter thought irreverently. "Where's Betty I wonder?" His eyes had riot been at rest since he first climbed from the coc-kpit. "She ought to be here —up here," he thought impatiently. "All—there she is!" His eager vye« •had settled on the person for which they had been questing. "Hi—Betty—here—over here!" yelled Peter unabashed. For the first time his excitement forced through, the bonds of reserve.

"Steady, PeteT!" Peter's arm was up in the air, -waving imperatively. But for the restraint of his father's hand it seemed likely he might vault the barrier, flag-draped, of the reception dais. "Yes, that's all right, dad; but why's she not up here? What I mean—she should be here, you know!" the lad protested. "Hush, darling, you—you sort of belong, to everybody just now!" warned his mother in a whisper. "Oh, well, all right, then, mater. What a fuse, though! As if I'd done something—why, it was the Zutro all tho time. Darned good bus—" It was a stirring oratory 1 that the Air Minister was serving out to an unprecedented audience; and his severest critics later maintained that it was a speech worthy of an epic feat such as Peter's; but the hero of this triumph could not keep still enough to listen. There was a piquant, flower-like face, under a delightfully eaucy hat l down there in tho crowd; and the eyes of that, face were fixed magnetically on him. There was hand clapping that grew and ebbed and grew again; there was enthusiasm that fed on itself and touched hysteria^—mob-hyeteria which cannot check itself once it is started; thete were cheers. Peter was thrilled—cold shudders chased up and down hisr spine, his lips went dry. His eyes were smarting, too ■—but that would be the ealt air of the sea newly-crossed, of course—men his age didn't cry. "It's—look here, awfully decent of everybody," he began lamely. . Someone twitched him so that he spoke squarely into the microphones; a single thin voice distantly entreated: "Speak up!" Peter had previously never attempted a speech, in his young life; his voice wae pitched an octave too high and it •cracked ridiculously; he coughed tears into his earp. His restless gaze alighted again on the flower-like face under the saucy hat and steadied, because that face was smiling wistfully.

Very badly did he want to tell the expectant world just why he had broken records, in order that the inspiration— there under the saucy hat—might reap

full credit and get her share —a big one —of this acclamation; but—fellows didn't blat about girls in public, did they, now? He looked at his father; a man giving an impression of greater ago than his numbered iifty years, in normal circumstances a stern, self-centred man, as befitted one whose name was a household word for intricate surgery. He would have to tell his parents—the sooner the better. The thought of that set his heart thumping faster than if he had climbed to 25,000 feet. He stumbled and lost the thread of his discourse; fresh cheers filled the hiatus. Peter refreshed himself with another stare at Betty, from her he glanced at his mother. Decent sort, the muter—she'd understand—she was sympathetic, she'd played tho buffer between father and son ever since Peter could remember. He'd tell her first— Ho discovered that ho had said everything there was to say, and that he was

beginning all over again, that the palms of his hands were very moist and his collar chokingly tight and sticky; and that he badly needed a bath and a drink. "Was it awful bilge, mater?" Not waiting for a reply, Peter vaulted the rail. With flushed tolerance for the crowd that crushed in on him, he bored towards the flower-faced girl with the straightforward purpose recently displayed by the Zutro when notched on the westering sun. But, having gained his objective— "Stand back—look out—his girl!" Pctor felt suddenly shy and grimly nonchalant. "Or—or—hello, Betty!" he grumbled in the deep of his throat, and put out hands grown larger than normal to his fancy. "Oh—cj—hello, Peter!" the girl replied. "Ripping—!" Her face, not by any means innocent of powder and lipstick, worked ever so slightly; her lips were very tightly compressed, so that they wrinkled somewhat at the corners; and her white throat convulsed to her quick swallowing. "I've done it, Betty." "Peter—*l knew you would, of course." "I say, look here —you've to come with me. You ought to have been up there, of course—" An urgent reporter snapped into his ear. "Who is the lady, please?" "Miss Grey, of course—girl who told me I could make the flight; she believed in me," Peter said *gruffly, and women all around cheered, they being sufficient of tho world to love a lover. Having explained everything Peter said ■to Betty: "Betty, you come along. If they're going to make a fuss they can make it over the right one, if you see what I mean. Come along and meet ray mother."

At this moment a flamboyant girl of the sensation-loving breed, her oyos fevered, battled through the crowd und, throwing arms around the boy, kissed him. Betty Grey sniffed. An arm went about Peter's neck, indignantly cleared from the unauthorised embrace; and Betty gave him her lips. I ''L'm so glad, Peter—l'm ever so glad!" said sho huskily. "Vou've been flue." "Well, I'd have missed in baulk if it hadn't been fcir you," was his solemn assurance. . . . What I mean—anyway, come on with me; you belong there. You've got to come." "I'm —Peter, I'm not dressed for it," eho protested. Unheeding ho jihick.nl her masterfully through the throng that respectfully parted. ■ Grant Craddock adjustedJiis pince'nez and Gwen Craddock stared with undisguised interest at the slip of attractive womanhood pushed before her. "Ah—the feminine complication!" Graiit Craddock thought primly. "Dear me, 1 hopu—l hope—" Human depravity held no secrets from the specialist's analytical mind. The girl was pretty— '■ but it was not tho canieo-likc prettiuess of the majority of Grant Craddock'fi patients. Betty's features were .-ill slightly blurred, and her smile was wavering and nervous. "Hero, mater, I say—look here; this is Betty!" stammered Peter. He was eager to the point of incoherence. "Yes?" paid Mrs. Craddock non-com-mittally to her son. Betty was blushing I and paling alternately, and Peter was tho colour of an ancient brick. "My mother? Betty—the best ever," Peter said, vaguely aware of psychological disturbances) like Hearing thunderstorms when lightning might fuse a petrol feedpipe and cause a 'plants l<3 crash in flames. "And you two must get properly fond of one another." "Eh, what's that?" asked Grant Craddock. Some of hie serene complacency had evaporated. He was honestly proud of-his son's achievement; but still Peter was his son—and to a certain extent his vassal, and this sort of complication had not entered into the. father's scheme for the future. Tho girl wasn't even a ladyshe was simply a pert little sensation hunter—Heavens! what had the young fool been up to? "Betty Grey —girl I'm going to —to marry!" Peter gulped, remembering how he had always stood in awe of his father. "If it hadn't been for Betty," ho added, eager to get right with his parent;, "I'd never have had the guts to do this stunt; but she said she was certain I could, and, well, I did it! On my head —" "Ah—l pec. How do you do V said Grant Craddoek. Peter looked as if he hoped his father would offer an arm to Betty; but Grant Craddock passed on after his wife; and Peter caught the girl's hand and snugged it under his elbow. "Who's the gorgeous one?" he demanded. "That night at the Hot Spot seems a long while since, doesn't it?" Ahead of them, space constricted by reason of pressing humanity, Grant Craddock turned his head over its stiff collar to ask: "The Hot Spot?" "Yes—place where Betty and I first met. Rather a decent spot in some ways."

The surge of the crowd increased their distance, and, a. strategist to his fingertips, Peter inveigled Betty into a car to themselves. "No show without Punch, maybe; but this Puncli'll quietly fade-out of the. picture for a bit," lie chuckled. "Well, Betty, aren't you pleased? You said I could take it on?" "Of course I'm pleased. Oh, Peter— you're splendid." ■. ■. "Well, then—what? about a kiss?' . He helped himself, and people • outside the ear cheered sympathetically. ."Was* that your father?" tho" girl asked somewhat, timorously. The obvious if polite hostility* of ~ Peter's parents had affected her, making her; aware of her own limitations. "He—ho j didn't exactly enthuse, did he?" • '

"Oh, never mind about him—he's got his public manner on; he can be awfully decent when he likes. Frightfully old, of course—but, little girl, you're looking —oh, radiant! And I've done it—you're a brick, you know." But ehe was unresponsive; women are more susceptible to social influences than men—and Betty Grey was poignantly aware that she was simply a dancer in a none-too-reputablo dance , club, much favoured, by hot-headed youth. "Come on—buck up! Don't worry about my dad—l'm twenty-one to-day and my own master. Think of that, and cheer! What've they got to do with us two, anyhow? Different if I hadn't pulled off this stunt; but we are made now—no need to fret. I'll tell you something. It's real with me—you know what I mean? Yes, that—really-truly real. I found it out when my engine conked out crossing tho Himalayas. Twenty-two thousand, too, nothing but rocks and trees down below. I tell you, I thought of the jolly old Hot Spot and the times we'd had there."

Ho stared out of the window and realised that the big limousine had swept clear of crowds. Peter pulled the girl towards him. He had been kissed by and had kissed not a few young women in his short span of life; but these had been careless, kisses, sexless, almost. This time something seemed to quiver between Betty's lips and his own, something that fluttered before it stilled into an ineffable hint of peace. It wa3 a kiss that lingered and endured. She put her hand to his necly and drew him back to her, and her kiss echoed his for fervour. They drew away and stared at each other, colour mantling and ebbing and all young love rioting in their veins. In Petor'e sight she had always been pretty and saucy; at oncd she showed beautiful—as it were holy. He had a mixed impression that sho was an angel and that he would like to kiss her like that for ever. He thought of his mother, too—somewhat tenderly. "You know," ho said presently, "that money I've made by making thie hopit doesn't seem to matter a hang now, if you don't mean what you promised before I started off—"

Why, Peter, I only eaid that to get you going—no, no, I didn't! I really— truly did mean it—l do now, anyway." He grabbed her again, clumsily. His next kise was wondering—as if he wero aetounded at its quality to arouse protective instinct within him. "Honour bright?" he asked. Sho nodded against his lips, and her hand tightening at his neck. "Say it again, Betty, say you care properly," he urged, stroking her arm. "Of course, I care—always have. You seemed different the flrat time—although I think you'd had too much to drink , ." "You've got to leave that place. See here, Betty— l'm a man; let's get married." If eho had been the opportunist that Grant Craddock was afterwards to esteem her, sho would have clinched that ofl'er without an instant's delay. As it was, eho said: "Don't bo silly—yoiy'rc only a boy! Anyway, your people—ryour d'ad looked a bit froety. They wouldn't turn out tho band to our wedding. You're famous and I'm Betty Grey, a dancing partner at the Hqt Spot. If I wasn't that I might liavo been a servant—in your house, like as not." "Bilge!" he retorted inelegantly. Then he kissed her again. With Betty held eloso family opposition seemed less of a high, solid wall, somehow. "Don't worry your head," he cajoled. "He'll be all right. He lets me have my own way,—he tried to stop my flying, but I've hopped round the world all the same. And if he gets shirty my mother'll wheedle. him round; she is a great wheedler." Twenty-one discovered ecrious business, something entirely new in un v'xis-teiK-e previously devoted—outside, one's calling, of course, which had to be taken seriously—to larks and bubbles and froth, where no time was allowed for thinking. That business was to reassure nineteen—to become elderly and protective, and the role was edifying. "See hero, (he old pater hasn't any kick coming," he asserted. "I'm 21—my own master. 'Tisn't as if I needed an allowaiioe any longer, cither—"

j "He'll think that since he's given you art allowance) he has a right—a right to sny. Peter, I wish—honestly I wish I'd been—well, a lady." "You're the finest lady in England," h<> snid. meaning it. "Oh, be hanged— what arc we being all mouldy and gninipy about?" he demanded. "I've done- it, Betty—ami you're, the most wonderful gfrl in all the world, and won't we make a little whoopee to-night?" "They'll want you home with them— j firefc night after—" i "Then they'll jolly well hare to want. ■They ran conic nlong if they like; but— we'll turn the Hot Spot upeide down, .shall we?" "You'd better wave your hand to those people—they're cheering you!" Peter was instantly a shy boy—awkwardly jerking his head in mechanical nods, waving his hands—shouting. "I'm awfully proud of you, Petsr — really I am —awfully proud" Did I have anything to do with you doing I mean, if any other girl had said you could do it—" "That's your best dress you're wearin,!.', isn'f, it?" Pete.r asked foolishly. "Of course—you've come back.". "Well, what I mean—you and I are fiffting to get married. I'.m serious—if I've .never been serious in my life, I am now."

(To ho continued daily.)