WINGED YOUTH

Auckland Star, Volume LVX, Issue 268, 12 November 1934, Page 15

WINGED YOUTH

By CAPT. FRANK. H. SHAW.

Author of "The Haven of Oesiro," etc.

CHAPTER 11. Rebellious Twenty-one. Grant Craddock meant it -when lie $aid: "We're proud of you, old chap— proud. It means a lot to your mother and me —having you come safely back after such a magnificent feat." "Oh, it wasn't anything to make such s, fuss about, sir." Peter affected a nonchalance that was only surface-deep. "Fact of the. matter is, I could have kept on going " good bit further," he said. "It was wonderful," the mother approved. ''Oh, Peter, dear!" Gwen Craddock was mother enough to remember that same hand as a thing like a crumpled rose-leaf fluttering on her breast. Peter felt very young just then—so young that his throat was lumpy and life eyes smarted. "I'm dashed glad I did it," ho mentioned; "especially as you're so pleased. I'd meant to try to ece you and say good-bye before I pushed off; but —oh, well, Mum, I knew how you'd grizzle and fret and—and— EO I—just pushed off." "Consideration for us, old chap?" Grant Craddock beamed. Now Peter was as honest as youth is made, so he blurted out: "Well, I suppose so, partly, anyway. But I thought you might try to stop jne; and as I'd started the thing 1 wanted to see it through. You see, dad, I wasn't twenty-one then, as I am today." "Exactly—ah —er —hum —I see. Well, I suppose tho end justifies the means. Twenty-one, of course . . . Just exactly what prompted you to take this —ah —risk, Peter?" he asked. Peter was glad it had come. "It was Betty—Betty Grey!" he declared. "And I'm hanged if I can see why she wasn't asked along here, mater. I introduced her —" The mother was maternally evasive: anxious to run with hare and hunt with hounds if she might hold the balance even between father and son as she felt had become necessary. "She had only her street clothes on, dear —she would, have felt awkward —" "Oh, all right, then —let's have it out," said Peter, too tired and worried to bother any longer with polite evasions. "Here I fall in love with a girl—a stunning girl—" "Your first night at home after this splendid performance, Peter!" hinted Grant Craddock. "Is this necessary?" "Advisable, anyhow. I'm not a fool. You don't think much of Betty; I can see it sticking out a mile. Well, I think a whole lot of her; so far as I'm concerned I've found the girl I want." "Precisely who is this —er —lady?" Grant Craddock asked. "I think we ought to wait—" began Gwen Craddock, who knew both husband and son better than they knew themselves. "Let's talk it over in the morning; and to-night let's—just bo happy and proud." "Better get it over and done with," said Peter. "Yes, yes—then we can begin to appreciate what you have done. Nothing like clearing the air- Well?" - "Well, this girl's Betty Grey; I told you when I introduced her." Peter was now stiff and curt, reaching after dignity in a way that to an onlooker might have appeared ridiculous. T 'Well, I met her a bit since. I daresay you think she isn't in our set—well, I suppose she isn't, if it comes to that. Listen, pater—you won't ever understand what Betty's done for me, if you don't . . . All right, then you listen, mum. I'd never have tackled this flight if it hadn't been for her—honestly, I wouldn't. I was just a kid when they put it up to me and I hadn't a lot of air-time to my credit. But Betty said I could do it on my head, and she urged me to try. And, well, I seem to have done it—though she really did it for me." He was out of breath when he had said this, and openly defiant.

Dr. Craddock nodded, in his best consulting room manner. "Quite, guite!" he agreed. "But who exactly is this —ah—Miss Grey?" "Grant!" hushed Gwen Craddock warningly, and put out her shapely hand halfway, then withdrew it. "All right, my dear," said Grant. "Betty's the girl I'm going to marry," Peter said thickly. "She promised to do it if I pulled this show off; and now I've pulled it she's all right—game to carry on, if you see what I mean." "Nonsense, Peter—don't be a young fool!" snapped the father. "Who is she? What is ehe? Where did you— pick her up?" "Pick her—!" Now Peter was angry. Perhaps it was the feeling that he had more or lees picked Betty up out of a public resort that heated him. "Steady, boy—your mother's here," Grant Craddock warned. t "That's a fine thing!" the lad blurted. "Say beastly things and then shelter behind mother when a fellow — ; when a fellow—why, you'd think Betty was a—" Said the father: "Well, where did you meet her?" "At the Hot Spot," Peter sulked. "If you want to know, I'd got tight. I tried to chuck a fellow out; and I'd have been manhandled if Betty hadn't got me away from them all "and kept me quiet—" It had seemed a lark in the happening, but here it began to appear pretty crude. "I see. Yes?" Grant Craddock had Dot suspected that the allowance he made his son went exactly in this way, for he had never invited confidences. "Oh, well—you know how things like that happen," floundered Peter. "As I was saying, Betty pulled me out of the mess—" He looked appealingly at his mother. "What was this—er—she doing at the —ah—hum—the Hot Spot, you said?" A. vein was beating hard in Grant Craddock's temple. "And exactly what is the—ah—Hot Spot?" "It's a dance club—not one of the raided kind, either. Quite a decent place." Peter almost forgot just now that he was the world's immediate daring; he had an uneasy feeling that, after all, he was only Grant Craddock's clumsy big boy who was once again in disgrace. <t "We fellows go there," he continued, "every now and then, when anyone's got any money to spare. Betty's a—a dancing instructress and every one of our fellows is in love with her, of course. She's thoroughly decent —matter of fact, she's a darling. Mother, didn't you like her ?" Gwen Craddock had passed through bitter travail for her son; she had moulded him into superb and dauntless young manhood; and ehe had certainly not laboured with an idea of surrendering all this to the crafty hands of a little night moth who had both eyes wide open to the main chance.

So she said: "Oh, Peter dear—and there's Joan—"

"That smig!" disdained her son. And would have switched to an opinion of harmless, colourless Joan, but that his father pinned him to the immediate argument with a crisp: "Ridiculous! But, of course, it is a thing that can quite easily be settled."

"Oh—how?" Peter demanded. "Yes, it can be settled easily enough—by my marrying her." He towered high above his -parent, and wae growing steadier, his voice was deep and not inclined to crack. "You see, sir, T happen to be really fond of Betty. What I mean is— I care for her, properly. So—"

If he could only remember that he was the Peter Craddock it would be all right. If ho could only convince bis father that, he was a man, and no longer a boy—he'd carry his point. Only his father's infernally quizzical smile seemed more like a devil's than a man's; and its persistence caused wild, formless curses to riot in the boy's brain.

"Then the situation is far from hope less, Teter."

Peter's temporary ebullition subsided. After all was said, for two years or so he had conquered the air; and thr.t sort of thing teaches a man self-control if anything can.

So he said in a stiff, formal and slightly ridiculous voice: "I promised Betty that if I pulled this stunt off we'd get married. I've done it, thanks to her. So there you are, sir. A gentleman always keeps his promise, doesn't he V

Grant Craddock nodded magisterially. "Quite —quite! But when you made that promise you were a minor, and you cannot bo held to it."

"Good Lord!" Peter was staggered at the commonplace duplicity of an older brain than his own. "Good Lord! As if a few days made any difference! A fellow's word doesn't depend on his age, does it? I mean—" Indignation changed to triumph: "Anyhow, I told her again- that we were going to be married—told her to-day, and I'm twenty-one years old; and I'll repeat it to-morrow, if that isn't enough, and go on saying it! I'm a man, not a boy; and I want her."

"Tut tut, Peter—you're far too young to know your own feelings in a matter of this sort," said Grant Craddock. "I am full of admiration for you as an airman, my boy; but I can't say you've struck me as an intelligent thinker in other respects. Don't you consider it would be better if wo let the thing remain in abeyance for to-night at all events, and approach it calmly—after sleep and food, eh? You undergone a strain that would try any man —enormous strain physically' as well as mentally—excitement of the brain tends to sharpen the temper and blunt the perception—yes, yes. Speaking as a surgeon, I am astonished that you are as fit as you seem now the strain is eased; but I strongly recommend rest, quiet; the subconscious strain on your nervous system—"

"Nerves!" Peter laughingly held out tha.t hamilik.fc.ilet. wbiy*h his mot"her*had caressed. He watche'd it. There was not so much as a tremor in the extended member. "I did it on my head!" he boasted. "You don't seem to think it, sir, but I'm as steady as a rock, and I'm deadly in earnest about Betty. I know. I'm going %o marry her as soon as ever it can be managed." . r.

"You will get my consent to such folly," snapped the father. Peter shrugged his giant shoulders. "Then I'll have to do without." His voice strangled whilst it was appealing. "I'm a man now—that's all there is to be said about it." "Sit down," said Grant Craddock, forcing himself to calmness. "One or two things you seem to forget, don't you? Your mother and I were required to make considerab'fc sacrifices on your account. Cood schools and the educationyWe gave you cost money. I stood aside when you preferred flying to surgery. We planned a future for you that certainly did not include some shallow little dancing girl who is probably no better than she ought to be—"

"Hold on! Don't say anything more like that, father! ' You've said too much!" Peter rasped. He was well in hand, though feeling cold and awed. And it was the father's eyes that quailed first; Grant Craddock coughed and shuffled his feet uncertainly. "What do you mean, boy?" he asked. "You've said a lot." Peter no longer showed a disposition to stutter. "Now, I'm going to say a lot, too. I'm grateful to you both for everything you've ever done —you've been frightfully decent,. But I've a right to do what I like with my own life. I want Betty. I've got to have her." There was a growing ring in his voice. He took his hands out of his pockets and began to gesture awkwardly, but emphatically. If the father had not been so angry at this continued opposition, he might have understood better how untried youth was struggling for expression. He might have repeated his suggestion of a clear - brained discussion in the morning and let things hang in abeyance meantime. ' "I see. A purely physical attraction!" he said suavely; and a little smile of complete understanding creased his firm lips as his diagnosis confirmed itself. But Peter took that smile for derision, and joined issue hotly. Winged youth seldom analyses its emotions, it acts on impetuous instinct, leaving the reasoning for a later, seldom-reached date. "No, no, it's not just that," Peter said with a restive headshake. "No, not only that. But if it hadn't been for Betty I'd never have taken off on my flight. I tell you, I weakened dozens of times, but just when it seemed easy to let go, I thought, 'Well, you ass, what's Betty going to think of you if you botch it all?' And after that—well, I simply had to go on with it. I had to—so she did it really; and a decent fellow can't forget that. She's a right to share all I'm getting out of it, hasn't she?" Too late, Grant Craddock said: "Well, boy,-let us sleep over it. This is the last day for an argument of this sort. Come' Peter —" "It's the best day ever," contradicted revolted youth. "Par better to have a showdown now and get it over. I've thought it all out ever so carefully. Up in the air you" got plenty of. time for puzzling into intricate things. And you learn to think straight to the point, because if you don't you're going to break your neck. And here's the way I look at it, sir. I hate like the—to be up against you this way, but youth has its rights as well as age. You were nearly thirty when you married the mater, weren't you?"

Grant Craddock's mouth opened a little. "Yes—yes —quite so. I see where you are driving; but please remember, Peter, that when I married I was settled in my profession in private practice, and so—" "Here's how I look at it," Peter said, and squeezed the hand his mother had laid on his arm. That hand had administered a little touch that might have been either warning or sympathy. "Things don't stand still. If you want it flat ,sir —well, I'm as famous an airman at twenty-one as you were a doctor at thirty—as you are a surgeon at fifty, or whatever it is. To-day has proved that. I've won a prize that was open to the whole world, and apart from the honour of it there's the money—ten thousand pounds. To say nothing of fat jobs being offered. Well, you didn't break all records and win ten thousand pounds in open competition before you married mother, did you?" (To be continued daily.)