Edgar Wallace - Blue Hand

“Hurry up, I can’t wait for you all day. Get that coat on.”

She obeyed.

“I am ready,” she said coldly.

“Now, my dear, step lively!”

Jim, who had taken his place in the pilot’s seat, heard Villa’s deep voice and looking round saw the woman he loved.

She looked divinely beautiful by the side of that squat, bearded man who was holding her forearm and urging her forward.

“Now, up with you.”

He pushed her roughly into one of the two seats behind the pilot, and Jim dared not trust himself to look back.

“I’ll swing the prop. for you, Bronson,” said Villa, making his way to the propeller, and Jim, whose face was almost covered by the huge fur-lined goggles, nodded. The engine started with a splutter and a roar and Jim slowed it.

“Strap the lady,” he shouted above the sound of the engine, and Villa nodded and climbed into the fuselage with extraordinary agility for a man of his build.

Jim waited until the broad strap was buckled about the girl’s waist, and then he let out the engine to its top speed. It was ideal ground for taking off, and the plane ran smoothly across the grass, faster and faster with every second. And then, with a touch of the lever, Jim set the elevator down and the girl suddenly realized that the bumping had stopped and all conscious motion had ceased. The Scout had taken the air.

Eunice had never flown in an aeroplane before, and for a moment she forgot her perilous position in the fascination of her new and wonderful experience. The machine did not seem to leave the earth. Rather it appeared as though the earth suddenly receded from the aeroplane and was sinking slowly away from them. She had a wonderful feeling of exhilaration as the powerful Scout shot through the air at a hundred miles an hour, rising higher and higher as it circled above the field it had left, a manoeuvre which set Villa wondering, for Bronson should have known the way back to Kennett Hall without bothering to find his landmark.

But Bronson, so far from being at the wheel, at that moment was lying bound hand and feet beneath a bush in the field below, and had Villa looked carefully through his field glasses he would not have failed to see the figure of the man wearing Jim’s muddy clothes. Villa could not suspect that the pilot was Jim Steele, the airman whose exploits in the abstract he had admired, but whose life he would not at this moment have hesitated to take.

“It is lovely!” gasped Eunice, but her voice was drowned in the deafening thunder of the engines.

They were soaring in great circles, and above were floating the scarves of mist that trailed their ravelled edges to the sun, which tinted them so that it seemed to her the sky’s clear blue was laced with golden tissue. And beneath she saw a world of wonder: here was spread a marvellous mosaic, green and brown and grey, each little pattern rigidly defined by darked lines, fence and hedge and wall. She saw the blood-red roof of house and the spread of silver lakes irregular in shape, and to her eye like gouts of mercury that some enormous hand had shaken haphazard on the earth.

“Glorious!” her lips said, but the man who sat beside her had no eye for the beauty of the scene.

Communication between the pilot and his passengers was only possible through the little telephone, the receiver of which Jim had mechanically strapped to his ear, and after awhile he heard Villa’s voice asking:

“What are you waiting for? You know the way?”

Jim nodded.

He knew the way back to London just as soon as he saw the railway.

The girl looked down in wonder on the huge chequer-board intercepted by tiny white and blue ribbons.

They must be roads, and canals, she decided, and those little green and brown patches were the fields and the pastures of Warwickshire. How glorious it was on this early summer morning to be soaring through the cloud-wisps that flecked the sky, wrack from the storm that had passed overnight. And how amazingly soothing was the loneliness of wings! She felt aloof from the world and all its meanness. Digby Groat was no more than that black speck she could see, seemingly stationary, on the white tape of a road. She knew that speck was a man and he was walking. And within that circle alone was love and hate, desire and sacrifice.

Then her attention was directed to Villa. He was red in the face and shouting something into the telephone receiver, something she could not hear, for the noise of the engines was deafening.

She saw the pilot nod and turn to the right and the movement seemed to satisfy Villa, for he sank back in his seat.

Little by little, the nose of the aeroplane came back to the south, and for a long time Villa did not realize the fact. It was the sight of the town which he recognized that brought the receiver of the telephone to his lips.

“Keep to the right, damn you, Bronson. Have you lost your sense of direction?”

Jim nodded, and again the machine banked over, only to return gradually to the southerly course; but now Villa, who had directed the manoeuvre, was alert.

“What is wrong with you, Bronson?” and Jim heard the menace in his voice.

“Nothing, only I am avoiding a bad air current,” he answered, and exaggerated as the voice was by the telephone, Villa did not dream that it was anybody but Bronson to whom he was speaking.

Jim kept a steady course westward, and all the time he was wondering where his destination was supposed to have been. He was a raving lunatic, he thought, not to have questioned Bronson before he left him, but it had never occurred to him that his ignorance on the subject would present any difficulties.

He was making for London, and to London he intended going. That had been his plan from the first, and now, without disguise, he banked left, accelerated his engines and the Scout literally leapt forward.

“Are you mad?” It was Villa’s voice in his ear, and he made no reply, and then the voice sank to a hiss: “Obey my instructions or we crash together!”

The barrel of an automatic was resting on his shoulder. He looked round, and at that moment Eunice recognized him and gave a cry.

Villa shot a swift glance at her, and then leapt forward and jerked at Jim’s shoulders, bringing his head round.

“Steele!” he roared, and this time the pistol was under Jim’s ear. “You obey my instructions, do you hear?”

Jim nodded.

“Go right, pick up Oxford and keep it to your left until I tell you to land.”

There was nothing for it now but to obey. But Jim did not fear. Had the man allowed him to reach London it might have been well for all parties. As Villa was taking an aggressive line, and had apparently recognized him, there could be only one end to this adventure, pistol or no pistol. He half twisted in his narrow seat, and looked back at Eunice with an encouraging smile, and the look he saw in her eyes amply repaid him for all the discomfort he had suffered.

But it was not to look at her eyes that he had turned. His glance lingered for a while on her waist, and then on the waist of Villa, and he saw all that he wanted to know. He must wait until the man put his pistol away; at present Villa held the ugly-looking automatic in his hand. They passed over Oxford, a blur of grey and green, for a mist lay upon the city, making it difficult to pick out the buildings.

Soon Jim’s attention was directed elsewhere. One of his engines had begun to miss and he suspected water was in the cylinder. Still, he might keep the machine going for awhile. A direction was roared in his ear, and he bore a little more west. It seemed that the engine difficulty had been overcome, for she was running sweetly. Again he glanced back. The pistol was tucked in the breast of Villa’s leather jacket, and probably would remain there till the end of the journey. To wait any longer would be madness.