Part 11 (1/2)

”Come up to the Flying-Ground to-morrow, will you?” said Peter. ”I know lots of officers up there. I'll introduce you,” he added patronisingly.

Peter had been a bare fortnight at the Base, it being holiday at his preparatory school at Beckenham, and he had already become familiar and domestic with every one in authority from the Base Commandant downwards.

”Thank you,” I said. ”I will.” He clambered back into bed at a word from his father. By the side of the bed was a small library. It consisted of _The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes_, _The c.o.c.k-House at Fellsgarth_, and Newbolt's _Pages from Froissart_. Peter was rather eclectic in his tastes, but they were thoroughly sound. On the table were the contents of Peter's pockets, turned out nightly by the express orders of his father, for this is war-time, and the wear and tear of schoolboys'

jackets is a prodigious item of expenditure. I made a rapid mental inventory of them:

(1) A b.u.t.ton of the Welsh Fusiliers.

(2) Some dozen cartridge-cases from a Lewis machine-gun requisitioned by Peter from the Flying-Ground.

(3) A miniature aeroplane--the wings rather crumpled as though the aviator had been forced to make a hurried descent.

(4) A knife.

(5) Several pieces of string.

(6) A coloured ”alley.”

(7) Some cigarette-card portraits, highly coloured, of Lord Kitchener, Sir John French, and General Smith-Dorrien.

(8) A top.

(9) A conglomerate of chocolate, bull's-eyes, and acid drops.

For the kit of an officer of field rank in His Majesty's Army it was certainly a peculiar collection, few or none of these articles being included in the Field Service regulations. Still, not more peculiar than some of the things with which solicitous friends and relatives enc.u.mber officers at the Front.

The next morning we ascended the downs above the harbour, and Peter piloted me to the Flying-Ground. Here we came upon a huge hangar in which were docked half a dozen aeroplanes, light as a Canadian canoe and graceful as a dragon-fly. Peter calmly climbed up into one of them and proceeded to move levers and adjust controls, explaining the whole business to me with the professional confidence of a fully certificated airman.

”Hulloa, that you, Peter?” said a voice from the other side of the aeroplane. The owner wore the wings of the Flying Corps on his breast.

”It's me, Captain S----,” said Peter. ”Allow me to introduce my friend ----” he added, looking down over the side of the aeroplane. ”He's attached to the staff at G.H.Q.,” he added impressively. For the first time I realised, with great gratification, that Peter thought me rather a personage.

The Captain and I discussed the merits of the new Lewis machine-gun, while Peter went off to give the mechanics his opinion on biplanes and monoplanes.

”That kid knows a thing or two,” I heard one of them say to the other in an undertone. ”Jolly little chap.” Peter has an undoubted gift for Mathematics, both Pure and Applied, and his form master has prophesied a Mathematical Scholars.h.i.+p at Cambridge. Peter, however, has other views.

He has determined to join the Army at the earliest opportunity. He is now ten years of age, and the only thing that ever worries him is the prospect of the war not lasting another seven years. When I told him that the A.A.G. up at G.H.Q. had, in a saturnine moment, answered my question as to when the war would end with a gloomy ”Never,” he was mightily pleased. That was a bit of all right, he remarked.

Peter, it should be explained, belongs to one of those Indian dynasties which go on, from one generation to another, contributing men to the public service--the I.C.S., the Army, the Forest Service, the Indian Police. Wherever there's a bit of a sc.r.a.p, whether it's Dacoits or Pathans, wherever there's a catastrophe which wants tidying up, whether it's plague, or famine, or earthquake, there you will find one of Peter's family in the midst of it. One of his uncles, who is a Major in the R.F.A., saved a battery at X---- Y----. Another is the chief of the most mysterious of our public services--a man who speaks little and listens a great deal, who never commits anything to writing, and who changes his address about once every three months. For if you have a price on your head you have to be careful to cover up your tracks. He neither drinks nor smokes, and he will never marry, for his work demands an almost sacerdotal abnegation. Peter knows very little about this uncle, except that, as he remarked to me, ”Uncle d.i.c.k's got eyes like gimlets.” But Peter has seen those eyes unveiled, whereas in public Uncle d.i.c.k, whom I happen to know as well as one can ever hope to know such a bird of pa.s.sage, always wears rather a sleepy and slightly bored expression. Uncle d.i.c.k, although Peter does not know it, is the counsellor of Secretaries of State, and one of the trusted advisers of the G.H.Q. Staff. Of all the staff officers I have met I liked him most, although I knew him least. Some day, if and when I have the honour to know him better, I shall write a book about him, and I shall call it _The Man behind the Scenes_.

Such was Peter's family. It may help you to understand Peter, who, if he feared G.o.d, certainly regarded not man. Now the Flying Corps captain had promised Peter that he would let him see the new Lewis machine-gun. It is a type of gun specially designed for aircraft, rather big in the bore, worked by a trigger-handle, and it makes a noise like the back-firing of a motor-car of 100 horse-power. It plays no great part in this story, except that it was the cause of my obtaining a glimpse of Peter's private correspondence. For, after the Captain had discharged his gun at a hedge and made a large rabbit-burrow in it, Peter proceeded to pick up the cartridge-cases, which lay thick as catkins. This interested me, as Peter already had a pocketful.

”What do you want all those for, Major Peter?” I asked.

”Well, you see,” said Peter, ”the kids at school”--Peter now calls other boys of the same age as himself ”kids,” on the same principle that a West African negro who is rising in the world refers to his fellows as ”n.i.g.g.e.rs”--”keep on bothering me to send them things, and a fellow must send them something.”