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PART I

MAY, JUNE, JULY, 1914

CHAPTER I

AERIAL LIGHT HORSE

Hendon!

An exquisite May afternoon, still and sunny. Above, a canopy of unflecked sapphire-blue. Below, the broad khaki-green expanse of the flying-ground, whence the tall, red-white-and-blue pylons pointed giant fingers to the sky.

Against the iron railings of the ground the border of chairs was thronged with spectators; women and girls in summery frocks, men in light overcoats with field-glasses slung by a strap about them. The movement of this crowd was that of a breeze in a drift of coloured petals; the talk and laughter rose and fell as people looked about at the great sheds with their huge lettered names, at the big stand, at the parked-up motors behind the seats; at the men in uniform carrying their brass instruments slowly across to the bandstand on the left.

At intervals everybody said to everybody else: "Isn't this just a perfect afternoon for the flying?"

Presently, there passed the turnstile entrance at the back of the parked motor-cars a group of three young girls, chattering together.

One was in pink; one was in cornflower-blue. The girl who walked between them wore all white, with a sunshine-yellow jersey-coat flung over her arm. Crammed well down upon her head she wore a shady white hat, bristling with a flight of white wings; it seemed to overshadow the whole of her small compact, but supple little person, which was finished off by a pair of tiny, white-canvas-shod feet. She was the youngest as well as the smallest of the trio standing at the turnstile. (Observe her, if you please; then leave or follow her, for she is the Girl of this story.)

"This is my show!" she declared. Her softly-modulated voice had a trace of Welsh accent as she added, "I'm paying for this, indeed!"

"No, you aren't, then, Gwenna Williams!" protested the girl in pink (whose accent was Higher Cockney). "We were all to pay for ourselves!"

"Yes; but wasn't it me that made you come into the half-crown places because I was so keen to see a flying-machine close?... I'll pay the difference then, if you must make a fuss. We'll settle up at the office on Monday," said the girl who had been addressed as Gwenna Williams.

With a girlish, self-conscious little gesture she took half a sovereign out of her wash-leather glove and handed it to the tall, be-medalledd commissionaire.

"Come on, now, girls," she said. "This is going to be lovely!" And she led the way forward to that line of seats, where there were just three green chairs vacant together.

Laughing, chattering, gay with the ease of Youth in its