Le Saboteur: V.

Chapter V.
Voir Clair

The men all turned around when Allison came downstairs the next morning. This was because of the odd noise his feet made. He had his boot on one foot but on the other only a blue army sock. Everybody was rather surprised, for it wasn’t like Allison to play practical jokes.
“I say, Allison,” said Garrett, “what’s this? One shoe on and one shoe off, diddle diddle dumpling, my son—well anyway, what happened to your other boot?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” said Allison disagreeably.
Kearns’s face grew suddenly red.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. I picked it up by accident last night. It’s under my bed.”
They all expected Allison to go and get it like a sensible fellow, but instead he stood there, his face working in dreadful contortions.
“Well, if that isn’t just like a thieving Irishman!” he exclaimed.
“What do you mean by that?” asked Kearns, leaping up; “I’d like to know what you mean by that, sir?”
Randolph caught him by the shoulder and forced him back into his chair.
“None of that, now,” he said. “We’re all friends here.”
We will do him the justice of supposing that he, at least, believed this—otherwise I am sure he would not have said it. Certainly nobody who could see Allison’s face at that moment would have believed it.
But Randolph wasn’t looking at Allison just then; he was looking at Kearns and his look said, “I’m counting on you, now.”
Kearns turned away and began to fiddle with the pieces on the chess board, and Allison, seeing nothing would come of further argument, turned and stormed back upstairs for his boot. “C” flight had a patrol that morning so the two combatants did not have another chance to renew the quarrel and the rest of the squadron supposed it had blown over.
“That’s fourteen holes in the fuselage alone. I call it scandalous,” said Renhard as he and Allison looked over their airplanes after returning from the mission.
“Bosches can shoot all right, I guess,” said Allison.
“Not that, I mean it’s scandalous that headquarters sends 11 squadron on all the dangerous missions. Why, we’ve had three balloon jobs this week!”
“I should think you’d be glad,” remarked Allison. “You haven’t gotten a single kill to your score yet.”
“I’ll get one,” said Renhard significantly.
“By the way, I found something of yours the other night,” said Allison, pulling the wax can from his pocket. “Couldn’t find you before supper and then I forgot about it.”
“That’s mine, all right. Thanks.”
“What do you use it for, since you don’t have a moustache?”
“Actually, it was a good-bye present.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. Come to think of it, maybe I will grow a moustache sometime. It might look nice. Distinguished, you know,” said Renhard, surveying himself in his pocket mirror.
Allison thought that he certainly couldn’t look any worse.
“Did you ever work with telephones, Renhard?”
“What? Telephones? No, I can’t say that I have; why?”
“I just wondered. I guess you wouldn’t know how one worked, then?”
“I might be able to figure out. Do you want to make a telephone call? Long distance to New York, maybe?”
“No. Just curious.”
A few yards away Randolph stood, watching Blundy, one of the mechanics, work on the engine of his SPAD which was having problems again. Kearns was nearby keeping him company and Randolph hoped he would stay in sight, as he did not want him getting into trouble again with Allison.
“I think it’s the carburetor,” said Randolph. “That’s what it was last time, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Blundy wearily. “The carburetor and the magneto and the oil pump—and this pipe is leaking, too. These new engines are nothing but junk.”
“That’s the trouble with these SPADS,” said Kearns. “I rather liked the old Nieuports, if it weren’t for the bad wings. You can’t have everything, I suppose.”
“No, nothing’s ever perfect,” agreed Randolph. “At least we’ve had good flying weather lately. One can’t complain of that.”
“Yes, my togs have finally dried out,” said Kearns. “What kind of bird would you say that is, Randolph?”
“What bird?”
“Why that one on the armory. Right there.”
“I can’t see it,” said Randolph.
He wondered why Kearns and Blundy looked at him so strangely.
“Carry on, Blundy, I’ve a letter to write,” he said hastily and hurried toward the barracks.
He was rather disappointed, when he got to the bedroom to find Allison there. To be sure, Allison spent most of his spare time in that room, seeming to consider it his private club.
“Why don’t you go down and watch the chess game, Allison?” Randolph suggested.
“Chess?” said Allison. “Can you think of anything duller?”
“Well, lying in bed smoking seems a very dull pursuit in my opinion.”
Allison made no reply to this except to blow a smoke ring. Randolph resolved to ignore him and fished out his letter writing things. He wrote for several minutes, but soon enough he laid aside his pencil and looked over at Allison who still lay in the same attitude.
Poor fellow, he thought. There must be something wrong with him to make him shun other people’s company so much. Funny that he doesn’t seem to mind mine. Perhaps I’d better be civil and talk to him a bit.
“I say,—Allison,” he said. He had made an effort to say “Roger” but could not quite manage that degree of familiarity.
“What?”
“What is it between you and Kearns?”
Allison raised one eyebrow.
“I mean, why don’t you like him?”
“I never said I didn’t like him.”
“But it’s quite obvious.”
“Then perhaps the cause is obvious as well.”
Randolph ruminated over this for a minute and decided to change the subject.
“You said you were from Arkansas, right?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it like there?”
“Well, it’s dry, sort of. Gets rather hot in summer, too.”
“Is it pretty?”
“I don’t know, I guess so.”
“What did you use to do before the war began? Occupation, I mean.”
“Oh, all sorts of things. I never stayed at the same job very long. I used to help out on farms when I was a kid. I worked on the railroad a little and for a dry-goods store for a few months. I was working for the telephone company before I joined up. That was a good job. I hope they’ll take me back after the war.”
“I worked on a farm too. My uncle’s. We were going to go into it shares when the war started. We raise beef cattle.”
“Oh?” asked Allison.
“Yes, Herefords. Of course my uncle doesn’t make much money, but it’s a fine job all the same. He lives in Pennsylvania, you know, in the foothills. It’s a beautiful place. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to Pennsylvania?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, I think I’d like to spend all my life there—after the war, you know. I used to get up early in the morning and climb one of the mountains nearby. Not really very big for a mountain, I suppose, but it gave you a fine view of the valley for miles. I’m not boring you, am I?”
“No, go on.”
“Well, it’s a beautiful place, as I said. I and my brothers used to stay at the farm every summer when we were little fellows. Do you have any brothers?”
“Yes. Two.”
“Are they enlisted as well?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know?” asked Randolph in surprise.
Allison tossed away his cigarette stub impatiently.
“Look, my mother died when I was seven,” he said. “Me and my brothers were all farmed out to different relatives. I haven’t seen them since.”
“Oh.”
Randolph sat staring at his letter without really seeing it.
“You were raised by relatives?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“An aunt and uncle?”
“I was passed around from relation to relation. I got sick of it after a while and ran away.”
Randolph was quiet for a minute. He wrote a sentence in his letter and then erased it.
“You know Allison,” he said. “If you can’t get that telephone job again after the war, you can come work the farm with my uncle and me.”
For the first time Allison looked touched.
“It’s kind of you, but I was never much for farming,” he said.
“Well, you’ll stop by if you’re ever up that way, won’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Here; let me write the address out for you.” (silence for a moment) “Here you are—you know, just in case you’re ever in Pennsylvania.”
“Thanks,” said Allison hoarsely, and taking the paper, he went out.
Woodward seemed to have been waiting outside the door for him to leave, for he entered immediately afterwards and looked around the room to make sure that nobody else was about.
“I’d like to speak to you for a moment, Quentin, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“Of course, Frank, what is it?”
Woodward sat down on one of the beds and tried to begin. He wasn’t much good at speaking his mind.
“Are you sure you’ve been feeling all right lately? Not too tired, or anything?”
“I feel fine.”
“Yes well, but you don’t feel as if you needed a rest? Leave, or something like that?”
Randolph was surprised at Woodward’s unwonted verbosity.
“Why, I’ve been a little more tired than usual, but not more than any of the rest of us. Why?”
It took Woodward so long to speak again that Randolph went back to his letter writing and finished three more sentences.
“Well,” Woodward said after awhile, “—well, I worry about you, Quent. You take too many chances.”
“Do I?” asked Randolph in surprise. “I suppose I do, a little. The fact is, in a dogfight I forget about everything but getting the other fellow down.”
“But you might be just a bit more cautious,” said Woodward. “Hold back, you know.”
“I just can’t seem to, Frank.”
“Well, why not? You don’t care about your record, so what do you do it for?”
“Didn’t you ever want to make your father proud of you?” asked Randolph.
Woodward looked surprised.
“Your father doesn’t think so much of you because you’re the youngest?” he said.
“Oh no, Father’s not like that at all, he loves us all the same; it’s just that I’d do anything for him and—and—he counts on us. He expects us all to do our best and I can’t let him down.”
Randolph got and strode up and down the room. How could he explain to Woodward how he felt? Woodward had never met his father.
“You wouldn’t understand, I suppose, Frank, but—Father’s not like anyone else. The boys at school used to say we worshiped him. We didn’t really. We only thought him the grandest man in the world—which he is. When I think of him I just feel as if I’d got to go out and give it all I’ve got.”
“Well, you never go things halves,” said Woodward. “I don’t think I’d like you so much if you did. It was Kearns and Hayes who talked me into speaking to you about it.”
“What? Did they talk to you about it?” asked Randolph, sitting down again.
“Yes. I think it was that time you went off after that German jasta that worried them, and really, I don’t see what you did it for.”
He ended on a period, but there was a question in his voice. Randolph fidgeted.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Randolph cleared his throat and glanced guiltily at Woodward. Seeing that he was not going to say anything, Randolph was forced to continue.
“You see, it’s my eyes. I’m near-sighted. I thought those were our ‘planes.”
Woodward stared at him.
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” said Randolph when he could stand the silence no longer.
“How are your eyes?”
“Not so good. And I think they’ve been getting worse lately. I have a pain in them sometimes.”
“How did you pass the eye examination?” asked Woodward.
“Memorized the chart.”
Randolph looked up at Woodward.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you? I might lose my wings.”
Woodward sat staring at his hands. At last he got up and strode over to Randolph.
“Don’t worry,” he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t tell anyone. You’ll kill yourself one of these days, Quentin, but I won’t tell anyone.”