"AFRICA FLIGHT"
PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.
By
VAL GEILGUD.
(Author of “Announcer's Holiday,” “Beyond Dover,” Etc.
CHAPTER XX. “I was glad to have the chance of having to fight him to get his gun. If I’d had a gun myself I wouldn’t even have taken that much gamble. If I’d caught you at those water-bottles I'd have killed you just as cold-bloodedly. I told you you didn’t begin to know the first thing about adventuring, Carol. Adventuring means dealing with cricumstances where there aren’t any laws or police to keep the necessary rules for you. What is called murder in England may be an obvious simple necessity in the middle of the Sahara. That’s the beginning and the end of it.” With an impulsive movement Carol held out her hand.” “I’m sorry, Rupert,” she said. “I’ve been a fool.” But Larrimore made no move to take it. “What are you going to do with yourself?” she asked. “What’s necessary and obvious.” “But what did they say at—Scotland Yard?” “Very little. They’re only ‘making inquiries,’ you see. I rather gathered they weren’t really very keen to help the French extradite me, and —er guillotine me, I suppose it will be?” “Rupert!” “They’ve got to communicate with the French again—l gather it’s all rather complicated. In fact I was good as given a hint that if I took myself off and left no address ” “And you’re going, of course.” Larrimore grinned. “I’m afraid I am. It’s not heroic, I know. But then I’m not a hero. I never was —except in your imagination, my dear. And the leopard doesn’t change his spots at my age. I shall just save everyone a good deal of embarrassment —your father in particular —by quietly fading out.” “I see,” said Carol slowly. “Another adventure.” “Put it that way if you like —it sounds better than saving one’s skin,” said Larrimore carelessly. “I shall take a plane from Heston tonight. There are still quite a lot of countries where an extradition warrant doesnt run: Turkey I believe, and some of the South American States.” Carol went close up to him and put both hands on "his shoulders. “I’m coming with you,” she said a little breathlessly. “This is serious, Carol.” Carol smiled. “I don’t think,” she said, “that I’ve ever been serious before in all my life.” Larrimore put" up his hands and gripped her wrists. “Listen, my dear,” he began, “you don't know ”
“I know everything at last. Tell me honestly, if you can, that you don’t want me to come!”
“I told you I wasn’t a hero, Carol. I’m a normal human lonely man. And I happen to love you. I won’t lie about that even to save you from yourself. Of course I want you. But I won’t take you into this ” “You will, if I can convince you that my eyes are open!” Larrimore wrenched away from her savagely. “They’re not open!” he said violently. “They can’t be! You can’t know what this is going to mean. I’ve next to no money. I shall have to take a job flying, probably military flying, in one of those tuppenny-halfpenny republics with a filthy climate. We shan’t have a friend in the world. We shall never be able to come back to England. Do you realise that? The people who might just sympathise with me with things as they are, will curse me for a coward once I bolt, and doubly for taking you with me. We shall be up against everything in the world for the rest of our natural lives, and nothing but our wits and our hands to use for capital.” “I thought that we loved each other, Rupert.”
“We do, Carol. D’you think it will last, against all that amount of handicap? Our tempers will shorten. We shall treat each other worse and worse. We shall quarrel. And because we can’t get away from each other, we shall come to hate each other. Just because we shall be so hideously dependent upon each other for everything ” He broke off, and looked at the girl with a face grown touchingly and desperately haggard. “I'm still coming," said Carol. Behind them a door opened quietly, and Cynthia Wright came in. "I’m sorry to interrupt you” she said, “but Sir George wants you to come and have some dinner. Miss Manson." Carol laughed a little uncertainly. .“Did you hear what we were saying?" she asked.
“I'm afraid I did," said Miss Wright. “I couldn't help it. I meant to cough —but I was too interested." Larrimore turned towards the secretary. "Tell , her it's madness. Miss Wright,” he said urgently. “Oh why not suggest that she tells my father—that’ll put a stopper on me.” Carol cried. There was a little silence, then, "I should get off quickly if I were you,” said Cynthia Wright. Larrimore stared at her incredulously. “Do you mean that?" he exclaimed. “Women beat me!" Miss Wright lifted an admonishing forefinger, looking quite extraordinarily like a schoolmistress, thought Carol, remembering the wide windows and the sweep of downland of her school where she had first pinned a cut-out portrait of Rupert Larrimore beside her bed ... | “Mr Larrimore,” said Cynthia Wright, “you've been talking a great
deal about adventure, as if only men knew anything about it. That’s great nonsense, if you don’t mind my saying so. We may not fly the Pacific or go to the Poles—but the ordinary woman’s life is an adventure from the hour she is born to the moment she dies. It has to be. A woman's life is simply one long adventure. Men have to learn about it by bits and ends. It isn’t so surprising if they get the point of view a little blurred. If you can take what’s coming to you, so can Miss Manson." She stopped and coughed. “I’m sorry. I’ve said far more than was my business,” she concluded. Carol crossed the room and put her arms round Miss Wright’s slim shoulders,. “No wonder,” she said, looking back at Larrimore over her shoulder, “that you’re the best secretary in London.”
“Won’t you come with us and show us the ropes?” inquired Larrimore, still faintly ironic, “You seem to know them pretty well!” Carol made a face at him. Miss Wright showed no sign of appreciating the irony.
“Thank you, Mr Larrimore,” she said, “but I’ve my own adventures to think about, you know. Good luck to you both.” The door closed behind her as quietly as it opened. As the latch clicked Larrimore swept Carol into his arms. “Bless her!” he said hoarsely. “So you’re coming?” “I told you so.” “Just like that? No tooth brush or anything?’ “Just like that.”
“Well,” said Larrimore, “perhaps Paris can supply the tootbrush. And the consulaie there can supply the marriage-lines. I think we can count on good old Scotland Yard to give us a clear twenty-four hours.’ He paused and looked down at her eager face. “You dont think it’s going to be any fun, do you Carol?” he aasked anxiously. Her eyes looked up at him altogether fearlessly. “I only know that this is going to be our real adventure —” she said. “Kiss me —and then let’s hurry.” His lips pressed hers. “Bless you! Still sure?”
“Certain, Rupert.” His back straightened, as if suddenly on parade. “Right,” he said sharply. “Let’s go!” The great limousine tore on through the night. In one corner was sitting Sir George Manson, an unlighted cigai’ disregarded between the gloved fingers of his right hand, his eyes fixed unwinkingly upon the speedometer on the lighted dashboard, as the needle crept up to seventy, to seventy-five, to eighty miles an hour. Now and then he snapped an impatient order to hurry at the chauffeur’s impassive back. In the other corner sat Cynthia Wright, her back very stiff, her mouth very tight. The sort of scene through which she had just passed with her employer had been as unedifying as it had been unusual.
“What you can have been thinking of, Cynthia,.” said Sir George at last, “is beyond me!” Miss Wright aid not reply. ,“Oh, very well, very well,” went on Sir George. “1 apologise for anything I may have said. I lost my temper. Was it so surprising?” “I withdraw my resignation, if that is what you want,’ said Miss Wright coldly, “but I don’t change my opinion for a moment. You should let them go.”
To that Sir George only replied with a snort. The car lurched, swerved, and leaped forward. “Dash these roads!” snapped Sir George. “How much farther for Heavens sake, Gates.”
Gates was understood to say that they were on the last lap. And almost immediately the car swung out on to a length of clear road with no bordering hedges. “Straight into the aerodrome!’ ordered Sir George. But Miss Wright put a hand on his arm with an exclamation, and Gates jammed on his brakes. Straight towards the road a dim winged shape was racing, its engine roaring a steady crescendo. Sir George wrenched open the door of the car, and sprand on to the road, waving his arms, and shouting incoherently. The plane swerved slightly, as though sentient of his presence. Sir George had a moment’s glimpse of the faces of Rupert Larrimore and Carol, in the dim light from the instrument board of the machine. Then the plane lifted, its wheels spinning languidly, passed not more than ten feet above the level of Sir George’s head, and drove southwestward into the darkness. “Beaten on the post," muttered George Manson unsteadily, peering after the tiny vanishing wing lights. “The fools! The silly young fools!” He stumbled back towards the car Cynthia Wright put a hand gently on his arm. "Did you see?” she asked. "See what? I saw their faces —if that’s what you mean!” “Then you saw how unbelievably happy they looked,” said Cynthia Wright. (THE END.)
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 February 1940, Page 10
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1,657"AFRICA FLIGHT" Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 February 1940, Page 10
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