Death of an Airman Read Free Page B

mine, what have you been doing? Poor Vane looked positively green. You’ve probably frightened him off flying for life. You didn’t let me spin until after my first circuit.”
    Furnace turned to her. He still smiled his artificial grin, but the Bishop noted that the hand in which he held his ear-phones whitened at the knuckles.
    â€œKindly keep your observations about my instructing to yourself before strangers,” he said in a shaking voice. “They may not realize what anybody in aviation knows, that you’re the worst woman pilot in this age and country, which is saying something. One day you may make as good a pilot as Sally here. But not until you stop making every decent person’s gorge rise by turning yourself into a cheap circus.”
    Mrs. Angevin flushed brick-red. For one moment the Bishop, embarrassed beyond all words, and yet unable to get away inconspicuously, thought she was going to strike Furnace across the face with her gloves. Perhaps she was. But at that moment a clear and languid voice interrupted them. Lady Laura was behind him.
    â€œI really think that instructors should never meet their pupils again, don’t you, Bishop?” she murmured. “They’re so used to cursing and swearing at them while they’re learning to fly that they can’t get out of the habit afterwards. You wouldn’t believe the things George says to me when he forgets himself.”
    Furnace looked at her for a moment with an oddly hurt look in his eyes. He seemed about to speak, then he walked abruptly away without another word and disappeared into the club-house.
    â€œWell, I never!” gasped Miss Sackbut. “He’ll be terribly sorry about this to-morrow, Dolly. I simply can’t understand what’s come over him.”
    â€œI can,” said Mrs. Angevin violently. “These unsuccessful pilots who think they ought to be at the top of the tree, and aren’t, all go the same way. Drink. Drink and jealousy. The man’s hardly sane.”
    She dragged on her gloves with a snort, nodded to Lady Laura, looked curiously at the Bishop, and walked away.
    â€œBitch!” remarked Lady Laura, directly she was out of earshot—or, the Bishop thought, probably a little before. “Still, I’ve never heard George flare up like that before.”
    She turned to the red-headed man in tattered overalls, who was climbing into the cockpit of XT preparatory to taxying it into the hangar.
    â€œGet my Leopard Moth out will you, Andy? I’m going back to Goring this afternoon.”
    â€œOke,” said the ground engineer.
    Miss Sackbut, accompanied by the Bishop, strolled thoughtfully back to the club-house.
    â€œI’m most awfully sorry this has happened,” said Sally dismally. “What will you think of our club? Mrs. Angevin was right; George oughtn’t really to have given Tommy practice in getting out of spins. Tommy’s very slow, and he’s still on straight and level flying after two hours’ instruction. Still, George probably had some good reason. What I can’t understand is his losing his temper like that. He’s always been a peaceable cove.”
    â€œMrs. Angevin had an explanation,” said the Bishop dryly. He looked at Miss Sackbut with a steady gaze which she found a little disconcerting.
    â€œOh, that was a beastly thing she said! He’s never been at all like that. It certainly is galling for a man of his war record—and his piloting ability, for they don’t always go together, guts and skill—it must be infuriating to be instructor at a low-down joint like our club, and to see people like Dolly and Randall making fortunes. But it’s all luck, that kind of thing, and George has always laughed at it. He’s always been as cheery as anything, and awfully popular with his pupils.”
    â€œHe struck me as not at all the type to lose his temper,” admitted the