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by Percy F. (Percy Francis) WestermanCHAPTER I--A STARTLING PROPOSITION
"What's the move?" enquired Kenneth Kenyon.
"Ask me another, old son," replied his chum, Peter Bramsdean. "Fosterdyke is a cautious old stick, but he knows what's what. There's something in the wind, you mark my words."
"Then you're going to see him?"
"Rather! And you too, old bean. Where's a pencil? We can't keep the telegraph boy waiting."
Bramsdean tore a form from a pad, scribbled on it the reply--"Fosterdyke, Air Grange, near Blandford. Yes, will expect motor to-morrow morning," and he had taken the initial step of a journey that man had never before attempted.
Kenyon and Bramsdean were both ex-flying officers of the Royal Air Force. What they did in the Great War now matters little. Sufficient is it to say that had they belonged to any belligerent nation save their own they would have been styled "aces"; but since in the Royal Air Force details of personal achievements were deprecated, and the credit given to the Force as a whole, they merely "carried on" until ordered to "get out," or, in other words, be demobilised. Then, each with a highly-prized decoration and a gratuity of precisely the same amount as that given to an officer who had never served anywhere save at the Hotel Cecil, they found themselves literally on their feet, relegated to the limbo of civilian life. It was not long before they found how quickly their gratuities diminished. Like many other ex-members of His Majesty's Forces, they began to realise that in smashing the German menace they had helped to raise a menace at home--the greed and cupidity of the Profiteer.
They were just two of thousands of skilled airmen for whom as such there was now no need. Commercial aviation had yet to be developed; trick flying and exhibition flights lead to nothing definite, and only a very small percentage of war-time airmen could be retained in the reconstituted Air Force.
Kenyon and Bramsdean were not men to "take it lying down." They had pluck and resource and a determination to "get a move on," and within a twelvemonth of their demobilisation they found themselves partners and sole proprietors of a fairly prosperous road transport concern operating over the greater part of the South of England.
"What's the move?" enquired Kenneth Kenyon.
"Ask me another, old son," replied his chum, Peter Bramsdean. "Fosterdyke is a cautious old stick, but he knows what's what. There's something in the wind, you mark my words."
"Then you're going to see him?"
"Rather! And you too, old bean. Where's a pencil? We can't keep the telegraph boy waiting."
Bramsdean tore a form from a pad, scribbled on it the reply--"Fosterdyke, Air Grange, near Blandford. Yes, will expect motor to-morrow morning," and he had taken the initial step of a journey that man had never before attempted.
Kenyon and Bramsdean were both ex-flying officers of the Royal Air Force. What they did in the Great War now matters little. Sufficient is it to say that had they belonged to any belligerent nation save their own they would have been styled "aces"; but since in the Royal Air Force details of personal achievements were deprecated, and the credit given to the Force as a whole, they merely "carried on" until ordered to "get out," or, in other words, be demobilised. Then, each with a highly-prized decoration and a gratuity of precisely the same amount as that given to an officer who had never served anywhere save at the Hotel Cecil, they found themselves literally on their feet, relegated to the limbo of civilian life. It was not long before they found how quickly their gratuities diminished. Like many other ex-members of His Majesty's Forces, they began to realise that in smashing the German menace they had helped to raise a menace at home--the greed and cupidity of the Profiteer.
They were just two of thousands of skilled airmen for whom as such there was now no need. Commercial aviation had yet to be developed; trick flying and exhibition flights lead to nothing definite, and only a very small percentage of war-time airmen could be retained in the reconstituted Air Force.
Kenyon and Bramsdean were not men to "take it lying down." They had pluck and resource and a determination to "get a move on," and within a twelvemonth of their demobilisation they found themselves partners and sole proprietors of a fairly prosperous road transport concern operating over the greater part of the South of England.
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