A Long Exposure

Extract

THE editor of the Daily Shouter was conscious from his salutation that it was young Phelps, the new reporter, who stood behind him, so it was not necessary to turn round. He went on sorting his papers, remarking as he did so, ‘You can run down to Airminster and see if you can get a story from the

R.A.F. man who got stuck up on the roof of the abbey yesterday. See if he’s got anything to say about how it felt being up there for eight hours—not about how he got down, we had all that last night; but just see if he has anything to say that you can make into a story. Hullo! ‘The editor had transferred his attention to the telephone.

Young Phelps accepted his assignation readily, and hopefully. The news editor of the Shouter had a wide reputation as a discoverer of possibilities in the events of the passing hour. True, he sometimes tested the mettle of new men on forlorn hopes, but young Phelps rather liked being put on his mettle; he hoped to be a news editor himself one day. At any rate, it was up to him to get a ‘story’ out of the hero of yesterday’s misadventure. The papers had given a due account of the accident which had brought down Flight-Lieut. Cliffordson’s aeroplane on to the roof of the fourteenth-century minster church from which Airminster derives its name. The machine had got itself entangled amongst the intricate masonry that surmounts the west facade, and when it came to earth with its pilot it was found that the lieutenant had been left clinging to a narrow ledge up amongst the gargoyles.