“The distant hills and valleys are in Burma,” the colonel explained. “If you look closely you will discover a touch of blue here and there. Those are little patches of blue in the river down which we waded for so many hours on our retreat.”
“Oh, I wish Than Shwe were here!” Gale exclaimed.
“This would be a rare treat for her,” the colonel agreed. “Unfortunately, some wounded airmen were brought in this morning. Our little nurse will be busy.”
Gale looked at him hard, but said never a word. She wanted to know about these air battles,—wanted to be sure she would play her part in a real war.
As if reading her thoughts, the colonel pointed down at the ocean of treetops.
“Nature has been kind to us,” he said. “All that you see in the foreground is tops of giant trees. Beneath these trees lies an extended plateau. In secret, working day and night, we have cut away brush and small trees. In this way we have prepared a vast temple for the gods of war.”
“The secret forest,” Gale murmured, charmed and thrilled by the thought.
“You might call it that,” the Colonel agreed. “Roads have been laid out in every direction,” he went on. “Roads and airplane runways. Some of these runways are miles long. Because of this, airplanes based at the center of the forest may race away to spring up at the enemy far from their base.”
“Wonderful!” Gale murmured. “Those, I suppose, are the planes I heard in the night.”
“That’s right,” the colonel agreed. “There has been some fighting in the air. The Japs think we are up to something, but don’t know what. They send over scout planes and some bombers that do no harm.”
“Golly! You HAVE been up to something!” Jan exclaimed. “Think of making all those roads through the jungle!”
“Up to something!” the colonel exclaimed, “I’ll say we’ve been up to something! As the days go by you’ll realize it more and more.
“Just now,” his voice dropped—“What I want most of all is to impress you with the importance of your work here. You,”—he placed a hand on Gale’s shoulder, “Are to be the guardian angel of the army.”
“An angel?” Gale gasped. “Well, hardly that, colonel.”
“Exactly that,” he insisted. “Radar is much better than harps for fighting wars. Harps for angels of peace, radar for guardian angels of war.” He laughed in a strange sort of way.
“Look!” He pointed down to the forest that lay beneath them. “Soon beneath those trees tens of thousands of soldiers will be sleeping, waiting for the big push. Good American boys, they are, the kind that came from your own home town.”
“Yes, Yes—I know,” Gale murmured hoarsely.
“Long years ago,” the colonel went on, “wars were fought by professional soldiers, men from every land, hired to fight. Even in our Civil War, if you had money and didn’t want to go when you were called, you could pay someone to take your place.”
“But in this war it’s different,” Gale agreed. “It’s the boy who used to work in the Post Office, and the one who sat across from you in school, all kinds of boys who were your playmates and pals who have gone.”
“Golly, yes!” Jan put in. “And then they think it’s funny that some of us girls want to drive a truck in the war, or something.”
“They’ll change their ideas about that,” the colonel replied soberly. “They ARE changing them now. You girls can help. That’s part of the reason why I brought you.
“What I was starting to say,” he went on, “was that you’re up here like an all-seeing eye, Gale. Below you in that great forest will be thousands on thousands of splendid boys, ready, if need be, to give their lives for their country when the big push comes. And here you are, with radar eyes that can see in daylight or dark, clouds or sunshine, three hundred miles or more. When enemy planes come this way looking for those boys, you’ll know.”
“Yes,” Gale replied solemnly. “I’ll know.”
“Your equipment is the best,” the colonel went on. “We ran a line up here so you won’t lack power. You have a phone and a radio for sounding a warning.
“And here,—” he pulled a cord, letting in a flood of light from above—“Here is your lookout above, in case the enemy is overhead. You’ll only open this on special occasions.
“If things get too dangerous, you’ll take a few steps down, and—” he led the way—“this is your refuge.” They went down a narrow stone stairway to at last step into a cavern cut from the solid rock.
“Golly!” Jan exclaimed. “I’m sure glad to see this place. I was getting all covered with goose pimples.”
As for Gale, she gave the rock-hewn room only a quick glance. All that interested and inspired her was in the room above,—her radar set, radio and phone.
“I can see,” said the colonel after studying her face, “that the boys down there will have a guardian angel who never fails.”
“Not if I can help it,” Gale replied, with deep conviction.
“Of course,” the colonel added, “I wouldn’t want you to feel that the burden is all yours. That would be too much. You are not alone. There are other radar watchers along this ridge. But yours is the key position.”
“It shall be guarded well!” Gale promised.
“Golly, yes!” “With our lives!” Jan, who could not tell a radar set from a radiator added her bit, and they all laughed.
A moment later the colonel was gone, and Gale had lost herself in the study of her radar set.
“How grand!” she murmured. “This is new, but I have studied about it. It goes like this.” She turned on a switch, and the set began to humm.
“Jan!” she exclaimed. “What a lovely time we could have up here if it wasn’t for the war and all the terrible responsibility it brings.”
“Ain’t it the truth!” Jan agreed.
Gale had not exaggerated. The view from their window, the one that faced the world and Burma, was truly magnificent. The sea of waving green that was tree-tops, the hills beyond where morning mist still slowly drifted in the wind and the green valleys far beyond—was all like a picture painted by some famous artist.
But the view over head? Ah, that was different. Just now it was blank, Gale knew. At night stars would hang above them, and at times the moon would look in upon them. But always there was the chance that some spy would search out their high lonely post and mark it on a map. She thought once more of the woman in purple, the black dwarf and the three secrets of radar.
“If our hideout is marked on their map,” she thought, “then our view overhead will be horrible.”
As she closed her eyes she seemed to see soaring planes that, banking steeply, came shooting down. And after that the falling dots that grew and grew and grew. “The dots that scream like demons and at last roar like explosions in hell,”—she found herself thinking over words that Jimmie had once spoken to her.
“I wonder where Jimmie is now,” she mused. Soon enough she was to know.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime Isabelle had met with a happy surprise. In high school she had been an “A” grade student, a real worker. Probably that was why she was the colonel’s yeoman now. She had learned to make a perfect job of everything, and hadn’t forgotten how.
There were times in those half-forgotten days when she had wished she were different. Those were the times when at school parties the smooth boys passed her up for girls with a light touch, an easy laugh and plenty of “blue slips” along with their grades.
But Isabelle hadn’t worried too much about that, for the smooth boys made her a little weary. She liked the rough kind, and one boy above all others was just that. He even had a rough and rugged name—Pete Sikes. Pete was a redhead and his hair was always in a tangle. He had freckles, wore a broad grin, was six feet three, and could throw a forward pass farther and straighter than anyone in the league. And when it came his turn to carry the ball he simply faded into the growing dusk.
Pete had on weak point—he wasn’t quite all there—at least his football togs never were. He would come to the game minus a shoe, a helmet, or even a pair of pants.
That was where Isabelle came in. Because she was good at looking after things and needed the money, she had worked at the school office after hours. That was how she knew just what Pete had left behind each time he went to the football field for a game, and why she came rushing to the grounds in a taxi—hired by herself—to slip under the ropes and somehow get a package to Pete.
Pete was bashful, so he’d just blush and mumble,—“Thunder! Isabelle, if it wasn’t for you I’d be playing football in my shirt and shorts!”
He couldn’t know that Isabelle was crazy about him—that she longed to untangle that mass of red hair and do a lot of other nice things for him. So commencement came and went. Pete went with it, and she had lost him. Forever?
Well, it had looked that way until that day the colonel took Gale to her new location. Since the colonel was away, Isabelle was on her own, and was wandering in and out among the great teakwood trees when she ran squarely into a tall, grinning, redheaded sergeant.
“Pete! You old rascal!” she exclaimed, bracing herself to avoid making a grand rush that would have ended in something quite startling to Pete. “How did you ever get here?” she demanded.
“Oh,—by boat, train, automobile and foot,” he grinned. Then he said a whole lot, for Pete. What he said was:
“Thunder! Isabelle! It’s certainly good to see you here! Any American gal would look good to any of us doughboys, but you, Isabelle—you’re just tops!”
There were tears in Isabelle’s eyes, and a rare smile on her face just then, but all she said was:
“Pete! What are you doing here?”
“Looking for a parking lot location,” was the surprising answer.
“But Pete! You’re in the army!” she exclaimed.
“Sure! Oh, sure!” he agreed. “But I’ve got to get a parking place for a thunderin’ lot of army tanks.”
“Tanks? Oh, yes! Tanks!” Isabelle stammered.
“I’m a gunner in a General Sherman tank,” Pete confided, coming in close and speaking softly. “And Isabelle, believe it or not, I can put those big shells just any place I please.”
“Just like you used to put the old pigskins into some player’s mitt!” Isabelle exclaimed. “Oh, Pete! You’re wonderful! You always were!”
There might have been much more of this, but just then an orderly hurried up to announce that the colonel would soon be at his headquarters and would Isabelle please hurry back. So all she could say was:
“Well, goodbye, Pete. It’s been swell seeing you again.”
And Pete, because he was Pete, said nothing at all. But Isabelle had not heard the last of him. Far from that. Not that she wished to hear the last of him. Far from that too.
For Gale, that day passed quietly, but the night offered a thrill, sudden joy, and grave misgivings.
Three times during the day her long electric radar fingers reached out to touch metal floating in the sky. Three times, with quickening pulse, she followed these a hundred, two hundred miles away, but each time they moved in a leisurely manner over the distant landscape.
“Just some enemy scout planes watching over their own troop concentrations,” she said to Jan. “No need to report them. They’re not headed this way.”
Shortly after nightfall, very reluctantly she yielded her post to a smiling young sergeant who was to take over for the night.
“Nice quiet day.” He smiled again as he looked over her report.
“Quiet, but not nice,” was her quick response.
“Oh, you crave action!” He laughed. “You’ll get that soon enough, or I miss my guess. Big doings just ahead.”
“Here’s hoping,” was Gale’s comment as she drew on her jacket. “Well, goodnight and good hunting. I’ll see you just before dawn.”
“Wish you were staying longer,” he said, with a quiet smile. “I like company. We don’t see many bright-eyed American girls over here. This WAC idea is the berries, if you ask me.”
“Glad you like us,” said Gale.
“Golly, yes!” Jan agreed.
“Orders are orders,” said Gale in a friendly voice. “Going is just as much a part of our job as coming, so once more, goodnight.”
At that she and Jan went down the steep rocky stairway to at last climb into their jeep and rattle away.
“It’s a nice world,” Gale murmured. “Everybody is just swell.”
“Golly, yes!” Jan agreed heartily.
It was in the late evening as she wandered among the shadows not too far from her own tent that glowed faintly from a light by which Isabelle was writing letters, that Gale got her big surprise.
All of a sudden a voice whispered hoarsely: “Hi there!”
On the instant she knew who it was. “Jimmie!” she exclaimed softly. “It’s you! How in the world did you get here? I thought you were out over Hell’s Half Hour, or some other terrible place.”
“I’ll tell you all about it.” He guided her to a seat on an outgrowing root of a huge tree.
“I completed that last mission—the big four-motored job, you know,” he explained.
“Loaded with bombs,” she added.
“Sure. It was a swell trip. Those bombs helped win a Chinese battle.”
“Wasn’t that grand, Jimmie!” she exclaimed.
“Swell!” he agreed. “But now,”—his voice changed—“Now I’ve been pulled off that convoy job and am part of the big push. It’s a grand layout here,” he added. “Best I have ever seen.”
“How do you mean, Jimmie?” she asked.
“Well, you see—” He stopped. “Say!” he whispered, “This is secret. But I know a girl who can be trusted.”
“Don’t tell me if you ought not to,” she whispered. “But what you do tell me will be locked up tight in my memory and my heart.”
“Your heart! That’s good!” He pressed her hand. “That’s the safest place in all the world.”
“You see,” he went on after a moment, “Since the colonel led his ragged little army out of Burma—that was at the start of the rainy season, months ago—he’s been planning and working.”
“I know,” she agreed. “They told him this ridge couldn’t be crossed.”
“But he and his ragged band crossed it.”
“Yes. Then they told him it would take years to make a road into Burma.”
“And he said, ‘Only a few months.’ That’s just how long it’s been!” Jimmie drew in a long, deep breath. “And now look! There’s a road up one side of the ridge and down the other side—a road the Japs don’t know a thing about. That’s not all. This great forest has been cleared of brush.”
“There are roads all through it,” she said.
“Yes, and miles of airplane runways. Our air base is in the heart of the forest. When there is an air raid alarm we can come popping out at them from north, south or west. They have no way of knowing where to drop their bombs.”
“But, Jimmie!” she exclaimed softly. “Do you mean that you are flying a fighting plane now, and will be going out after the Japs?”
“Sure! Why not?” He laughed quietly. “That’s my job. I’ve got the swellest little fighting kite you ever want to see. It’s a new type. You’ll be able to recognize it if you have a field glass. You see—”
“But Jimmie! That’s terrible!” she broke in.
“What’s terrible?” His voice showed his astonishment.
“If I spot some Jap bombers coming this way and send out an alarm, I’ll practically be calling you out to fight them!”
“Sure! Why not? I’ll never be called by a finer gal.” He laughed.
“Yes, I—I suppose that’s what you think,” she replied slowly, solemnly. “And—and I like you for saying that. But it would be hard to watch you being shot from the sky and to know that I was the one who called you out.”
“The Japs won’t get me,” he declared. “That little kite of mine is really fast. Besides, if they had any such luck, you’d see my parachute blossom in the sky. I’m really good with a parachute. And AM I!”
“That’s fine, Jimmie,” she murmured.
“But there’s a lot more to it than that.” Jimmie sat up straight.
“Yes, I know.” She caught his sense of thrill. “The whole army is coming here to camp beneath these trees.”
“Tanks, guns, and fighting men. That’s why we must defend this forest,” he replied in a tight, tense voice.
“Yes, Jimmie. And that’s why I’m to be cooped up there on the hill.”
“It won’t be for long,” Jimmie predicted. “I’m sure of that. The army will go forward to victory and we’ll go with them.
“Burma, China, and then, Tokio,” he whispered.
“Here’s hoping.” She stood up. “Well, I have to be out there on the ridge before dawn. I’ll be seeing you.” She held out a hand.
“Perhaps tomorrow,” was his reply. And tomorrow it was.
* * * * * * * *
It was mid-afternoon of the next day. Gale had given her entire equipment a routine checkup and had sent her radar feelers out into the thin air of a bright, sunshiney day, when she gave a sudden start.
“What’s up?” Jan exclaimed.
“Don’t know, just yet,” was the slow reply. “There’s something in the air out there far beyond where we can see.”
“Must be a hundred and fifty miles. Patrol planes—don’t you think?” Jan settled back.
“No, I don’t,” was Gale’s excited reply. “There’s not just one or two of them—more nearly a hundred, I’d say. I get them over quite a wide area.”
For several minutes the suppressed silence lay over the lookout station. Then Gale let out a whoop: “They’re coming this way—the whole lot of them—maintaining a uniform speed, too. Must be flying in formation. Get headquarters, quick!”
Jan sprang to the phone. Half a minute later Jan said: “Here you are.”
Gale’s hand trembled as she picked up the receiver. “Headquarters?” she said in a calm voice.
“Right,” came back.
“Good! This is G. G. J. speaking. Wish to report large formation of enemy planes due east from this station—a hundred or more miles away. Flying west at identical speed.”
“Formation,” said the voice at the other end, “may be practice flight. Keep on them and report again in three minutes.”
Gale obeyed orders. In exactly three minutes she was back on the phone. “Formation of enemy planes still traveling west,” was her report. “Maintaining identical and uniform speed. Think they can be seen as a dark spot on the horizon.”
“Okay. We’ll check on that and send out scout planes.” was the answer. “Keep your radar on them. Report at intervals.”
Gale did keep her radar on those planes. If they were flying to attack the secret forest or the distant city, she had made a scoop that would be remembered.
A quarter of an hour had not passed before she was sure that this was indeed an enemy bombing and fighting force.
“Looks as if the Japs were planning a big show,” she said to Jan.
“Golly, yes!” Jan agreed. “Look!” She handed Gale a pair of powerful binoculars. “You can see them plain now, even tell the fighters from the bombers.”
Gale was really startled when she had the formation within her view. For a full moment she studied that mass of flying hate. She fancied that she heard the roar of the motors, but that was impossible.
After that she swept the sky with the glass. She was looking for American planes flying out to meet them. There were none—only two observation planes—flying high.
“I wonder what that means,” she murmured. She thought of the crowded city she had recently left and shuddered at thought of the death and destruction that would follow if those planes got through. “They may be planning to attack the secret forest,” she said to Jan.
“Do they know about it?” Jan asked.
“Perhaps. Who can tell?” Gale replied slowly. “Little good that would do them now. That forest is as long as one of our states, and quite wide. There are only a few of us billetted there now.”
“Oh, sure! They’d never find us!” Jan was at ease again. But not for long.
Gale got her answer to the question regarding the absence of U. S. fighter planes. Long after she had given up hope, when the formation of enemy bombers and fighters were all but over the forest, all of a sudden, seeming to come from every side at once, a great flight of U. S. fighters filled the air.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Jan exclaimed in wild excitement. “Now there will be a big battle before our very eyes!”
The moments that followed will live long in Gale’s memory. Swarms of American flyers filled the sky. To her this was no mystery. To the enemy pilots it all must have seemed a feat of magic.
From the direction they had been taking, it seemed evident to Gale that the enemy bombers had not been bound for the secret forest but for the crowded city far beyond. Whatever their destination may have been, they were at once driven off their course and when the battle began in earnest though still some distance away, they were directly in front of her lookout.
“Golly!” Jan exclaimed, dancing about. “It’s just like they were putting on a show for our benefit!”
Gale did not reply. She was busy, but not with her instrument—her task for that day was done—the enemy did not now need to be spotted—he was here.
With her powerful binoculars she was sweeping the sky looking for just one plane. She would know it when she saw it. It was the smallest, fastest U. S. plane of them all. It had a sharp nose, and long, slender wings like those of a nightingale. “And a Nightingale flies it,” she thought, “—Jimmie Nightingale.”
Truth is she did not wish to find it there in the sky. She had hoped Jimmie was far away on some other mission, for this would be a fearful battle. The enemy bombers were heavily armed and had a powerful fighter escort.
Just when she was hoping that she had seen all the planes and could assure herself that Jimmie was not there, a very small fighter plane with narrow wings came out from behind some enemy bombers.
“Jimmie!” she exclaimed. “There he is! Oh, Jimmie!”
“Where? Where is he?” Jan exclaimed.
“Just in front of those four bombers over to the left,” Gale pointed him out.
“Oh! Oh! Yes! I see him!” Jan replied, breathlessly.
Just then, as if he was conscious of being watched and felt the need of putting on a show, which of course he did not, Jimmie seemed to leap straight at the nearest enemy bomber. With his guns spouting fire, he flew squarely under the enemy plane’s motors. At once the enemy bomber’s right motor began to smoke.
Ten seconds later Jimmie was back. Now it was the right motor that received his hail of bullets. Turning slowly, like a leaf in the wind, the bomber rolled over on its side, then went into a spin. A moment later it struck a ledge and exploded with a terrific roar.
“Golly!” Jan exclaimed. “Suppose that one had fallen on our little coop!”
“If you’re afraid,” Gale suggested, “Why don’t you go into our shelter?”
“Oh! I wouldn’t! Not for worlds!” Jan exclaimed.
But now it seemed that Jimmie was in trouble. In revenge for their lost bomber, three enemy fighters had gone after him. Lightly armed, speedy planes, these Jap Zeroes were dangerous enemies.
“Oh! Jimmie! Watch out!” Gale exclaimed, unconscious of what she was saying in her excitement.
With the three Zeroes hot on his tail, Jimmie went into a power-dive that was like nothing Gale had ever seen before. By the time she had caught her breath, she saw his plane sweep into a steep spiral curve to come up behind one of the Zeroes and send it down in flames.
Before Jimmie could swing into a safe position, a Zero got in a burst of fire that made his plane stagger, but he was up and at them with such speed that a second plane was sent spinning earthward.
Just when the third Zero, in what appeared to be a suicide attack, leapt squarely at Jimmie’s plane, the whole picture disappeared, and the room went dark.
“Jan!” Gale exclaimed in sudden desperation, “What has happened?”
“Are you deaf?” was the startling reply. “Listen!”
Gale did listen, and to her waiting ears, above the sound of battle, came the roar of a single plane close at hand.
“It’s a Zero plane,” Jan exclaimed. “Perhaps he carries a bomb. He may have seen the sunshine on our window.”
Jan had drawn the thick shade outside their window, but there remained a small crack. Just as Gale peeked through this crack, the enemy plane passed so close she saw the flyer’s ugly face. Did he look her way? She imagined that he did. For a second he was there, then he was gone for good.
“Gone this time,” she shuddered, “But what about next time?”
Who could answer? Had the pilot of that plane really spotted their hideout and guessed its purpose? For the present there was nothing left but to carry on.
When Gale opened the window a wider crack to fix her binoculars on the few remaining fighters, Jimmie’s small plane with the slender wings was nowhere to be seen.
“He was shot down,” she thought in sudden panic. Of this she could not be sure. Nothing is certain in war.
Slowly the sound of battle faded away in the distance. With fingers that trembled violently, Gale drew the blind before her window aside and started her radar set working again.
Now instead of a great formation of enemy planes advancing upon her, she picked up one here, another there, and always rapidly fading off into the distant sky. Now and then she caught sudden movements of planes, indicating that some daring American fighters were still after the retreating enemy. Was Jimmie one of these? She dared hope a little, but not too much.
“Golly!” Jan exclaimed. “Was that a battle!”
“It was a great defeat for the enemy.”
“God be praised for that,” was Gale’s solemn comment. “More than half their bombers must have been shot down. The others dropped their bombs where they did no harm, and fled.”
“Did some of their fighters get away?” Jan asked.
“Yes. Several of them.”
“That’s bad.” Jan’s knees trembled. “It scares me. I’m funny, I guess. I could drive a jeep almost over a precipice and not be scared at all. But just to think of a bomb dropping on me, that’s terrible! There would be nothing left of me,—just nothing at all. But if that Jap in the fighter plane spotted us—”
“Perhaps he didn’t,” was Gale’s quiet reply. “Besides, something tells me we won’t be here much longer.”
“Why? What makes you think that?” Jan asked in surprise.
“The colonel wouldn’t have sent out all those planes to attack the Jap bombers if this was to be an important point much longer. That’s sure to tip them off to the fact that there’s something big around here somewhere. They’ll be back.”
“Oh! They’ll be back!” Jan was more frightened than ever.
“Oh! Snap out of it, Jan!” Gale scolded. “We joined up to help fight a war! We’re not worth much if we’re scared all the time!”
“Sure.” Jan’s ample figure stiffened. “Sure. That’s right. You can count on me in the pinches every time.”
“You’re just right we can!” Gale agreed.
At dusk, when her relief arrived, Gale asked eagerly for news of the air battle.
“I can’t tell you a thing,” was the quick reply.
“You mean you’re not allowed to,” she suggested.
“No. That’s not it,” said the young sergeant with a slow smile. “Things are terribly secret up here these days. I’ve been here for quite a while. With every day that passes the officers get more nervy. There’s something really big in the air.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Gale murmured.
It was the same way when Gale and Jan had arrived in the shadow of the secret forest. Isabelle, who had awaited them at the tent, was in a fine state of excitement, but could tell them nothing of the battle.
“There’s been no report given out except that it was a great little victory for our side,” was all she would say.
When Than Shwe arrived from the hospital she reported that three wounded aviators had been brought in.
“Than Shwe!” Gale exclaimed. “Do you know Jimmie?”
“That handsome fellow who called for you once at the club?” the little nurse asked.
“Yes! Yes! That was Jimmie!” Gale caught her breath. “Is—is he in the hospital?”
“No.” The little nurse shook her head. “No, your Jimmie, he was not one of these. But really, do you think he was shot down today?”
“I don’t really know.” Gale’s brow wrinkled. “I saw him in a terrible fight with three Jap Zeroes. His plane was crippled, and then that was all we saw.”
“Oh, Jimmie’ll come back,” Jan consoled. “He’s that kind of a boy.”
Since Than Shwe was to dine that night with a Burmese officer and Jan was to eat with a truck crew that had just arrived, Gale and Isabelle took their mess kits and went to join in the lineup for chow.
“We’ll have better arrangements for you girls later,” the colonel had said to her.
“You couldn’t!” she exclaimed.
“Oh yes!” he had smiled. “A mess hall all your own—just for the ladies of the camp.”
“That might please some of them,” she had said, “but not me. I like to feel that I am a real soldier. There’s a sort of comradeship that comes from standing in line with your mess kit and cup, the boys joshing one another, and all that. It’s real fun. At first,” she laughed, “they sort of leave you a space by yourself—as if you were poison, or perhaps were made of fragile stuff.”
“But after that?” he grinned.
“After that they find out we’re real fellows, and take us in. That makes me feel all sort of good inside.”
“The other night,” she had laughed, “they started doing a goose-step, with hands on shoulders. At first there was no hand on my shoulder. Then there was, and I did the goose-step with the best of them.”
“That’s the spirit!” the colonel had enthused. “That’s the sort of thing that took my little band of boys and girls out of Burma. Comradeship! There’s nothing like it!”
There was no goose-step on this night. The boys were a sober lot. Perhaps the air battle of the day had warned them that big events were just ahead.
Despite all this, the meal was a great success for Isabelle, for no sooner had she joined the line than a great paw was placed on her shoulder and a big voice said:
“Hi, Isabelle! How’s things?” It was her old schoolmate, Pete Sikes, of the tanks.
“Gale!” Isabelle exclaimed, “this is Pete Sikes, the all-star player of our old high school days—you’ll like him.”
And Gale did. They ate their corned Willie, dehydrated potatoes, tomatoes and pineapple together beneath a great spreading tree that appeared to offer ample protection from any attack from the air.
“Pete,” said Isabelle, when they had finished with home town talk, “What do you know about the air battle we had today?”
“Not very much.” Pete wrinkled his brow. “I’ve been busy. Big business tonight,” he grinned, mysteriously.
“Oh!” Gale exclaimed. “No one seems to know about that fight. We saw it all from our coop up there in the rocks,—that is—nearly all. I missed the part that means the most to me. One of my friends was in the fight. He got a bomber.”
“Great!” Pete exclaimed.
“That’s not all.” Gale went on: “Three Zeroes went after him. He’d shot down two of them, but his plane had been damaged and the third Zero was after him when Jan pulled the curtain.”
“Pulled the curtain!” Isabelle exclaimed.
“Sure. A Jap fighter flew in close to our coop. We were afraid he’d spot us.
“When we could open up again,”—Gale drew in a long breath—“Jimmie and his little fighter had vanished from the air.”
“Well now, that is bad,” Pete drawled. “Just one of those things though—you’ll have to wait for news, that’s all. War is a great little waiting game. Something happens that you want to know about, but you just have to wait. You get all set for something big, and then again you have to wait.
“But I’ll tell you—” his eyes opened wide—“If you girls want to see something really big,—a thing you’ll never forget—I’m right in position to get you a grandstand seat.”
Gale looked at Isabelle. Isabelle nodded her head.
“All right.” Gale agreed. “Count me in.”
Two hours later, Gale, Isabelle and Than Shwe piled into Pete’s jeep and went gliding silently out from beneath the secret forest toward some unannounced destination.
“I’ll have to leave you out here,” Pete explained. “You’ll have to find your own way back, thumb your way, or hoof it. I’ve got lots of work to do. But believe me, you’ll say it’s worth it. It’s not more than four miles, I guess.”
“Just think of this big goof asking us to tramp back four miles just to see something we don’t know a thing about!” Isabelle laughed.
“All right.” Pete slowed down his car. “Want to go back?”
At first there was no answer. “What do you say, girls?” Isabelle asked.
“I’ll take a chance,” was Gale’s prompt reply.
“Chances. That’s all I take all my life,” Than Shwe said, laughing.
They drove on.
At a point where something like a cross between a road and a path came out into the main highway, Pete stopped.
“This is as far as I go,” Pete announced. “The big show passes here. There’s the trunk of a huge dead tree just back of those bushes. You can see it all right from there. I’ve a notion that you can find your way back to camp by this trail.”
“But you’re not dead sure?” Isabelle teased.
“That’s right. I’m not,” Pete agreed. “In this man’s war you have to take chances.”
They piled out. Pete turned his jeep about and sped away. Like three night birds they perched themselves on the fallen giant of the forest, wrapped their jackets about them to keep out the chill mountain air, then settled down to wait.
“This may be just one of Pete’s pranks,” Isabelle announced. “He was full of tricks in high school,—kept us out in the grass hunting snipe with a gunny-sack and a dishpan and a lantern for two hours once.”
“If this is a trick,” Gale said, “and if we hike back four miles for nothing, you shall be shot at midnight. I’ve had a hard day, and I’m tired.”
“Listen!” Than Shwe put her fingers to Gale’s lips.
As they all sat there at the edge of the silent jungle with the night all about them, an ominous rumble reached their ears.
“More Jap bombers,” Gale groaned. “And I am not there to help stop them.”
“No,” said Isabelle. “It’s not bombers. It’s too tremendous and too indistinct for that.”
“Not bombers,” Than Shwe agreed.
“Then what is it?” Gale demanded.
“If you ask me,” said Isabelle, “I’d tell you that it was Pete’s outfit coming into roost beneath the Secret Forest. He’s with the tanks, you know.”
“More than that. Much more!” Than Shwe sprang to her feet to dance a jig. “Then what is it?” Gale repeated.
“It’s what the colonel calls ‘The whole damned outfit’.” Than Shwe grew vastly excited. “It’s not just tanks, but tanks, guns, men, trucks, trucks, trucks, kitchens, food, guns, tanks, Tommy guns, and men, men, men,—the most soldiers you ever saw.” Than Shwe danced all over the place.
Than Shwe was right. Pete had not let them down. They were to witness one of the most stupendous parades ever put on in the history of mankind.
It began with a group of cars. Gale was not sure that they carried officers, advance guard, or both.
The darkness that was all but complete—a pin-prick of light showed here and there—only served to heighten the parade of monsters.
After the cars came a convoy of trucks. Some of these were closed, some open. On some of the open trucks they made out the form of camp kitchens, on others, bent forward, half asleep, were men,—hundreds and hundreds of men.
And then came the big guns—guns on half tracks, on trucks, and propelled by their own power they one and all gave out a great bang and clatter. Now and then, as a gun threatened to leave the road, there came a shout of warning. Once the whole parade of monsters came to a jangling halt. Then the silence was appalling.
For each of the three girls the effect of it all was strangely different. Isabelle seemed stunned into silence by it all. When the tanks which followed the guns came clattering in, she wanted nothing so much as to cut and run for it, and keep on running until she was back in the quiet of the city. She had wanted to go forward to join in the war, but this brought the tremendous reality of it all to her in a new and awe-inspiring manner. “It’s as if we weren’t on earth at all,” she murmured once. “It would seem more real on Mars or the moon.
“Civilization!” she whispered. “Is this it?”
Than Shwe was delirious with joy. Flinging her hair to the wind, she danced about like a woods sprite. “The Japs, they drive the colonel out of Burma. Now see! See what the colonel has got! Oh! I wish I could ride into Burma on top of a tank!” Than Shwe was just plain mad with joy.