The road that led to Hell’s Half Hour grew more difficult by the hour. More than once Jan climbed out to push while Gale held the wheel. “Get along there, Jeep,” she would cry. “I’ve got a strong back and a weak mind, but we’ve just got to get through.”
When at last they reached the place marked “Impassable” on the map, they realized that the map told the truth. They were facing a stone wall up which only a human being or a donkey could climb.
“Well, old Jeep,” Jan patted her car affectionately, “you’ve done nobly. We’ll have to leave you here, but we’ll be back. At least we think we will,” she added in a sober voice.
“You take the grub-sack,” she said to Gale. “I’ll bring the stretcher we brought for Jimmie, and the blankets.” Again her strong back was to stand her in good stead.
To their surprise, once they had crossed the rocky ridge, they found themselves on a well-travelled trail. Here, however, the trees stood close together.
“Guess we should have taken this foot-trail from the start,” said Gale. “It’s shorter. If the Woman in Purple headed this way, as the colonel said, she must have taken this trail. Perhaps she’s waiting for us somewhere in the shadows.” She shuddered. Darkness still hung over the mountainside.
“Let her wait,” was Jan’s grim reply. “We’ll fix her plenty.”
The dawn that took Pete to battle with Isabelle’s red rose in his teeth found Gale and Jan trudging, weary and more than half asleep, over a trail that had hourly grown broader and hard-packed by the tread of many feet.
“We’re getting somewhere,” Jan paused for a moment to down her load. “But where? That’s the question.”
“Just one more temple and more trouble,” Gale sighed.
“Oh, you can’t be sure.” Jan was hopeful. “This is our third temple. Third time’s the charm.”
“Here’s hoping.” Gale once again took the trail.
A temple it was, and the most gorgeous one they had ever seen. Its towers appeared to rival the giants of the forest. It was surrounded by a high wall, and along the top of the wall tigers, dragons and all manner of strange beasts, all carved from hard wood and stone, appeared to race.
Strangest of all, seeming to stand guard beside the door in the wall, stood two huge monkeys or apes large as dogs. Their coats were marvelously beautiful.
“Like Siberian squirrelskin,” Jan whispered. “Are they real? Alive?”
“Oh, sure!” Gale moved back a step. “I just saw one blink his eye.”
“All the same, I’m hungry,” said Jan. “They can’t do more than eat me.” She took two steps forward. The “Monkeys of the Snows” followed her with their eyes, and that was all.
She struck a large gong that hung beside the door. A small, square window swung open, and like a Jack-in-the-box, a round head popped out. A pair of small eyes stared at them. A pair of lips said “Pst!” Then the head popped back and the window closed.
“What did he say?” Jan asked.
“Nothing.”
“What does it all mean?”
“Wait and see.” Gale sat down on a big rock.
Jan tried to make friends with the magnificent apes but they were indifferent to her charms.
“You’re not in their class,” Gale laughed.
Moments dragged on. Then suddenly the door swung wide. A little man in a wide robe stepped out, bowed low, then said in perfect English:
“The humble accommodations of our poor temple are at your service.”
“We—we’d like some tea,” said Jan.
“You shall have tea and hot rice cakes. Then, if you wish, you may rest.
“The monkeys,” he added, noting Gale’s look of apprehension, “are harmless. They are great pets. No animals are ever harmed here.”
“And we too,” he smiled broadly, “are harmless. Our only wish is to serve. And to serve ladies of your rank from the land that is to free our land, China,—ah! That is a rare privilege.” He led the way into the temple.
“You came a long way to see our temple. We are highly honored,” said the monk when they were all three seated at a plain board table.
“Oh, we didn’t come to see your temple,” Jan volunteered. “We—” she caught Gale’s eye, then stopped short.
“We have a mission that takes us farther into the mountains,” Gale stated simply.
“Alone?” The monk stared at her.
“We are soldiers.” Gale squared her shoulders. “Soldiers go where they are sent.”
“Ah, yes! But to go into dangerous country unescorted when protection is to be had, that is regrettable.” There was a kind, fatherly quality in the man’s voice that Gale liked.
“The natives can’t be so terrible,” said Jan. “A tribe of them carried our car around a washout for us.”
“Ah, yes. The natives, they will not harm you. I can give you a sign that will take you safely through any native village in these mountains. But the wild beasts, that is different. Only last week a rogue elephant visited a village and tore down the houses. The week before, a child was carried away by a man-eating tiger.”
Gale studied the man’s face. Was he, she wondered, trying to frighten them? She doubted that. Could he be told of their mission? She did not know. Fortunately he was to provide the answers.
“Here is your tea,” he said. “The cakes will be here in a moment. Will you drink tea with me?” They drank in silence.
“Now,” he said. “We are friends. Nothing that I can do for you shall remain undone.”
“Then,” said Gale, “tell us, has a tall, gorgeously dressed woman visited this temple in the last three days?”
“Ah! There you have me!” The monk’s eyes flickered. “This temple is a place of refuge for all. I am not free to tell who comes and who goes. You might remain here for a month and no one would know.” This speech set Gale back on her heels. If she could not ask a simple question and get an answer from this man, what could she expect? They ate their cakes and drank a second cup of tea in silence.
“You must not leave our house in silence.” Their host seemed genuinely disturbed. “Come. Let me tell you a little. I have lived and studied in America. America is my foster-mother. I love her for that, and because she has come to the aid of my first mother, China. Listen?” He held up a hand.
They caught the low drone of a distant airplane.
“This,” he said, “is one gateway to Burma. The pass is over yonder among the clouds. More than one of your brave fighters has fallen among those jagged crags, and not a few have been rescued by our monks or by the natives who gladly aid them.”
“Oh!” Gale breathed softly. Hope had flamed in her heart. “Has—has one been rescued lately?”
“Not within a month,” was the quiet reply. Hope fled.
“But if one has fallen,” came after a brief silence. The monk did not finish.
“Yes, yes! One has been lost,” Gale exclaimed softly, throwing caution to the wind. “A very good friend of mine is down at the place they call Hell’s Half Hour. We have come to find him.”
“You—you two came alone to find him?” Fresh surprise, not unmixed with admiration, was written on the man’s face. “Then I beg of you, allow me to assist you.”
In the end, when the two girls again took up the trail, four monks, one of them a Chinese doctor of some ability, went with them.
As they came to the crest of a ridge overlooking the temple, Gale was surprised to see the extent of the grounds. Besides the main building, there were many others, some small and some quite large. She recalled the words of the head monk: “You could live here for a month and no one would know.” Then she thought of the Woman in Purple, and shuddered.
They had tramped for two hours up the jungle trail when one of their guides gave a grunt, then motioned for silence.
Out of the profound, mystery-laden silence came a strange sound—the distant roll of a drum. The drumbeats were measured and spaced. They came to an end, only to begin again. From time to time the guide spoke in Chinese to the doctor. At last Gale could stand it no longer.
“What does it mean? Tell me!” she begged.
“Your friend has been found. He is far in the heart of the jungle and has been injured,” said the doctor.
“How could you know that?” she demanded.
“The drums, they have told us.”
“The drums?” Gale stared.
“All the natives in these hills are our friends,” the doctor explained. “When a flier falls near a village they do all they can for him. Then, on the signal drums they beat out a message in code all their own. Other villages take up the story. In the end, it reaches us. Our guide understands the code.
“Come. We must hasten,” he added. “They are bringing your friend out of the jungle. We must go to meet them. We shall do what we can.”
In the brightening dawn of that eventful day Isabelle watched Pete ride away leading the big push, atop his tank. She saw him cross the bridge that only a few hours before had not been there, then follow the river along the opposite side, only to cross and re-cross the river, then to vanish into the great unknown.
Overhead three Jap planes appeared. There came a roar from the hills. American planes went swooping down. A short, sharp fight, and the Jap planes vanished.
And the procession moved steadily forward. After the tanks came guns, and after these an endless procession of trucks loaded with men and equipment. After these, most impressive of all, came marching men, thousands of them. Rifles and Tommy-guns over shoulders, pack on backs, they tramped steadily forward.
Isabelle swallowed hard as she whispered, “God, this is too much. Why must all this happen?”
But Than Shwe was dancing. “The people of Burma, my people, are starving. The Japs have taken all the rice. But now they shall be set free. They shall eat again. See, Isabelle, tanks, guns, men and Tommy-guns! The colonel fetched out a Tommy-gun on his shoulder. Now we have thousands of Tommy-guns. It is beautiful and wonderful!”
“And terrible,” Isabelle murmured. For all that, she was thrilled as never before. It was strange.
With Isabelle’s rose tightly gripped in his teeth Pete rode on into the dawn.
They came at last to enemy territory. Here the road was old and quite rough. But still they rumbled on.
They went several miles without a shot being fired.
“I don’t like this.” Pete took the rose from between his lips to consult the captain of his tank. “It’s sort of ominous.”
“Like moving pictures of them frontier days,” Bud Rankin, the tank’s boss, agreed. “Indians lyin’ for you on the edge of some river bank, an’ all that.”
“Sure! Sure!” Pete agreed, sticking the rose in his cap as if it were a red feather. “Look!” he exclaimed suddenly. “There’s some kind of a track going over that clay bank. Let’s have a look.” They had gone into the lead of the other tanks by several hundred feet.
Quickly climbing down, he made a running leap and was atop the clay bank.
“Man! Oh man!” he exclaimed softly. “Track of a giant!”
At that he raced back to mount the tank once more.
“Bud,” he spoke in a low tone, leaning far over, “that’s the track of a giant tank. Alongside of that tank ours is just a baby. The Japs never made that tank. It came all the way from Hitlerland. They’ve been dodging our blockade, bringing in guns and tanks and taking out rubber and tin. They must have brought these tanks, maybe a whole shipload.”
“What do you know about that!” Bud exclaimed.
“They’ll hang around behind these banks, then come up and blast us,” said Pete. “We’ve got to get them first. Wait. I’ll have one more look.”
Again he streaked up the bank. He dropped flat when he reached the top, then crept forward. A moment later Bud saw him hold up three fingers.
“Three of them!” Bud groaned, speaking to his engineer. “Three giants. What now?”
When Pete returned, his strategy was all worked out. “They’re German Mark Sixes,” he exclaimed. “Sixty ton babies. But what do we care for that? This here gun of ours can shoot.”
“An’ you sure can lay ’em down in the groove,” said Bud, who was from the Kentucky mountains. “You’re the gunshootinest feller I most ever seen.”
“Sure I am,” Pete agreed. “Now look! This is the way it is. The ground is level about half a mile farther up. They’re waitin’ up there to blast us. We’ll climb right up the next ridge behind these little low trees and we’ll give them the surprise of their lives.”
“I’ll leave it to you, Pete. Let’s ramble.” Bud agreed.
So with the red rose still in his cap, Pete again mounted the tank and directed its course.
When they started up the bank the treads began to slip but increased power drove them forward until at last they stood at the crest. There Pete squinted through low trees for a space of seconds. Then tumbling down into the tank he dropped the door softly, swung his turret about, squinted down the gun, moved the turret just a little, squinted again, then exclaimed:
“Here’s something for you, Tojo!” At that his gun roared.
The smoke had not cleared before a second shot rang out, and after that a third.
“Now! Let’s see!” Shoving back the door, Pete climbed to the turret top.
“Running like blazes,” he exclaimed. “We got ’em all right. Now, Tojo! Count your men! Count your men!” He sent a hail of machine-gun fire after the fleeing Japs.
“We’ve got to move fast!” Pete exclaimed, once more popping out of the tank’s top. “I can’t see the next one. Slide her up a bit.” The General Sherman rumbled forward.
“There! Stop her!” He tumbled back into the tank and in ten seconds had his gun in action. The second shot resulted in a tremendous roar.
“Blowed up. That Mark Six blowed right up,” he exclaimed. “What d’you know about that? Come on! Let’s ramble again.”
Like some rogue elephant roaming the hills, the third big tank had rambled from sight.
“Shucks!” Pete exclaimed. “He’s gone and lost himself! We’ll have to hunt him up. There’s a higher hill. Let’s roll up there for a look.”
They rolled to the crest of the hill. Pete was about to pop out for a look around when an enemy shell saved him the trouble of lifting the tank’s lid. The shell blew the lid off.
“Poor old Red Dynamite!” Pete exclaimed. “He’s lost his lid! Oh, well, I never did think much of that lid.”
He thrust up his head for a look.
“Watch out! You’ll git it too!” Bud warned.
“Lightnin’ never strikes twice in the same place,” said Pete, climbing half way up for a better look. “Neither do Tojo’s shells.”
This might be true, but it would seem that the Japs are good at near misses, for just then a shell whizzed past him so close that the suction almost dragged him from the tank.
“Why! You dirty—” He stopped short. After dropping back into the tank, he put up a hand. His cap was gone and with it Isabelle’s rose.
“He can’t do that to me!” he stormed. “That’s a big field gun. I saw where that shell came from. Let me at him.”
No one held him back. He squinted once, then fired three shells in quick succession.
There came no reply from the enemy. “Got him!” he exclaimed. “Now maybe I can enjoy a little fresh air.” He climbed back to the tank’s shattered top.
In the meantime three other U. S. tanks had cornered the remaining giant enemy and proceeded to beat him into submission.
And so as the grand parade proceeded to spread itself out over the landscape, the battle went on.
And far away in the wilds the native drums told their story over and over while Gale and Jan moved ever closer to their goal.
At last, an hour before sunset, a weird sound began drifting through the trees.
“What is it?” Gale asked, pausing to rest her tired body.
“It’s the native marching chant,” said the doctor. “They are coming. Soon they will be with us. We may wait here.”
Tired as she was, Gale could not wait. Hurrying forward, she met the dusky caravan with Jimmie carried on a litter in their midst.
“Jimmie!” she called. “Are you badly injured?”
“Gale!” he exclaimed in astonishment. “Are you here?”
“Sure! Why not? I heard your call and I came. I hear you calling, calling me,” she chanted.
Needless to say the native marchers were given a rest while Jimmie and Gale made up for lost time in certain little matters.
“But Jimmie, are you badly injured?” she repeated at last.
“I’ll be flying again soon, and I’d better be,” was his reply. “The colonel must be half way across Burma by now. And don’t forget, we have a date. Our destination is Tokio!”
“Oh, Jimmie! You must take me with you!” she exclaimed.
“I surely will, if I have to kidnap you!” he vowed.
Arrived at the spot where the monks were busy preparing a camp for the night, they rested while tea was brewed and some sort of wild meat was roasted over the fire.
Jungle dinner over, the doctor took charge of Jimmie. He discovered an arm out of its socket, a cracked rib, and a badly bruised leg that, after all, was not broken. When these injuries had been cared for, they all rolled up in their blankets and slept while dusky forms took turns at watching through the night.
Just after dark on that same day Pete came bursting into the colonel’s temporary headquarters, a deserted roadside store—a full fifty miles inside Burma.
Isabelle, who sat typing orders, looked up wearily to say:
“Did you want to see—” She broke off short to exclaim, “Pete! It’s you!”
“Who else?” Pete grinned. “The colonel sent for me. He wants to see me.”
“Does he? Then come on in here.” She led him to an improvised washroom where a wooden tub full of water awaited him.
“Dust an inch thick on your face and caked with blood at that,” she grumbled. “And your hair’s a mess.”
“They blowed my hat off and my rose! Blast ’em!”
“Never mind that. Duck your head,” she commanded.
When she had scrubbed his neck and hair she rubbed him down good with a coarse towel.
“Now!” she exclaimed, laughing, “the colonel can really see you. He wants to congratulate you and pin a medal on you for being the best gunner of the day.”
“Shucks! Isabelle! It was nothing!” he said with a grin. “It was just because they made me mad, blowing away my rose the way they did.
“But Isabelle,” he squared off for a good look, “you sure are one swell gal. I shouldn’t wonder if we’d have a lot of dates when we get back home. Maybe we’ll have so many we’ll just decide to move in together.”
“That,” said Isabelle, “will be just swell.” And to prove she meant it, she sealed the bargain with something better than a handshake.
After that they hunted up the colonel to collect Pete’s medal, which to Pete, considering what had happened before, was practically nothing at all. And so the war went on.
It required all the next day to bring Jimmie by slow stages down the rough mountain trail to the temple. There they were given a real treat, some rare vegetable soup, rice bread and such fruit salads as they had never tasted before.
When Jimmie had been put to rest for the night, Gale and Jan were shown to their room. There they found comfortable beds and blankets of virgin wool to keep out the night’s chill.
“Golly!” Jan exclaimed. “This is better than army life!”
It was better, Gale admitted that to herself. She was tired too. It seemed she must fall asleep at once, but she did not. The days that had just passed had been too exciting for that. Besides, within her being was a feeling of vague uneasiness. “It’s some sort of a forewarning of evil,” she told herself. “I’ve felt it before when something terrible threatened.” She had learned many strange signs and tokens from the old black mammy who cared for her as a child.
At last she whispered hoarsely, “Jan! Jan! Are you asleep?”
“No. Of course not,” was Jan’s reply. “Don’t you think I hear you tumbling about?”
“All right,” Gale laughed. “Let’s slip into our jackets and slacks and slip out on the trail. We’ll walk off the strong tea we drank.”
“Anything you say.” Jan tumbled out of bed.
There was a watchman at the main gate, but at the back was a narrow hole in the wall that was not locked. With a pinpoint light they made their way through this gate, then along the wall to the main trail.
“Jan,” Gale whispered. “I wish the war was over right now.”
“Who doesn’t?” was the quick reply. “The whole world is waiting.”
“But if it was over I’d stay right here for a month,” said Gale. “Think what fun it would be studying the birds, the gorgeous butterflies, the monkeys and everything!”
“Yes, everything,” Jan laughed softly. “Rogue elephants, man-eating tigers, mad water-buffalo! No! No! Let me out, PDQ.”
“Listen,” Gale whispered. “I think I hear a plane.” By this time they were some distance from the temple.
“Sure. I suppose a lot of our planes cross over the pass.”
“Quiet!” Gale warned. “I do hear planes, more than one, but they are far away.”
For a time they tramped in silence.
“Those planes are coming closer,” Gale murmured. “The sound is strange, not quite like a squadron of our own ships. They—”
“Look!” Jan exclaimed. “Up there ahead in that open space that’s like a clearing! There’s a queer light! Come on! Let’s have a look!”
Their rubber shoes making no sound, they sped forward to a bend in the trail. Then they saw it. A figure bending over a long stretch of flames in the trail.
“It’s a woman,” Gale whispered excitedly.
“A monk,” said Jan.
Woman or monk the figure darted into the brush.
And then the two girls saw it—a large, fiery cross burning in the trail.
“Some religious fanatic did it,” said Jan, “someone who doesn’t like the Buddhists.”
“Nothing of the sort!” Gale sprang forward. “It’s a signal fire for those planes. See! The cross points toward the temple. It’s the Woman in Purple!
“Look!” She sprang to one side of the trail where some ancient pine trees stood. “This mass of moss and pine needles is damp from recent rains. Grab a big armful and come on! Quick!”
Thirty seconds later they were hovering over the flames, burying them under sodden masses of debris. “That fire is made of pine cones. How it burns!” Jan exclaimed.
“It’s half out. Bring more!” Gale exploded. “They may come back. I—I’ll stand guard.” She drew out her small automatic.
Jan raced away to return again and yet again. The fire was almost out when Gale heard a sound in the brush. Like a flash she fired a shot.
Jan came running. “Did—did you see someone?” she panted.
“No. But I heard them,” was Gale’s steady reply. “After I fired there was a sound like a low cry.”
“I’ll have a look!” Before Gale could stop her Jan sprang into the brush.
She was gone a long time. Gale was about to despair when suddenly she reappeared.
“Didn’t find a thing. Got good and scratched by briars,” said Jan. “Oh yes! Just this. That’s all.” She held out a bit of thin cloth.
“Purple!” Gale whispered.
The planes were close now, circling like wild geese looking for a landing.
“Looking for the light to guide them,” said Gale. “They meant to destroy the temple.” “And us.” Jan shuddered.
“Oh, sure! They’d like to get us and Jimmie and they hate the temple because the monks help to rescue our airmen. But they’ll never find the temple now,” Gale added. “On a night like this it cannot be seen from the sky. The monks should know about this,” said Jan.
“That’s right,” Gale agreed. “You go hurry back and tell them. I’ll stand guard.”
“Give me that gun.” Jan put out a hand. “I can shoot as straight as you can. Besides, I could handle that woman and her black dwarf with one hand.”
“Can you?” Gale hesitated. “Don’t forget the contents of her toilet case.”
“Oh, oh!” Jan breathed. “A gun and a dagger! All the same, I’m staying!”
“Okay. Here’s the gun. I’ll be back before you know it.” Gale was away.
As Jan stood there in the shadows waiting, listening, she caught all manner of strange sounds. A bird whistled in its sleep. There came a chattering. Then came the sound of monkeys racing through trees.
“How you going to know what’s going on?” she breathed with a shudder. “They could spring at you from the dark and you’d never know—you—”
Her thoughts were broken into for from the distance came heavy tramping footsteps. They sounded louder second by second. Then down the trail a vast form moved. Jan dived silently into the brush as a huge elephant went lumbering past.
“I only hope Gale got there,” she breathed.
Gale was at the temple. She had roused the head of the household, the little man with shining eyes.
“I can scarcely believe you,” he said when her story was told. “Yet I must believe. Wait.”
He rang a bell. A monk appeared. The Superior said a few words in Chinese.
“We must send someone to relieve your friend.” The Superior rang his bell three times. Three monks appeared. He spoke to them in Chinese. They departed on the run.
“We have no guns,” said the Superior. “Nevertheless we have our manner of handling such things,” he added in a mysterious whisper. “This will not happen again.”
A moment later the first monk returned to report. When he had finished the Superior turned again to Gale. “You are right,” he said. “A woman who dresses always in purple has been our guest.”
“Aha!” the girl breathed.
“She had a servant, a black dwarf.”
“Then—”
The Superior held up a hand. “There is little that we can do now. Their lodgings are empty. They have departed, taking all their belongings with them. There are many trails. Should we overtake them, there is nothing we could do. We are not the law, only humble monks striving to make the people of this earth a little happier.
“Listen!” He held up a hand. The droning sound of motors was fading away.
“They are gone,” he said. “You have done us a great service. I shall send a message to the Superior of all temples along the way to treat you as a sister.
“From now on,” he added, “our temple will be guarded at night. Three brothers will watch this night through. You may sleep in peace.”
Gale and Jan did sleep in peace. Early next morning four monks took up Jimmie’s litter and carried him before the girls down the mountain to their jeep.
There they wove him a hammock of ropes that fitted across the back of the car. The girls thanked them, bade them goodbye and drove away.
Early that same evening Jimmie found himself in a bed at the hospital beneath the shadows of the Secret Forest with the gentle doll-like Mai-da as his nurse.
“We’ll have to be off in the morning,” said Gale as she sat beside him. “I’m told that the colonel and his army are half way across Burma.”
“Took the Japs by surprise,” Jimmie laughed. “That’s great. He’ll be in China before we know it.”
“That’s just it,” Gale agreed. “He’ll be setting up a more or less permanent base there, and I must be there to guard him with my radar.”
“You and Mac,” he teased.
“Yes. Sure,” she smiled. “Mac is grand. But Jimmie,” her voice dropped, “there’s a one-time flying Tiger who will be in all my dreams.”
“That’s swell,” Jimmie beamed. “But don’t forget, that one-timer will be along before you know it. Then you’ll have to keep a date over Tokio.”
“Oh, Jimmie!” she breathed. “Do you really believe you can fix it that way?”
“Wait and see.” He shook a finger at her. “I’m the grandest little fixer you ever met.”
And so, next day at dawn, Gale and Jan in their jeep rattled away toward the battle front and fresh adventure.
For many days after that, out on the battle front, life for the American forces was an almost monotonous succession of victories. Taken by surprise, the small force of Japs defending their foothold in Burma were pushed back, back, back by the colonel’s onrushing army. They reached the Chinese border and rolled right on. Great forces of Chinese fighters, hungry, ragged, ill armed but eager, joined in the battle. Great convoys of trucks laden with food, clothing, rifles, Tommy-guns and ammunition for these fighters rolled in a never-ending stream over the colonel’s road.
The colonel set up temporary headquarters in an abandoned ranch house, a bomb-shattered store, the home of a rich Chinese merchant, and at last in a small but beautiful temple.
Always the team of Gale and Mac were on hand to watch the skies for enemy bombers. Since the days were bright they did their work only at night. Twice Gale spotted oncoming marauders, twice Mac, and night-fighting U. S. planes blasted them from the skies.
Jan stuck to her jeep. She was always at the colonel’s service. At times she drove the colonel about, at others she did some rough riding with tough buck privates, and enjoyed it. “Golly!” she would exclaim as she came in covered with sweat, dust and grease, “this is the life! It really is!”
Yes, for Gale and Jan life took on a definite pattern. Then, as often happens in war, that pattern was suddenly torn into small bits.
It started when one day the colonel called Gale to his headquarters to say:
“You’ve been on night work for some time now. You need a change.”
“Oh, no! I—”
“I’m sure you’ll like the change I am offering you.” A strange smile played about his lips. “I have a friend who has just arrived at the airfield. I think perhaps he has some sort of proposition to make you. You have my permission to accept. His name—” A smile spread over his face, “is Jimmie.”
“Jimmie?” She sprang to her feet. “Is he—”
“He’s back in the saddle. Your old pal Jan is waiting outside. I suggest that you go for a ride with her.”
Ten seconds later as Gale tumbled into Jan’s jeep she exclaimed. “The airfield, James! And make it snappy!”
A half hour later Gale and Jimmie were drinking hot black coffee in a cubbyhole just off of the airfield where they could talk in absolute secrecy.
“Well, Gale,” Jimmie’s smile was strange. “You asked for it. Now you’ll have to take it or leave it. I’ve got it all arranged. Don’t ask me how, just tell me yes or no.”
“You mean—” she stared at him in silence for a space of seconds.
“I think you get me.” His face sobered. “If your answer is yes—and I’m no one to blame you if it’s no, for at best it’s a rather dangerous mission—all you have to do is to dress up in these,” he placed a hand on a large rubber-wrapped bundle, “and meet me here at dawn.” He removed his hand from the bundle. Her hand took its place.
“Good girl!” His hand closed over hers. “Then we fly at dawn!”
“Yes, Jimmie!” Her voice was husky. “And Jimmie, if our ship gets it, if we’re headed for earth’s last checkout, the last roundup, you know, what shall we say? ‘Here goes nothing’?”
“No, Gale.” His face sobered. “That’s the way I used to think of it. It’s a grand gesture, but you can’t hold it. I tried it once when I thought my time had come. You can’t stick it. No one can at the last second, for you see it’s not really nothing that’s going from the earth. It’s YOU, and you suddenly decide that you don’t want to go—that you really want terribly to stay.”
“I think I know what you mean,” she said slowly. “All right, Jimmie.” She stood up. “I’ll join you at dawn.”
Ten minutes after that dawn Gale found herself on board the most gorgeous four-motored bomber she had ever seen. Jimmie was at the stick and she frantically at work studying the ship’s radar set, teaching herself in one short hour all she needed to know.
From time to time Jimmie glanced back, and if she was not looking, grinned wisely. Once he turned to his co-pilot and winked. That was all. And so for a full three quarters of an hour they flew on.
At last with her head in a whirl, Gale took time out for a glance at the scenery that lay beyond and beneath them. Then lips parted, she stared.
“Jimmie!” she exclaimed, racing to his side. “This is not the way to Tokio! Those are the mountains up ahead!”
“Who says this is the way to Tokio?” he demanded.
“Are—aren’t we going to bomb Tokio?” She felt a terrible vacancy where her heart should have been.
“Sure! Why sure we are!” he exclaimed, “when we get around to it. But this is a pickup crew and you are one of them. Just now we’re headed for the Secret Forest and at least five days of good, tough practice.” He laughed merrily.
“Jimmie, you’re a bad boy!” she exclaimed. “Just for that I have a mind to take a jump and walk back to my colonel!”
“You wouldn’t do that for worlds,” he said. “Just take it easy. We’ll make it to Tokio yet.”
Gale did take it easy, all she could. So did the rest of the crew for everyone of them had known the restful peace of the Secret Forest and not a man of them but knew the gamble with life that lay before him.
There was work aplenty. First flying as a crew, co-ordinating their every movement, and then as a member of a large formation they prepared themselves for the final ordeal.
One morning Gale arrived on the field to find the land crews loading bombs.
“Is this it?” she said to Jimmie.
“This is it,” was his reply. That was all. In half an hour they were off on the great adventure.
* * * * * * * *
If life had been strange and fascinating for Gale, it had been scarcely less so for her friends, Isabelle, Jan and Than Shwe. The same morning Gale left the colonel called them into his office.
“You’ve been working hard,” he said. “Gale has just left on a—well, you might say a change of scene. I want you to take a leave. What’s more, I want you to see what we’re fighting for here in China.”
“That’s what I’d like,” said Isabelle.
“You shall have the opportunity,” said the colonel. “The home of your friend, the little Chinese nurse, Mai-da, is only a short way from here. She has just arrived at the front and would like to take you there for a few days. How about it?”
“Swell!” “I’d love it!” “Golly! That will be keen!” were the responses he received.
And so it happened that in Jan’s jeep they all rattled away to learn in a few short lessons what life could be like in China.
Mai-da’s was one of the truly old families of China. The high wall that surrounded it was more than three hundred years old. Inside were no great mansions but many small houses. Though in peace time seventy people lived here everyone had a little place all his own.
To Jan their strange customs, eating rice with chop-sticks, gathering at night to hear the aged grandfather read from the Chinese classics, and their curious religious customs were amusing. But to Isabelle, who was interested in the life lived by all the people of the world, this seemed a charming interlude in the midst of a great and terrible war.
They were not, however, to be free from the war for long. On the fifth day of their stay, with the remark that her jeep was getting rheumatism in its joints, Jan drove back for an hour’s visit at camp. She had not been gone long when just at twilight from the west came the roar of heavy planes. No one paid any attention at first, believing them to be American planes.
All of a sudden Isabelle, who had given much time to the study of airplane spotting, sprang up with a cry:
“Those are enemy bombers, and they are headed this way!” Something seemed to tell her that this home that had stood so long was to be the target of those bombers.
“They’ll bomb his place,” she exclaimed, scarcely knowing why she said it. “We should all escape into the hills.”
“Why? Why? Why?” came from every side. But having more than once witnessed the terror of the Jap’s fury, they all raced away into the hills. There, sitting on the sloping side of a deep gully, they waited the coming of terror from the sky.
There can be no doubt but that Isabelle’s advice saved their lives, for flying straight as swallows, three heavy bombers sped across the sky to at last go sweeping in a wide circle and drop their loads of hate on the defenseless homes.
Women wept, children screamed, and old men gnashed their teeth as they saw the small homes leap into the air, then burst into flames.
Just when the home was burning fiercest and the sound of bombers was fading into the night that had fallen, Jan came rattling up the hill.
Seeing the plight they were all in, she said never a word, but gathering two small children who had learned to love her into her arms, sat down in silence.
“It’s that woman,” said the aged grandfather. “She was seen only yesterday at the home where her friend the war lord lived. It is she who set these bombers upon us.” He spoke in Chinese, but Mai-da translated his speech for Isabelle and Jan.
“What woman does he mean?” Isabelle asked.
“She is the one you call the Woman in Purple,” was Mai-da’s reply.
“Oh!” Isabelle cried in dismay.
“I hoped she was dead!” Jan exclaimed. “She’s too bad to live!”
The old grandfather was speaking again.