The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSecrets of RadarThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Secrets of RadarAuthor: Roy J. SnellRelease date: October 11, 2018 [eBook #58073]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECRETS OF RADAR ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Secrets of RadarAuthor: Roy J. SnellRelease date: October 11, 2018 [eBook #58073]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Secrets of Radar
Author: Roy J. Snell
Author: Roy J. Snell
Release date: October 11, 2018 [eBook #58073]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECRETS OF RADAR ***
Secrets ofRADARBY ROY J. SNELLTheGoldsmith Publishing CompanyCHICAGO
BY ROY J. SNELL
TheGoldsmith Publishing CompanyCHICAGO
COPYRIGHT 1944THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING CO.MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The girl with wind-blown hair ordered the coolie pushing a cart loaded with instruments and strange radio-like boxes to come close to the big anti-aircraft gun and leave the cart there.
“You runnee this-a wire backee and fixee him plenty good.” She handed the coolie a long electric cord. The coolie vanished into the shadows of the palm trees.
“What’s the big idea?” The sergeant in command of the anti-aircraft gun sat up. The air of India was hot and moist that afternoon. He had been half asleep. Now he stared at the cart and its odd contents and then sent a second questioning look at the girl with the wind-blown hair.
“You and I are going to do a little practicing.” The girl spoke in a steady even tone. Then she smiled.
The sergeant looked her up and down. She was, he decided one of those rare girls who could make even the drab uniform of a WAC look good. She was rather large but well proportioned. “An oversize copy of a beautiful gal,” he told himself.
To the girl, after recalling her words, he said:
“Says who?”
“Says the Colonel.” Smiling a little more broadly she fished a crumpled bit of paper from her pocket and handed it to him.
“Military papers,” he grumbled as he smoothed out the sheet. “Should be kept in perfect condition, folded neatly.”
“And read.” She did not smile.
“Okay—okay, sister. All the same, that’s general orders I’m giving you. I—”
He broke off to stare at the paper. “What’s this?” He glared at the paper some more. “You are to send small balloons carrying hollow steel balls up into the sky. Then you are to find them up there in the clouds and I am to try and shoot them down?”
“That’s right.”
“What’s this? A new game for a soldier’s pastime in a strange and foreign land?” He stared at her afresh.
“Ever hear of radar?” she asked.
“Sure! They use it in the Navy.”
“They do. And they’ll use it in the Army too, providing it is possible to get the co-operation of the Army sergeants in charge of anti-aircraft guns.”
“Meaning me? Okay. You win,” he agreed with an unwilling grin. “But there’s one line in this paper that is coo-coo. It should say that you are to try and find those steel balls in the clouds and I’m to shoot ’em down.”
“Wait and see.” She stood her ground.
The coolie returned with one end of the electric cord. She connected it to the box on the cart. Something began to burn. Some tubes lighted up.
“Now,” she sighed. “It’s hot, don’t you think?”
“What? That thing? I wouldn’t know,” he said.
“No. The weather,” she replied.
“Terrible!” he agreed with conviction. “Just at the end of the rainy season! It’s awful having your rest period broken into by a gal in an army uniform.” He winked at the two buck privates who helped man his gun, and they laughed.
Paying not the least attention to this unflattering bit of drama, the girl went about her work. Removing a short steel tube from the cart, she connected it with a large paper balloon, then turned on a valve. A hissing sound followed. The balloon inflated rapidly and pulled at the cord that held it to the cart. After attaching a metal ball about a foot in diameter to the balloon, she allowed it to float skyward. It rose rapidly.
Squinting his eyes, the sergeant said: “You expect me to hit that steel ball after it gets into the clouds?”
“If your shell explodes within fifteen feet of the balloon the balloon will burst and the steel ball will come down,” she explained with the patient tone of a born teacher. “If you burst the balloon, you score. Hit the steel ball and you score double. Get me?” she asked.
“Oh, sure. But when do you score?” he asked.
“If you score, I score.” Her smile was broad and friendly.
“Fair enough,” the sergeant grinned. “Well, boys, we’ll give it a real try, huh?”
“Sure! Oh, sure!” came from his crew.
The balloon went up. In silence they watched it rise to at last disappear in the clouds.
At once the girl with wind-blown hair got busy with her instruments. “I’m feeling for the steel ball,” she explained. “I’ll have it presently.”
“She’s feeling for the steel ball,” one of the buck private gunners repeated.
“She’ll have it presently,” said the other. “Like h—l,” he muttered, under his breath.
The eyes of the gun crew were on the girl. It was as if she had learned some Hindu magic there in India. They questioned that she could do the trick, but gave her the benefit of the doubt, nevertheless.
“Something like making a boy climb a rope into the sky,” one of them suggested.
“Uh huh. Probably,” the other agreed. “I saw an old guy do that trick once. And say! Was it spookey!”
“Did the boy come back?”
“Not that I saw, he didn’t.” The two buck privates settled back in their places.
“There now,” the girl sighed. “I’ve got it.”
“She’s got it,” one of the privates repeated. The other was silent. He had seen magic work. A boy had gone up a rope and hadn’t come down.
“Show me how your gun is adjusted,” the girl said to the sergeant. He showed her, carefully—painstakingly as if she were a child. She grinned, but said nothing.
“The balloon is drifting south by southeast,—three miles an hour,” she said at last. “I’ll find it again. Then I’ll set your gun on the spot. Your job is to follow the drift and shoot the balloon down after a sixty second wait.”
“Okay.” The sergeant waited. There was an odd grin on his face.
The girl bent to her task. Then suddenly she straightened up. Her keen eyes had detected a movement in the shadow of the palm trees. A dozen paces away she saw a man, a black dwarf, with strangely bowed legs and a grotesquely dried up face. Her first impulse was to say: “You go away!” She did not say it, but returned to her task.
“Now,” she sighed once more, “I’ve got the steel ball’s location. I’ll set your gun.” This task she performed with speed and accuracy. The boys of the gun crew watched in some surprise. One whistled softly through his teeth.
“She knows about guns,” the other whispered. “What d’you know about that!”
“Now.” The girl straightened up to fix her eyes on the sergeant. “You take it.”
The sergeant took over. The girl held a watch on him. The sergeant was on the spot. A girl had offered him a challenge. As a gentleman he had accepted the challenge. His face tensed as the seconds—one, two, three, four, five—ticked away.
“Now,” came from the girl in a hoarse whisper.
The sergeant’s fingers moved like triggers. Instantly the gun boomed. They waited one, two, three, four, five seconds. Then came the dull roar of the exploding shell.
They waited again—one, two, three, four, five—up to the count of twenty. Fragments of the shell could be heard dropping. And then, at the edge of the cloud appeared a gray shadow that rapidly developed into a black ball.
“By thunder! They got that balloon in the bag!” one of the boys exclaimed.
Turning about, the sergeant held out his hand to the girl. She took it, man to man, a good hearty grip.
“That,” said one of the privates, “is better than the boy chinning the rope. You’d ought to go in for magic, Miss. There’s money in magic.”
The girl smiled, but made no reply. She glanced away at the shadows of the palm tree. The black dwarf was still there. Not knowing why, she shuddered, but she still did not tell him to go away.
The steel ball reached earth some distance away. The first gunner, still a bit of a skeptic, ran over to retrieve it.
“You never touched the steel ball!” he called on the way back.
“But he got the balloon!” the girl insisted. “That was very good indeed for the first try.”
“Thank—O—Thanks.” The sergeant made a bow. “Sometimes the Captain says I’m good and sometimes he says I’m—well, never mind just what he says. It’s not fit language for a lady.”
“I’m no lady,” the girl laughed. “I’m just a soldier, a WAC. So let’s just be nice and natural. Shall we have another try?”
“Oh sure! As many as you like.” The sergeant adjusted his gun.
A telephone attached to a tree jangled.
“I’ll get it.” The first gunner jumped up.
“It’s for you, Sergeant,” he announced a moment later.
“Be right there.” The sergeant was away.
There was a serious, all but stern look on the sergeant’s face when he returned. “Sorry, lady,” he half apologized. “School’s dismissed for today.”
“Why—what—” she began.
He broke in: “Some nasty old Jap bombers are headed this way to mess things up a bit. And did they pick on a swell day to do their stuff! They’ll come hopping out of the clouds, drop their bombs and drop back into the clouds again.”
“Before we get a good crack at ’em,” the first gunner broke in. “The dirty—”
“Lady, you’d better scram,” said the sergeant. “This is no place for you right now.”
“I hear ’em comin’!” The second gunner’s ears were covered by a listening device.
“I’m not leaving,” the girl said, as she shook her hair into a tangled mass. “This may be a man’s war, but they’ll have to put me in the guard house to keep me out of it.”
“Oh! Miss! I’m sorry,” the sergeant exclaimed, “but orders are orders. No ladies.”
“Who’s giving the orders?” she snapped. “You’re a sergeant. I’m a second officer of the WACS. You tell me who’s ranking officer on this gun! I’m staying! And we’re going to get one of those bombers!”
“Get what? Get—” A strange light shone in the sergeant’s eyes like the glint of a diamond. “Last time they got a whole gun crew and one was my particular pal,” he grumbled. He whistled a bar of “Lady Be Good”, then said: “Have it your own way. Let’s get set.”
By this time the enemy planes could be heard rumbling through the overcast.
“They’re heading for the airdrome. We’re practically on the edge of it,” the sergeant explained. “They may take time to wipe us off the map first,” he added as a comforting afterthought.
If the girl heard, she made no sign.
“They’ll circle over the place first, won’t they?” she asked in a matter-of-fact voice.
“That’s what they most generally do,” the sergeant agreed.
“That’s when we’ll get them,” she murmured, as she adjusted her radar set. “They’ve got one-track minds, those Jap pilots have. They circle about in the same track two or three times.”
“That will make it nice,” said the sergeant. “Practically no trouble at all. Shoot ’em down like clay pigeons right out of those thick clouds.” To him one toy balloon shot out of those clouds meant very little just then.
“Here they come,” the gunner with the earphones announced. “They’re headed right this way.”
“Probably got one of those cute little maps with an X marking the spot!” the sergeant grumbled. Then his voice rose. “All right, you guys. Get set to do your stuff. They’re practically over us now.”
Tense seconds ticked themselves away, and then the girl who had been working and looking toward the clouds said:
“They’re beginning to circle now, at an altitude of three thousand feet. They’re off to the right a quarter of a mile.”
Her figure stiffened. One of the privates thought she looked like Washington at Valley Forge. He drew a long sharp breath.
“Coming in closer,” she said ten seconds later. “Now an eighth of a mile away. They’re coming down slowly. About twenty-five hundred up now—and almost directly over us.”
“Gee!” the first gunner exclaimed. “Why don’t we have a try at them?”
“How many more times will they circle?” she asked, turning to the sergeant.
“Well, now,—” The sergeant’s voice sounded dry. “You can’t almost always tell. Three is a perfect number. You might count on that.”
“That’s a go,” the girl agreed. “They’ll be down to fifteen hundred feet by then. We’ll check on their second circle.”
“Just to see if it’s the same as the first?” The sergeant began taking short steps back and forth.
“Yes. That’s it,” the girl agreed coolly. “Now they’re half way ’round—two thirds. There!” Her voice rose. “They passed over at exactly the same spot.”
“Fo—four of them,” the second gunner announced with a slight stutter.
“We’ll get one of them, maybe two,” said the girl. “My father was a Kentucky sheriff. He packed two guns.
“Now!” She was on her toes. “Everybody ready?” Her voice was husky. “I’ll count one, two, three. Fire on three and keep on firing.”
“O—Okay,” the sergeant stammered.
Seconds passed, one—two—three—four—five—up to fifteen,—and then:
“One—two—three—Fire!” The girl’s voice rose high.
The gun roared and kept on roaring. All was wild excitement until all of a sudden the sergeant shouted:
“Everybody duck!”
There was an air raid shelter three jumps from the gun. They landed in a heap, the four of them, at the very center of the shelter. And then came a terrific roar. At once all manner of things began falling on the shelter. One was so heavy it seemed it might come through, but it stayed outside.
“Oh!” the girl breathed, once they had unscrambled themselves. “How terrible! We missed them and they dropped a block buster.”
“What?” the sergeant roared. “Nothing like that! We didn’t miss them. We got one, maybe more. That little noise you heard outside was a Jap plane in a crash with all its bombs still in the bomb bay.”
“Oh! Good!” The girl tried to stand up, bumped her head, then sat down dizzily.
“At ease,” said the sergeant. “Our work’s done. They’d be out of range by now. They might drop a bomb or two, but I doubt it.
“Say!” he exclaimed. “You’re wonderful! Marvelous! You can join our outfit any time you say. What’s your name?”
“You’d never guess, so I’ll tell you.”
The girl’s face was a study. She had won her first battle with the men of the Army. Did she want to laugh or cry? Who could tell. “My name is Gale,” she said after an inner struggle.
“Gale—the girl with the wind-blown hair,” the sergeant murmured. “Not bad. But at times I imagine Typhoon would be better. You should get a medal for this day’s work.”
“No,”—her voice dropped—“I’ll not get a medal. Know what I’ll get?”
“No. What?” He stared at her.
“I’ll get a reprimand for not ducking the moment the raid was announced. After that probably I’ll get sent back to Texas to run a radio in an army camp.”
“Nothing like that!” he protested.
“Yes. Something like that.” Her voice rose. “This is a man’s war. That’s what they say. Oh yeah? What about those Russian girls fighting in the trenches? What about the women and children killed by air raids in England?
“Work far back of the lines.” Her voice dropped. “That’s all right. It’s fine, and it really helps. Perhaps life can be fun without excitement for some people, but not for me.” She sank back to her place on the cold bare floor.
“Well, sister, don’t give up hope.” The sergeant’s voice was husky. “You’re a real sport. The Colonel in charge of this man’s army over here ain’t just like everybody else. He’s different. You’ll see! He’ll fix things up. We’ll march together yet.”
“Here’s hoping.” She gripped his hand. “And now, can we go out?”
“Sure thing,” the sergeant agreed. “Let’s get out and collect a few souvenirs.”
As the girl turned to creep out at the far end of the half-dark shelter, she caught the gleam of a pair of eyes. “Oh!” she exclaimed softly. She had made out the shadowy form of the black dwarf crouching there.
“What’s up?” the sergeant demanded.
“N—nothing, I guess.” She hesitated. “Nothing.” Her mind flashed over their conversation there in the shelter. “We betrayed no secrets,” she told herself. Then to the sergeant she said:
“Come on. Let’s go.”
As they crept from the shelter the girl’s eyes sought out her cart and its precious load.
“Never touched it!” was her joyous exclamation.
“Stick around and they’ll get your radar,” was the sergeant’s encouraging comment. “Some dirty spy has put a finger on this spot. That’s the third time they’ve been over here.”
“Spies?” Her eyes opened wide.
“Sure,” he grinned, “India is full of spies, particularly this city. These Indian people are always hating someone. Besides, there are a lot of Burmese people here, driven from their homes when Burma was lost. One reason the Japs won that fight was because the Burmese people let the British down.”
“Did they?” She was interested.
“Did they? Say! They erected road blockades everywhere. Wrecked trucks, blew up the bridges,—everything. But I’ll bet they wish we were back now. What the dirty Japs aren’t doing to them these days!
“And we’re going back!” The young sergeant’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Sooner than you think. It’s in the cards.”
“Oh! Take me along!” The girl’s excited whisper told of her eagerness.
“I’ll sure fix it that way if I can. You’re a real soldier, and you’re on the know.
“My name is Ted Mac Bride,” he went on. “Mac, for short. I’d be mighty glad to have you in our outfit, Gale.”
“Gale Janes,” she finished for him. “Thanks a lot, Mac. If you’ve got any drag with the colonel, pull a string or two and we’ll do the war together.”
“That’s what I will.” For a space of seconds his mind was on the girl, then his eyes roved over their surroundings. “Not much left but the hole where that bomber blew up.” He nodded toward the distant palm trees. “Want to go see?”
“No thanks. I’ll leave that to you.” She gave a little involuntary shudder. “It’s almost time for tea over at my club.” She grinned broadly. “I’ll find my coolie and trundle my cart away. Fine practice we had. Less said about it the better.”
“Good hunting and mum’s the word.” He put a finger to his lips. Then he was away.
An hour later no one would ever have guessed that Gale Janes had ever escaped from the boredom of being a perfect lady.
Her “club” was no mere work of the imagination. It was real enough, and quite gorgeous. In the days of peace and plenty it had been called “The Saddle and Gun Club.” Swanky Englishmen in spats and riding breeches had lived there. There they had talked of riding and racing and of elephant and tiger hunts.
Now the saddles and guns were serving a sterner purpose. The men had gone to war. And their club had been turned over to the ladies of the U. S. Armed forces, WACS and nurses, with a visiting WAVE now and then.
The lounge of the club was an immense place, all screened in and open to every breeze. Here an endless array of easy chairs invited one to rest. At one end of what had once been a bar, sodas, orange juice, tea and cakes were now being served.
After a shower Gale Janes had dressed in the blouse and khaki slacks. At the bar she had selected cakes and a tall one of iced tea, then had accepted the inviting comfort of a huge rattan chair.
As she sipped her tea she listened to the conversation around her. All of a sudden she became interested in the things a little brown girl—a native nurse—was saying.
“It was exciting! Oh, so exciting!” The brown girl’s voice rose. “It was funny too, like a circus. There we were, a hundred and fifty of us,—maybe not so many and maybe more—all retreating, and with a colonel as our guide.
“You should have seen him!” She laughed a merry laugh. “There he was—a great man! Oh yes! A very great man! Dressed in a shirt and shorts—his brown legs all covered with hair and over his shoulder a tommy gun. Him—the biggest fighting man in Burma.
“Oh, truly!” the native girl went on. “But he was wonderful! Not just funny. He is an old man, but when we waded for hours in the stream, younger men couldn’t take it. They just tumbled on the shore and groaned. But the old colonel,—he marched right straight ahead.
“And we girls—” she laughed again. “There were six of us, all native nurses trained by a great missionary doctor. We girls really had fun. We splashed in the water, held our skirts high and sang silly songs.
“Because you know,”—she was very serious—“we were retreating from Burma. All our Chinese armies had been defeated. We had to get to India, the colonel and all of us, so we could get more men. Oh, many, many more men! And go back to save my native land, Burma, and then to save China.”
“But Than Shwe,”—a blonde WAC addressed the native girl, “Why were there so very few of you? Why not a whole army?”
At this Gale Janes turned her chair around to join the circle.
“Oh, yes! But no! It was impossible.” Than Shwe spread her small hands wide. “It was a great distance. There are rivers and mountains. Oh! It was very bad! And we must go fast. Armies, they move very slow. Always there were the Japs. If we meet the Japs by the river or on the mountain, then we are through, finished, all gone, and the colonel he would be gone too, and that would be very bad, for he is a very great man.”
“Oh! But yes, it was funny!” The native girl was bubbling over again. “It was—how do you say it? A scream. Yes, it was a scream. We had not much to eat. We were cold and we were sometimes very wet, but you should have seen.
“For days we waded down that river. Then it got very big. So we made rafts. We girls wove bamboo mats and put them on poles to keep off the sun and the rain. And Bill, he rode on our raft.”
“Bill? Who was Bill?” someone asked.
“Bill? Oh, yes! He was a reporter, you know, he writes all about the war.”
“But why should he ride on your raft?” the girl with a very long face asked.
“Oh, yes! Some man must go on our raft,” the native girl went on. “So Bill, he goes. This raft goes this way, then that way, then it hits rocks. Bill, he must push with a pole. This way—that way—make the raft go straight.
“Sometimes Bill, he gets very wet. Then he is cold. So he puts on Etta’s longyi. Etta, she is large. I am very small. Oh, yes! It was a scream. Three days we are on that raft. But I talk too much. I tell you too many things. I not talk so much. Three days we ride on that raft. Then we are there.”
“Where?” Gale asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know!” one of the girls exclaimed. “Didn’t you have a map?”
“I? No. I do not need a map. The colonel, he has the map. I go where colonel go. Always! Always!” Than Shwe, the native girl, threw back her small head and laughed. “And now we are going back. Sooner than you think, we go. And next time we don’t come back walking, wading, barefoot. Oh, no! We come back in—how you say it—in great triumph. And that day, the colonel, he is the very great man.”
“But Than Shwe,” another girl broke in, “You left us on a raft riding with that young reporter you call Bill. You just have to finish!”
“Bill? Oh yes, Bill.” The native girl brought herself back.
“You know,” she sat up abruptly, “We heard airplanes and we said, ‘It is the Japs. They will bomb us. We shall die.’”
“Was it the Japs?” a girl whispered.
“No. Those were British planes. They dropped packages of food close to the river. Bill, he went off the raft like a beaver and brought us back oh! so much food! Ah, then we had a feast and we all were happy.
“Bye and bye we came to a mountain, a very high mountain. And by the mountain was a very little town.
“The colonel say: ‘We will go over the mountain.’
“The people of that town say, ‘There is no trail over that mountain. It is very high and very cold. You will die. Besides, on that mountain live head-hunters. They will eat you.’
“But the colonel tightened up his belt. He put his tommy-gun on his shoulder and he said: ‘We will go over the mountains!’ And by God! We did!”
“Than Shwe,” a WAC with a long face protested, “You shouldn’t swear. It isn’t nice.”
“Well,” the native girl’s eyes gleamed. “That’s what the colonel did say. What he say, I say, and where he goes, I go.”
For a time there was silence. Then with a sigh, the native girl concluded: “The mountain, he was not so bad. At the top we got very cold, but we slept together all in a heap and it was not so bad.
“And then we came to a hut,” she sighed. “In that hut there was a white man. He said, ‘I came for you. I have five hundred coolies. We came five days. Now you go back five days. The coolies, they carry you, carry everything. Then you are there.’ And see!” The girl spread her hands wide. “Here we are.”
“Than Shwe, you forgot to swear that time.” Gale’s eyes shone with a teasing light.
“I do that for you alone, in private.” The girl gave her an appreciative smile. “Yes,” she added, “We come. But we go back very soon.”
Than Shwe’s story was told. She lapsed into silence. For some of the girls, no doubt, it had been but the telling of an amusing adventure. For Gale it was far more than that, for though a girl, she was at heart a soldier. Her father, her grandfather and all others as far back as could be traced had been soldiers. She was a WAC, but WACS were soldiers too, in for the duration.
She had heard sketchy accounts of the colonel’s retreat from Burma. Now, for the first time, in brief but vivid form, she had heard from the lips of one who had joined in that forlorn but glorious march, the entire story. Nothing in all her life had stirred her so deeply, not even her success of the afternoon.
“And by God! We’re going back,” she seemed to hear the native girl repeat.
“If she goes, I go!” she told herself with deep-seated determination.
Than Shwe, who had become the center of an impromptu gathering, slipped away, and the circle broke up. After stirring her iced tea thoughtfully, Gale drank it slowly, set the glass down, rose, stretched herself, then retired to a secluded corner. The magazine was a blind. She did not read—had not intended to read. She wanted to be alone to think.
Life for her had moved rapidly that day. She had gone to the field to practice with an anti-aircraft gunner. Her sham battle had turned into a real fight. With her help Mac had downed a Jap bomber and at this moment was being toasted by his comrades. She had no doubt of that. She had asked him to leave her name out of it. That he would respect her wish she did not doubt. But there were the two gunners. What of them?
“It’s a great world,” she whispered with a sigh. “A man shoots down a bomber and is covered with glory. A gal assists in downing the bomber, does the heavy end of the job, if you ask me, and what does she get? I ask you. A good bawling out, if someone gives her away. For what? For jeopardizing her life in the defense of her country and the defense of India, China, Burma and all the rest.”
For months this whole question of woman’s part in the war had been in her hair. She had graduated from college in June. Her twenty-first birthday came three days after graduation. On her birthday she had joined the WACS. She had planned for this a long time. In college she had taken all the courses that would help—outdoor gym work, Red Cross, first aid, and all the rest.
From college she had gone to Fort Des Moines where many of the WACS had received their training. How she had loved that place! Fine old brick barracks, great spreading elms, all that went for making an army camp seem wonderful—that was Fort Des Moines!
They had worked hard. Endless hours—up early, to bed late. She hadn’t minded for she was preparing herself for something truly great. Was she not to be a real soldier? To have a part in a great war? Surely this must be true. They had taken one A out of WAAC, making it Woman’s Army Corps. That “Army” was the really big word.
Because she had always been interested in radio, had built receiving and sending sets with her father’s help, she had taken up the radio branch of the service.
When her primary training was over at Fort Des Moines she had gone to a special school for further radio training. There she had learned to operate and repair all manner of army sets.
She had entertained fond dreams of soaring away in a flying fortress as its radio engineer.
And then the magic of radar had come breaking into her little world. Radar had charmed and intrigued her. She was allowed to remain for a special course in radar.
She had gotten this far in her bittersweet meditations there on the shady porch at the “Club” in India when a slight stir at her right caught her attention. Someone had taken a chair close to hers. On looking up she was surprised to see that it was the native girl nurse, Than Shwe. She favored her with her best smile.
“Pardon,” the girl hesitated. “Just now I hear that something, they say radar, helped bring down a Jap bomber. This is splendid. But what is radar?”
Gale started. So there it was, so soon! Did Than Shwe suspect that she was the one who had helped with radar? She doubted that.
“Radar,” she replied quietly, “is like radio.”
“But you do not shoot with radio,” the native girl stared.
“Nor with radar, either.” Gale laughed softly.
“What is it then that radar does? And how does it do this?” The little native girl’s voice was eager.
“I can’t tell you much, Than Shwe.” Gale’s voice was kind. She liked this native girl. Gladly would she march at her side on the way back to Burma, and beyond. “This much I can tell you,” she went on. “It has been printed in a magazine and is no military secret. With radar we send out radio impulses, like little sparks, only you can’t see them. We send out thousands and thousands of them. Most of these go on and on like lost sheep. We never hear of them again.”
“But some of these,” Than Shwe whispered.
“Yes,” Gale agreed, “some of these run into a solid object like a ship or an airplane. Then they bound back like a flash to tell us that so many feet or inches away they ran into something and got a terrible bump.”
“Oh!” Than Shwe gave a leap. “Then you know where the enemy ship or plane is! That is quite wonderful!”
“Yes, Than Shwe, it is wonderful. But that’s all I can tell you, absolutely all.” Gale’s tone was fearfully final.
“I will not ask you one more question,” said the native girl. And she kept her promise for a long, long time.
“Than Shwe,” said Gale. “That colonel you were talking about a little while ago, the one who waded the river in shorts with a tommy gun on his shoulders and brought you all safely out of Burma—was that our colonel, the one we have here now?”
“Yes, the same one.” Than Shwe’s voice was low.
“And he is going back?”
“Yes. Very soon.”
“And you are going?”
“Very soon. That is all I must say.”
“Thanks, Than Shwe,” Gale whispered. “Thanks a lot.”
A moment later Than Shwe’s chair was empty.
As Gale resumed her meditations, it was with a disturbed mind. Somehow the story of her afternoon’s adventure had gotten round. It had not yet been definitely connected with her. Or had it? In the end it would be. And then?
“Oh, well! Let them do what they think they must,” she whispered.
Once more her mind was busy with the days just past. When her radar course at the school had been completed she was ready for work.
She had been sent to Texas where she worked, not at radar, but radio, directing traffic for an airfield. That was interesting and, for a time, exciting. She had made many fine friends. But this had not satisfied her. There was a war. She had joined the army. She wanted to be a soldier.
She had applied for overseas service and was accepted. North Africa and Australia had been suggested, and then India.
She had often dreamed of India with its temple bells, its sacred monkeys and much else that was strange and weird. More than that, she knew that India was to be the starting place for the march across Burma and across China to Tokio, and the end of the war. Why should she not be in the finish? India it should be. And India it was.
Once again Gale became conscious of the arrival of an occupant for the chair at her side. It was the WAC with the long face. (Cora Shaw was her name.)