Soldiers Greeted Them at the Secret Airfield
Soldiers Greeted Them at the Secret Airfield
Soldiers Greeted Them at the Secret Airfield
“Jeepers, boys!” one of them exclaimed. “An honest-to-goodness lady of the Ferry Command.”
“If they all come like this one, make ’em all ladies from now on,” his buddy chipped in.
“It’s nice to see you all.” Mary put on her best smile. “I only wish I could be with you for a week.”
“Make it two! Make it for the duration!” came in a chorus.
“Two hours,” was Sparky’s pronouncement. “Give our ship the once-over, will you, while we motor in for some chow?”
“Oh, sure, we’ll fix her up fine,” a big sergeant grinned. “But you’ll have to do your own searching for stowaways.”
“And be sure you look well!” the lieutenant in charge added. “I’m short-handed. Can’t spare a man.”
An army jeep appeared and they were whisked away to a small city of low, white buildings, gleaming streets, and many camels.
“My!” Mary exclaimed. “It’s hot!”
“Sure!” said Sparky. “This is Africa.”
“The scene shifts so fast I can’t keep up,” Mary said, fanning herself.
“It won’t be bad in here,” said Sparky, motioning her to enter a long, low eating place. “It’s more than half American, patronized mostly by our people. They run a sort of concession and get real food supplies from America.”
The place was all open screened windows. There was a breeze from the sea. The food was good, even to the coffee.
“Just think of taking off in two hours!” Mary exclaimed. “I’d like to make it two weeks.”
“Sure,” Sparky grinned. “Great place for a gal. Hundred American soldiers to pick from.”
“Sparky! Forget it!” She was half inclined to be angry. “What I mean is, I’d like really to see these places we visit, not go to it hop-skip-jump. It—it seems such a waste.”
“That’s right,” Sparky agreed. “After the war we’ll do it all over—take a whole year for it.”
“Will we?” she asked.
“Who knows?” He spoke slowly. “We may be dead. This is war.”
Sparky hurried through the meal, then excused himself. “Gotta see about our papers,” he explained. “Be back in 'bout half an hour. Get yourself another cup of java and wait here in the shade.”
Hardly had Sparky disappeared when a tall, distinguished-looking young woman entered. She was dressed in a striking manner, all in black, yet it was not the black of mourning for she wore much bright costume jewelry.
The place was fairly empty, a native couple in one corner and two doughboys in another.
“Do you mind?” The woman indicated the chair Sparky had left. “One sees so few women here.”
Mary did not mind. The woman, who spoke with a French accent, took a seat, then ordered cakes and sour wine.
“You are from America?” the woman suggested. Mary nodded.
“A lady soldier?” Mary shook her head.
“But your uniform?”
“In America many women wear uniforms. We like them.” Mary smiled. “I happen to be a member of the Ferry Command.”
“And you flew a big plane all the way! How wonderful! Shall there be many more of you?”
“No—I—” Mary broke off. She had been about to say, “I may be the only one. Mine is a special mission.”
“What a fool I am,” she thought.
“I came for the ride really,” she said, covering up deftly. “My father is over here somewhere.”
“Ah! You brave Americans!” the woman exclaimed. “They saved my country, France, in the last war and now—”
“Now you expect us to do it again,” Mary wanted to say. “And over here you are divided. You don’t really know what you want.”
She did not say this, nor did the woman finish, for at that moment a bright-eyed young woman in khaki entered the place and walked straight to their table to ask:
“Are you Mary Mason?”
“Yes.” Mary stood up.
“I’ve been asked to speak to you—that, that is I have a message for you.” The girl seemed embarrassed. “Perhaps—”
“No! No!” The French woman was on her feet. “I have urgent business. I was about to go. It is good to have seen you—” She bowed to Mary and was gone.
“Will you forgive me.” The girl in khaki dropped into a seat. “I just had to do it. I never saw that woman before. She may be all right. You never know. Over here half the people are for us, the other half against. You dare trust no one. You didn’t—” She hesitated.
“I didn’t tell her a thing worth knowing.” Mary smiled. “Will you have a cup of coffee?”
“Oh, sure!” The other girl’s face beamed. “Real American girls are so rare here.”
“You are a WAC?” Mary suggested.
“Yes, of course. There are very few of us here now, but there will be more and more.” Her voice dropped. “That’s the sort of things they want to know,” she confided in a whisper.
They talked, sipped coffee, and munched cakes until Sparky hurried into the place.
“All set!” he exclaimed. “Our outfit is still far ahead of us. Got to get going.”
After Mary had introduced Lucy Merriman, the WAC, they were on their way.
“I’ll be seeing you,” Mary called back. Then she added in an undertone, “I wonder.”
As she climbed into the car, she caught a glimpse of the tall French woman. She was talking to a small man with a round face.
“That’s a queer-looking pair,” said Sparky. “Lady of quality and a beggar Arab.”
“He looks like a Jap,” Mary gave the fellow a sharp look. She would know him if she saw him again. “Besides,” she added, “he can’t be quite a beggar. He’s got a camel.”
“You meet all types here,” Sparky replied absently. “It’s the strangest country you ever may hope to see. We’ve sure got to watch our step. By rights we should fly square across the desert. But with our cargo,” his voice dropped, “it’s too risky.”
“So we’ll go northeast?” Mary suggested.
“That’s right.”
“That takes us into fighting country?”
“Yes—sort of—”
The car started, returning them to the airfield.
“There’s a secret airport, on an oasis,” Sparky told Mary. “That’ll be our first stop. After that we hit Egypt and another secret spot. Egypt is safe enough. It’s those miles in between.” His brow wrinkled in a frown. “But we’ll make it.”
To Mary the next lap in their long journey will always remain a blank, but the oasis at which they arrived will stand out vividly in her memory.
The reason for the blank was quite simple, for, as soon as they were safely in the air, Sparky said:
“Mary, you look tired. I know you are tough as a hickory limb and you’ve got all kinds of grit—”
“Oh, thanks, Sparky,” she grinned. “I’m glad you’ve got my number.”
“Got your number!” Sparky exploded. “Of course I have and just now you need sleep. That secret cargo of ours won’t wait and so—”
“Sparky! Tell me what our secret cargo is,” she begged.
“Will you stop interrupting me?” he stormed. “How do I know what it is? That’s a military secret. All I know is that China needs all the help we can bring her, every bit! And that this cargo of ours is of the greatest importance. I shouldn’t wonder,” his voice dropped as if he were afraid someone were listening, “I shouldn’t wonder if the enemy knows it’s important. I got a warning to be on my guard not an hour ago, and that goes for you as well. This is a dangerous land. It’s all full of Italians, wild natives, and even a few traitorous Frenchmen that would sell us out for a dime or kill us just for fun.
“And so—” He paused for breath.
“And so—” Mary prompted.
“Let’s see, where was I?” Sparky pulled back the stick to climb a bit. “Oh, yes! And so we’ve just got to keep right on flying. Mighty little time for sleep. I had a dandy rest before we hit Africa. Now it’s your turn. I’ll do this lap. You just crawl back there, roll up in your robe, and sleep.”
All too willingly Mary rolled up in her robe and slept. When she awoke they were circling for a landing at one of the most fascinating spots she had ever known.
Looking down upon it, as they were, from ten thousand feet, it seemed a green carpet on an endless gray floor.
“An oasis!” Mary whispered. “How beautiful!”
“Yes, and I shouldn’t wonder if those dark, moving spots over there on the grasslands were giraffes or maybe elephants.”
“Yes, and there’s a camel caravan just coming in,” Mary exclaimed. “How long it is. Must be fifty camels. And the shadows seem darker than the camels. Oh! I wish we could stay a week!”
“Well, we can’t,” Sparky warned. “Few hours at best. Our right engine isn’t acting properly. Has to be tuned up for this desert air, I guess. That’ll give you a breathing spell. Make the most of it.”
The camel shadows on the desert were long. The sun was almost down when at last their plane came to rest on that long, narrow runway there in the desert.
Here again they found good American soldiers and mechanics. And Mary once more found herself creating a sensation!
“Hey, fellas!” one boy with bulging eyes shouted. “It’s a lady, a lady pilot, right out here just a mile beyond nowhere!”
“Joe! Hey, Jerry! You! Tom!” another called. “Come and see it. We got lions an’ elephants, zebras, giraffes, and aardvarks, but this one is different! Come a-running! See if you can name it.” He looked at Mary and laughed happily.
They were grand boys, all of them, and those who were not on duty showed her the time of her life. They hurried her off to mess where they feasted her on ripe figs, bananas, strawberries, and all manner of African delicacies.
Then one of them said, “Come on! We’ll show you something you’ll never forget.”
“How long will it take?” she demurred.
“Only an hour or two.”
“I’ll have to ask Sparky about that.”
Mary Found Herself Creating a Sensation
Mary Found Herself Creating a Sensation
Mary Found Herself Creating a Sensation
She found Sparky perspiring and covered with grease as he worked with the mechanics tuning up the engine.
“Two hours,” was his short reply. “Be back in two hours if you want to fly with me.”
“We’ll be back in an hour!” a boy from Indiana exclaimed.
“Sure! Sure!” they all agreed. “Come on. What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
And so away they all marched to the shelter where the jeeps were kept.
It was while on this march that Mary received a sudden shock. As they hurried along, they met a woman dressed as a Moslem woman always is. She wore a long, flowing robe and her face, save for her eyes, was covered with a veil. Yet there seemed to be something very familiar about the tall, erect figure and the brisk, springing walk.
“Jeepers! I never saw her before!” a boy whispered.
At the same time Mary was thinking. “I must have seen her somewhere. But how could I—”
Just then the dark eyes shining out from behind the veil gave her a sharp, penetrating look. In her shock Mary stumbled and nearly fell.
“Can she be the woman who asked me questions in that eating place, way back there in the little city by the sea?” she asked herself. And then, “How could it be?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, stopping short. “I can’t go with you boys. I must not!”
“Aw, come on!” a boy from Texas begged. “You’ll never see a thing like it again.”
“We won’t be gone an hour.”
“Sure! Sure! You must come!”
They were such nice boys and she knew so well what it must mean to be escorting a real American girl in such a place, that she yielded and came along.
“And yet, I shouldn’t do it,” she told herself.
Before they were gone she received a second shock. Just as they were all piling into the car, a small man and a camel came shambling down the road.
“Can he be the little man I saw at the port?” she asked herself. It gave her a shock to think that this little man and the woman in black had somehow made their way here before them. This thought, as far as the little man was concerned, was short-lived. When he had come closer she saw that he was shorter than the other man, that his face was rounder, and there was a scar across his left cheek. She heaved a sigh on making this discovery, but her relief was not to be of long duration.
And so they rattled away, nine boys and a lady, the first they had seen in many a day.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Mary whispered to herself once again. Had she but known it, she was to be thinking that very thought hours later, and with regrets.
Darkness had come. Switching on the lights, they went bumping over the sand ridges.
“Rides just like that big ship of yours, doesn’t it?” said the boy from Kentucky.
“Exactly,” said Mary, giggling like a kid. She was happy but some sprite seemed to whisper, “Not for long.”
After rattling along for a while with the lights on, they snapped the lights off, but rattled straight on.
A dark bulk loomed up before them. Shutting off the gas, they, all but the driver, piled out and began to push.
“Such crazy business,” Mary whispered.
“Wait and see,” came back to her.
At last they came to a halt. The dark bulk was closer now. Mary made out the forms of palm trees. One of the boys was dragging something. Strange sounds came from before them, low grunts, splashes, then a loud trumpet-like sound that made Mary jump.
“Say! What is this?” she whispered.
Someone snapped on a spot light connected by a wire to the car. Then she knew, for there before her, like a set in a museum was a water hole and in the water, belly-deep, stood all manner of creatures, ugly rhinoceros, graceful gazelles, ungainly giraffes, huge elephants and who could say what else.
“Are they really alive?” she asked in an awed whisper.
“Sure! What do you think?” The boy at her side laughed. “We got ’em trained now. You should have seen ’em the first time!”
“Yes, an’ heard ’em,” another laughed low. “They spilled all the water getting out.”
“It’s about all the fun we have way out here,” one boy added with a touch of sorrow. “Oh, gee! Why don’t you stay with us?”
“I’d love to,” said Mary, “but I’ve got a job to do. There’s a war on, you know.”
“And don’t we know it,” the boy whispered. “One night we were bombed. Two boys were killed and three went to the hospital. Gee! Just think of dying way out here!”
Mary was thinking.
By and by she whispered, “We’d better go back.”
Without a word they turned about to go shuffling back to the car. “Thanks a lot for coming with us,” one of the boys shouted when they unloaded at the airport.
“Sure! Sure!” they shouted. “Hope you come this way again!”
“I’ll be seeing you,” she called. Then with a lump in her throat she walked to the plane where the men were just replacing the motor.
Did she see a shadow dart away from the other wing of the plane? It was too dark really to know. “Probably a sneaking old jackal,” she told herself.
“Sparky,” she said as they soared aloft some time later, “I’m going to resign from this job of mine.”
“And then what?” Sparky asked in surprise.
“Then I’m going from place to place in all these lonely spots cheering up the boys.”
“That,” said Sparky, “would be a noble purpose, but just now you’re bound to this big plane and me. And you’ll not leave us for a long time, not till the journey’s end.”
“Not till the journey’s end,” she repeated softly. And how soon would the end come? Who could tell? Perhaps tonight. One never knew. She shuddered a little, then turned her attention to the work of the hour.
That night Mary did not sleep. Sparky had first call on a time for rest and he surely needed it. He told her to call him in two hours.
“But I won’t,” she told herself. “Not if all goes well. Something tells me I won’t sleep if I have the chance.” She found herself haunted by a sense of impending doom. The tall French woman, all in black, and the stately Moslem lady were constantly being blended on the pictured walls of her mind. And after that, with the slow sleepy tread of the desert, came the two little men and their camels. They too seemed part of the same picture, but just how, she could not tell.
“What foolishness!” she whispered. “Lie down, you ghosts.” But they would not. They continued to haunt her.
She gave herself over to glimpses of the desert and the night. There was a glorious moon. The desert beneath her was full of haunting shadows. For the most part they were shadows of sandy hills, but at times they loomed dark and large.
“Oases,” she told herself. “Wonder if friend or foe live here—” Sparky had told her that this night they were to fly over dangerous country. Little pockets of enemy resistance here had not been crushed. She was to keep a sharp lookout and if she sighted a plane, was to call him at once.
“We can outclimb and outfly most enemy fighters,” he had said. “But we must not let them get the drop on us.”
So, with eyes and ears alert, she rode on through the night.
All went well. She called Sparky in three hours. He scolded her for waiting so long.
“It was the spell of the desert at night,” she told him. “Seems as if I could fly on and on forever. And just think! We may never pass this way again!”
“Life is like that, so why bother?” was the reply. She went back for her turn at resting, but did not sleep.
Was it the spell of the desert night that kept her awake? Who can say? At least she did not sleep, just lay there, wrapped in her robe, staring into the darkness, listening to the roar of the motors and thinking, thinking.
Her father was somewhere in Africa. She knew that and no more. It would seem strange to pass over him in the night and not to see him at all. Yet, that might happen. There was no time for looking around, no time for anything. They must go on and on.
When two hours had passed, she was back at Sparky’s side asking for the controls.
“I can’t sleep,” she explained. “Flying over the desert is fascinating. You don’t care a whoop about it.”
“That’s right.”
“Then why not let me have a chance at it?”
“Sure! Why not?” He yielded the controls.
As she took over, the words of an old song were running through her mind:
“Dance, gypsies; sing, gypsies; dance while you may.”
It is in time of war that such simple songs as this take on a world of meaning.
She had not been at the controls an hour when the first faint traces of dawn began to appear. Then, suddenly, a signal on her board flashed a grim warning. Instantly her fingers shut off the fuel and oil from their left motor. The next instant she turned the carbon-dioxide snow on that motor, as she called:
“Sparky! Sparky! Quick! Our left motor is on fire!”
Sparky was at her side in an instant.
“Let me see!” Sparky’s eyes flashed over the instrument board. “Fuel and oil off, extinguisher on. Good girl!” He patted her shoulder. “You know what to do.”
“I know more than that.” Her lips were in a straight line.
“What’s that?”
“I should have stayed with the ship last night.”
“I don’t see that.”
“Someone tampered with our left motor while you were busy with the other one.”
“Not necessarily. Motors have caught fire many times without tampering. Your motor is set on springs. That’s to prevent vibration. Because of this your fuel and oil must come through flexible tubes.”
“Yes, I know all that,” she broke in. “Sometimes the connection gets loose. Gas drips on the manifold and then there is a fire. All the same—”
“You think our motor was tampered with. Well, I don’t. Anyway, all we can do is to watch everything, fly on one, and hope for the best.”
“And you said this was dangerous country.”
“Very dangerous.”
“Dawn is here.”
“The most dangerous of all. If an enemy fighter spots us, he’s sure to come after us.”
“And then—” She was feeling a little dizzy.
“Then we’ll have to try to defend ourselves. Mind if I leave you for a moment?”
“No—I—I’ll carry on.”
“We’ve got a couple of free machine guns. I’ll have them ready just in case.”
“Must we fight?”
“It’s all there is left to do. We can’t climb on one motor. All we can do is to stay up a mile and go straight on.”
“Oh! Perhaps a fight,” Mary thought as he went back in the cabin.
The gray sands were turning white before the rising sun. She saw a speck in the distance. Could it be an enemy plane? She wished Sparky would come back.
Supposing the fire broke out of the motor enclosure and the ship burned. She shuddered at the thought. “Of course,” she reassured herself, “we’d take to our parachutes and escape.”
“But escape to what?” a voice seemed to whisper.
To sifting sands. That was the answer. And then there was their precious cargo.
Here was Sparky again. “All set.” His voice was almost cheerful.
“Spoiling for a fight?” Mary teased.
“I wouldn’t mind knocking down one or two of Hitler’s desert rats,” was the quick reply. “There’s fighting blood in my family. Grandfather in the Civil war and Dad all the way with the Canadians in the other World War. And here I am just flying, flying, flying, flying. Gets a bit dull at times.
“Except,” he hastened to add, “when you have an attractive co-pilot.”
He was talking, she knew, just to quiet her nerves.
“There’s worse to come,” she told herself. And she was not mistaken.
“The fire must be about out by now,” he said a moment later. “There are a lot of sprays shooting carbon-dioxide snow at that engine. It’s under 850 pounds of pressure. Turn off the extinguisher and I’ll work my way back there through the wing.”
She snapped off the extinguisher. “Can you do anything about it?”
“Oh, sure!” There was a forced cheerfulness in his voice. “I can get to that engine. I’ll take tools and a new tube. I’ll fix it. Wait and see!”
“Sparky!” She gripped his arm. “Be careful. I wouldn’t want—well, you know, that desert looks awfully lonesome.”
“I’ll be careful.” Once again he was gone, leaving her to the ship’s controls, the desert, and the spreading dawn. She could see a long way now. There really was an airplane out there on the horizon. But then there were planes everywhere these days.
This plane acted strangely. It seemed at first to be coming straight toward her. Then it took a broad sweep and began to disappear.
“Like some old marauding crow going back to tell his friends,” she thought. “Hope Sparky won’t be long. But then, of course, in that cramped place he can’t work fast. Just have to be patient, that’s all.”
The truth is that Sparky had not even started repairing the engine. There were, he had discovered, other matters that needed attending to first.
All the time Mary was watching the sky. The plane out there on the edge of the horizon had reappeared. A mere speck against the blue, it increased in size. Even at that great distance, she somehow believed this was a different plane.
Presently this plane too cut a broad circle, then began to fade.
“Like bees coming out from a hive,” she thought. “Afraid of us perhaps. Our big, fighting planes have been knocking them down of late.” If that were true she hoped they would keep on being afraid.
As Sparky crept on hands and knees through the low wing section of the plane, toward this disabled engine, he had caught a disturbing sound. “Like the hiss of a goose,” he thought. He flashed a light before him, then recoiled as if struck a blow. Little wonder, for there, not ten feet before him, was a pair of bulging eyes. Beneath the eyes was a mouth with a tongue moving up and down.
“Like a snake,” he thought.
He was not deceived. It was not a snake but, of all persons, a Jap.
“Our enginewastampered with!” His head spun, but his temper rose to a white heat.
Between him and the Jap was a trap-door leading to the desert below, providing you had a parachute. And the Jap had one, strapped to his back.
“Ready to go,” Sparky told himself. “He would have gone before this, but he was afraid. Now he will never jump.”
As if reading his thoughts, the Jap sprang forward. He was too late. Sparky was solidly settled on the door.
Hissing like a snake, the little man snatched a knife from his belt. One moment it hung in air, the next it rattled against the wing’s floor. A heavy wrench had crushed against the Jap’s arm, all but breaking it.
Between Him and the Jap Was a Trap-Door
Between Him and the Jap Was a Trap-Door
Between Him and the Jap Was a Trap-Door
Then they came to grips. It was muscle and brawn against ju-jitsu, and all manner of oriental tricks. Now an arm, like the tail of a boa-constrictor, was about Sparky’s neck, choking, choking him to death. And now Sparky’s steel-like fingers were gripping the Jap’s arm, twisting it until bones cracked.
It was a tooth-and-nail battle. Now the Jap was clawing at Sparky’s eyes. And now Sparky had those claws between his teeth.
It became a struggle for weapons. Once the Jap gripped the handle of his knife only to receive a blow in the face from Sparky’s fist that sent him reeling.
Regaining possession of his wrench, Sparky aimed a blow at the head of that serpent of the Rising Sun. Only a sudden upward thrust of a foot saved the Jap.
“I’ll kill you,” the Jap hissed in good English.
“Come on, then. Try it!” Sparky aimed one more blow at the Jap’s face.
The Jap dodged. Sparky lost his balance and fell flat. For a space of seconds he was at the enemy’s mercy. But to get the knife the Jap must crawl over Sparky’s body. He tried just that and this was his undoing for, with a mighty heave, Sparky pinned him flat and full-length against the hard slats above him.
Rising to hands and knees, Sparky put all the power of his splendid muscles into the task of crushing the last gasp from the now thoroughly beaten enemy.
When the last gasp came, he slid from beneath the Jap to let him down with a dull thud. “You wanted to go down,” Sparky panted. “Now’s your chance.” His hands were on the trap-door’s fastening. The Jap lay on that door.
Then he paused to reflect. It would be the end, he knew, well enough. The Jap was not dead, but helpless. His parachute had been torn from his back.
“You’ve got it coming,” Sparky grumbled. “You planned all this. It would have been our end, not yours, but now—”
His fingers trembled. He undid a catch, then he fastened it again. He was thinking of the empty desert and the jackals. “It’s too good for you,” he grumbled, “but I can’t do it.”
At that he bound the Jap, who by this time was stirring and breathing. Then, pushing him far back in the wing, he tied him fast. “Tomorrow,” he said aloud, “they will shoot you at dawn—the firing squad, you know.”
The Jap’s eyes rolled as a low hiss escaped his lips.
After that Sparky went about the business of repairing the disabled engine.
And all the time Mary at the controls was growing more and more uneasy at his prolonged absence. Little wonder for, out there on the horizon, there were movements, like that about a beehive when the bees begin to swarm.
They were a long way off, but an ever-increasing threat for all that.
Now there was one, now two, now three, and now five airplanes. Like a small flock of birds they flocked toward the sky, then all went swooping down again.
“Rehearsing for trouble,” she breathed. “I wish Sparky would come back.”
What was to be done? Trouble soared in the distant air. She feared the worst for Sparky yet had no means of communication with him and could not for a single instant leave the controls.
Despair had begun to grip her heart when there came a series of bumps behind her and there stood Sparky.
“Sparky!” she exclaimed, “You look terrible! There’s blood on your face, blood, soot and grease. What happened?”
“You were right.” He leaned heavily on the back of the seat. “There was a man back there, a little rat of a Jap.”
“I knew it. I saw him back there at that oasis,” she exclaimed. “There may be a tall woman in black in that other wing.”
“Now youarecrazy!” he exclaimed.
“Let me tell you.” She told of the tall woman in black and the Arab woman that looked like her.
“Were those two the same person?” she asked.
“We’ll ask the Jap.” He managed a smile.
“Then you didn’t—” She hesitated.
“No, I didn’t kill him,” he answered, “but I should have. I had a coil of insulated wire in my kit. I bound him hand and foot with that and left him back there. I hope he likes it.”
“He won’t get loose?”
“Never! Try that engine. I cobbled it up. Take it easy.”
She eased the engine into motion once more. Soon both engines were roaring their best.
“Sparky! That’s wonderful! Now we’re safe!”
“Not for sure. That motor needs a going over. We—”
He broke off to stare at the northern sky.
“Planes! Headed this way! A whole formation of them! Say! This is being done according to plan! The enemy knows of our secret cargo. The Jap was to cripple us. Those planes were to finish us off. Well, they won’t. Get out your oxygen mask, girl! We’re going up to visit the stars. There’s not a fighter made by those rats that can beat us to the stratosphere!”
She set the ship climbing, then reached for her oxygen mask. When she had it handy, she set herself for this new ordeal.
“But, Sparky!” she cried, “what about the Jap?”
“Well, what about him?” he growled.
“He’ll die!”
“Let him die, then!”
“Yes, but you didn’t finish him. You let him live.”
“All right. I’ll take him a mask and two oxygen bottles. It’s a waste of that precious stuff, but there’s the rule of war. I’ll be back.”
He vanished and on the instant Mary wished that she had not spoken. “What is one spy, more or less?” she asked herself. “Now I’m here to face it alone!”
Oddly enough, as Mary set the big plane climbing she recalled Sparky’s words, “You are with me to the journey’s end.” Was this to be the journey’s end? One thing was sure. During their moments of excitement over the captured spy, they had allowed the enemy to come dangerously close. Six fighting planes were coming roaring toward them at top speed.
Breathless with suspense, Mary watched their altitude increase. Ten thousand feet, eleven, twelve, fifteen thousand. It was not as fast as this; instead, to her excited mind the figures appeared to creep upward like a man with a crutch going upstairs.
One plane was ahead of the others. “He’ll get us! I am sure of that!” she groaned. “Oh! If Sparky were only here!”
Then the on-rushing enemy did a strange thing. Instead of coming right on, like a catbird after a hawk, he circled wide, going completely around the big plane.
“Afraid.” There was contempt in her voice.
“He’d better be!” It was Sparky who spoke. He was standing in the center of the cabin. In his hands he gripped a heavy machine gun.
As the enemy circled closer, he opened a window a crack to send forth a burst of fire.
The plane veered off, swinging around before them, then coming up on the other side.
Sparky had donned his mask. So, too, had Mary. They were getting into thin air. “If only we can hold them off,” Mary thought.
Once again Sparky’s gun spoke, then again and yet again. Like a cowardly wolf-pack the fighters were closing in slowly. There were three of them now.
There came the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire from the distance. No bullets found their mark.
In desperation Mary set her motors going at a dangerous rate.
“If that burned motor fails me now—” Her heart paused, then raced on.
“Good girl!” Sparky encouraged her. “We’re leaving them behind. They can’t go much farther, not at this altitude. You, you’re looking white around the lips. Here! I’ll take the controls.”
She staggered from her place, leaned for a space of seconds then, looking down, watched the fighter planes still battling their way upward. With shaking hands she reached for the machine gun. “This can’t be the journey’s end,” she murmured.
And then something strange happened. The foremost plane that had been straining to reach them, faltered in midair, seemed to hang there for a moment, then, dropping one wing, went into a spiral dive that increased in speed until it seemed a boy’s top, spinning in the sky.
Dragging her eyes from this fascinating and terrible sight, she looked for the other planes. They, too, were going down, but under control. They had given up the task assigned to them.
“It—it’s all over! Finished!” She sank down in her place beside Sparky. “That first plane,” she said after a time, “it went down in a spin. The pilot didn’t bale out. It just went down, down.”
“I’ve done a lot of duck hunting in my day,” Sparky replied quietly. “Sometimes I’d shoot at a flock of ducks in midair. They’d sail right on, but a mile away, one of them would drop behind, go into a spin and come plunging down.”
“You mean your bullets reached that plane?” Mary asked.
“They might have. Then again the fellow may have climbed too high.”
“Something on his plane froze up?”
“Yes, or he did. Whichever way it was, there’s one less of them for our boys over here to take care of. We won a bloodless battle.”
After that, maintaining their altitude, they flew on for a hundred miles in silence.
Then, after a good look at the empty sky, Sparky tilted the plane’s nose downward. Soon they were dragging off their masks and drinking in the crisp desert air of the upper reaches.
“Have to get back and see how my prisoner is getting on.”
“You—your—oh, yes, that Jap spy.” She took the controls.
There was a strange look on his face when he returned.
“Well?” she asked.
“I didn’t mean to tell you,” he replied, soberly. “You asked for it, so here it is. He’s gone to join his ancestors.”
“You mean—”
“Seems his mask didn’t suit him, so he knocked it off.”
“Oh! I see.”
“In other words he committed hari-kari in a rather strange way.
“I gave him a desert burial,” he explained after a while. “Just opened the trap door to the wing, and let him down.”
She nodded. It had been a long, hard journey that day. She hoped there would be sunshine, laughter and song at that day’s journey’s end. And, for once, she was not to be disappointed.
A short time later something big loomed up before them on the horizon. “Is it a mountain?” Mary asked herself. It seemed a little strange that it should be there. Then, too, it was so perfect in form, no bumps on this side or that.
“Recognize it?” Sparky asked.
“No, could it be—”
“Yes. That’s exactly what it is,” he laughed. “A pyramid. And this is Egypt.”
“Egypt!” She was impressed.
“Yup! Better get out your lipstick. We’ll be landing in about fifteen minutes. I’ve never been here but the other boys say it’s quite a spot, not so far from Cairo.”
“You need scrubbing up more than I do, and a bit of first aid.”
“Don’t bother about me.”
She did, for all that. With a damp cloth she washed the blood and engine grease from his face, then applied antiseptic.
After that she gave herself a hurried make-up. And then there they were, circling for one more landing among the date palms.
She found herself a trifle shaky about the knees when, at last, she stepped down to the good earth.
A few steps away a strongly built man was standing talking to another.
“He looks familiar,” she told herself.
Just then the man turned. “Dad!” she cried. After three long strides, she was in his arms.
“Mary! It’s good to see you!” he boomed. “I knew you were coming, but I couldn’t let you know where I was. Why did you volunteer for so dangerous an assignment?”
“Because I am your daughter,” she replied proudly. “You wouldn’t want me to stand back, now, would you?”
“No, Mary, I wouldn’t. You’ve made it safely this far. Here’s wishing you luck and safety to the journey’s end.”
“The journey’s end,” she thought. “If he but knew how close we came to that end this very day.”
“Mary,” her father was saying, “I want you to meet the finest American flier in Egypt, Captain Burt Ramsey. Captain Ramsey, this is my daughter.”
“Charmed to meet her, sir,” was the quick response.
“I am pleased to meet you.” She gave the young man her best smile. And why not? He stood six-feet-three and looked every inch the soldier—dark hair, brown eyes, and that far-away look that fliers, especially over the desert, acquire.
“I am surprised at that introduction, Colonel Mason.” The Captain grinned broadly. “From all you’ve been telling me, this young lady must be the best flier in Egypt.”
“Oh, that’s purely a family matter, paternal pride,” said the Colonel.