“Nobody Dares Touch a Flying Tiger!”
“Nobody Dares Touch a Flying Tiger!”
“Nobody Dares Touch a Flying Tiger!”
“That’s one spell in my life I’ll never forget,” he concluded. “Never! Never! It was tough, but it was glorious. When the last battle is won and the last man of that brave band is laid away like a tattered flag for keeps, we’ll be a-flyin’ and a-yarnin’ in that place where all good Indians go.
“And now,” he turned to Mary, “how about this black-robed lady who wishes you were dead?”
“Oh! It’s nothing at all, after what you’ve been telling, but I’ll tell you all the same—”
Mary told the story of her journey while Scottie listened with rapt attention.
“Young lady!” he exclaimed when she had finished, “you’ve got what it takes!”
“I’m only one of the thousands of American women who have joined up to help win the war,” said Mary. “And they’ve all got what it takes.”
“Glory be for that!” Scottie exclaimed. “Now I know the fight will soon be over. When the ladies get into Hitler’s hair there’s nothing left but the shouting.
“And here’s a secret.” He leaned forward and his eyes shone. “There is talk of sending me to Burma with that quinine early to-morrow morning.”
“Oh!” Judy exclaimed. “That wouldn’t be fair. Mary and Sparky should do it. They’ve earned the right.”
“Exactly what I said,” Scottie agreed. “But Sparky won’t risk his ship and he won’t leave the rest of his cargo alone for an hour and as for this young lady—” He hesitated, embarrassed.
“Of course it wouldn’t be safe,” Mary stepped in. “I don’t know the route. The quinine is too precious. I wouldn’t think of risking it.”
“Of course not,” Judy smiled. “But if Scottie were sent with it and if he were to ask that you be sent along as his co-pilot?”
“Oh! I’d accept!”
“You would?” Scottie exclaimed. “Then what’s keeping us?”
“Only Sparky’s okay!”
“And orders from headquarters. I’ll get it all fixed within the hour. Where’s my hat? Oh—oh, yes, waiter! Waiter! Bring the checks!” With the least possible ceremony and no apology, Scottie paid the charge and bounded from the room.
“A Flying Tiger!” Judy exclaimed. “He flies even when he’s on the ground.”
“All the same, I like him a lot.” Mary’s eyes shone.
“Who wouldn’t? I envy you. That will be something to remember—the trip.”
“Everything we do is something to remember,” said Mary. “That’s why I like flying.”
“If I had the flying hours I’d resign tomorrow and join the WAFS.”
“You can get the necessary training at the Woman’s Flying Training Detachment,” said Mary. “Jacqueline Cochrane is the director.”
“I’ll think about it,” Judy replied soberly.
They left the place to wander slowly back toward the school. As they crossed the long bridge, the dark waters of the river sweeping beneath them seemed to whisper of the thousands who had swarmed its banks since time began.
“Do you know,” said Mary, “I am obsessed with a strange notion that this black-robed woman who shot at me tonight is a French woman I saw at the port we reached after we had flown the Atlantic.”
“In North Africa!” Judy exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”
“Yes, I suppose so but I seem to have been haunted by women in black all the way.”
“That’s possible and it is also possible that they were all spies.”
“But they were all so very much alike,” Mary insisted.
“That,” said Judy, “is even probable. I have a friend, here in India, who is a counter-spy. He told me once that women spies were all very much alike, that is, the successful ones were. They are smart, he says, keen in their own way, usually well educated and all that. Their smartness is like the smartness of a dagger, if you can say a dagger is smart.” Judy paused to reflect.
“Smart as a dagger,” Mary murmured. “That does sound a little strange.”
“Smart and beautiful,” said Judy. “I have a friend who has a collection of what he calls ‘beautiful daggers.’ Theyarebeautiful too, hilts of gold, some with pearls set in silver, mother-of-pearl handles and a lot more. But they all have one thing in common, an ugly, dangerous blade. Women spies are alike, I suppose, in very much the same way. That’s why this one seems like the others.”
“Probably so,” Mary agreed. “But say! I’d like to go over and see Sparky before we go to bed. He might have something more to tell me.”
“I’ll drive you over,” Judy volunteered.
“It’s all fixed, Mary,” were Sparky’s first words to her when she reached the airport. “That Flying Tiger, Scottie, will fly with you to Burma first thing in the morning.”
“Scottie’s a fast worker.” Mary was pleased.
“He sure is, and a good one. They say he’s downed more Japs than anyone in China, and he’s barely twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two years old!” She stared.
“That’s right. They grow old fast over here. But he’ll turn young again when this is over.”
“Sparky,” her voice dropped, “if I shouldn’t come back, you can get a good co-pilot to go with you on that last lap to our journey’s end.”
“Oh, sure! But you’ll come back, Mary. If I wasn’t dead certain of that I’d never let you go.”
“Oh! So that’s the way it is,” Mary laughed.
“You bet your life, it is. We’re going to finish this thing, you and I.
“But I want you to go with Scottie,” he added. “You’ve had a lot of grief on this trip. I want you to see just how worthwhile it is.”
“Thanks, Sparky.” Her voice went husky. Their hands met in a good stout grip.
A half hour later Mary crept between cool, white sheets in the teachers’ home at the school, prepared for a good sleep before the dawn of one more big day.
When Mary arrived at the airport before dawn next morning, guards, like gray ghosts, were moving silently about among the many planes assembled there.
Having been challenged by one of the guards, she explained her mission and was at once led to a cabin monoplane that was just warming up.
“Oh! There you are!” Scottie exclaimed. “I hope you’re ready for a bit of a scrap or anything that comes along.”
“I’m with you for anything that comes our way,” she replied.
“Good!” said Scottie. “Well, then let’s get up and get going.”
Climbing to his place, he released the mechanic who had put his plane in motion, then motioned Mary to the co-pilot’s seat.
“This is a small plane alongside yours,” he said. “We had to break up some of the boxes of quinine and store the goods in the wings, but it’s all there.
“Listen to her!” he exclaimed, as the motor roared. “Snortin’ to go! She’s the sweetest ship I’ve ever flown. She’ll jump right straight up from the ground, or nearly so, and can land on any road a car can run on. She can do four hundred miles an hour, flying straight on, and can cut circles around any Jap plane that’s made. I only wish I could show you what a fighter she is, but they say all’s quiet on the Burma Front.”
“Please don’t stir it up on my account.” Mary laughed a bit nervously. “All I’m interested in is getting that quinine to the hospital—”
“Sure!” Scottie agreed heartily. “That’s our mission and that’s what we’ll do, but downing a couple of Zeros won’t hurt a bit.”
It seemed to Mary as they rose to greet the dawn, that he had spoken the exact truth. His ship did appear to leap straight into the air like a frightened bird.
“I’m glad Sparky is getting a chance to have a real rest at last,” she said after a time.
“Yes, I imagine he can use it, all right,” said Scottie. “He told me he was going to sleep late. After that he and one of the boys at camp will fly your plane to the foot of the mountains. We’ll meet them there late today.”
“And tomorrow we’ll go over the Himalayas?” Mary drew in a long, deep breath.
“Yes, providing the mountain gods permit you. They don’t always, not by a long ways.”
“Is it really bad?”
“It’s the toughest bit of flying between China and Chicago. Every pilot who’s done the trip says so. And there’s a score or more of men who’ve flown it many times. Help is coming to China from America in a big way—by plane. And I’m glad.”
“So are we all!” Mary agreed.
For an hour they sailed on over green fields of rice and dark, tangled forests.
“There’s a storm gathering over there,” Scottie nodded in the direction they were going. “Hope we can beat it.”
“Oh! I hope so.”
They were over a broad stretch of water now.
“It’s getting really black over the jungle where those Jap rats are hiding.” Scottie set his motor roaring. “They’ll not bother us today.”
As Mary watched the gathering storm she thought she saw small planes, like birds circling before the clouds. “Scurrying home,” she told herself.
They had reached the far side of the water when, with startling suddenness, the storm struck. Catching their plane as if it were a wisp of paper, the wind whirled it up—up—up a thousand, two, three thousand feet, then sent it whirling down again.
“Just hold your seat,” Scottie’s lips were drawn into a straight line. “I’ve been all through this before.”
When their downward rush had slackened, he kept the plane headed toward the earth. “We’re still at five thousand feet,” he murmured. “Might be a bright spot below.”
All the time Mary was thinking, “We’ve come all that long way with the quinine and now—”
Suddenly, she let out a little cry of joy. From the very blackness of night that was the heart of a storm cloud, they leaped into clear, bright air.
Better still, beneath them lay a large clearing and at its far end, half hidden, was a small airfield.
Scottie spoke a few words into his radio. Mary caught the answer:
“Come on down, you monkey. What you want to do, stay up there and get wet?”
Roaring with laughter Scottie set the plane circling down. The next minute their plane bump-bumped and they slid in for a stop.
“Here we are!” Scottie exclaimed.
“Yes, and here comes the rain,” was Mary’s answer as big drops began beating a tattoo on their fuselage.
Three minutes later, while the rain was coming down in torrents a laughing young doughboy carrying slickers on his arm climbed to the plane’s cabin to thrust in his head for a look.
“I win!” he shouted to someone standing in a tent door. “You lose your two bucks. She’s a lady! And, boy, oh, boy! Is she!”
There came a roar from the distant tent, then the boy crowded past the boxes of quinine to hold out the slickers.
“Here. Get into these,” he urged. “We heard about your coming and about the quinine. You won’t be here long. Gotta make every moment count.”
Smiling happily, Mary hid herself in a slicker six sizes too big, then raced away to the tent where she found a score of young men, most of them with full beards, singing:
“It ain’t going to rain no more.”
The instant she appeared the song broke off short.
“Here she is! Danny!” her escort shouted. “Now where’s the two bucks.”
“You gotta take that raincoat off her before I’m convinced,” came the defiant reply.
With a happy smile Mary threw aside her raincoat.
There came a succession of low gasps, then whispers: “It is! It’s a gal pilot.”
At that a tall doughboy shuffled forward. “We drew straws,” he began bashfully. “I lost so I’ve got to make you a speech. We—we all want to thank you for the quinine. A lot of our buddies are in the hospital. We’ve been out of quinine for a week and,—and who knows which of us goes on sick leave next so—”
“As you were—” Mary’s voice faltered, then steadied. “You should know that we gals in the army ask only one thing, to be treated as buddies and—and regular soldiers.”
This speech was received with a round of cheers.
“Come on, boys!” shouted a husky sergeant who beyond doubt had crashed many a football line. “Give her the hero’s rush.”
At that they hoisted her to their shoulders and heading into the drenching rain, carried her away to the hospital.
There, safely hidden away at the edge of the jungle, they put her down in a big tent packed full of cots and on every cot rested an invalid soldier.
“Boys,” said the sergeant, “we’ve brought you the two best things in the world, plenty of quinine and a lady.”
“Speech! Speech!” came from every corner.
“Oh, boys,” Mary was close to tears, “I’m a flier, not a chaplain. All I can say is that I shall always remember this as the happiest moment of my life.
“One thing more before I leave. I’d like your names and addresses. If I’m lucky enough to get back to good, old U. S. A., I’ll write to your mothers, every one of them and tell them that I saw you.”
“Oh!” exclaimed a very young boy close beside her, “that—that will be swell!”
“I’ll Write to Your Mothers,” She Promised
“I’ll Write to Your Mothers,” She Promised
“I’ll Write to Your Mothers,” She Promised
With aching heart but smiling face Mary went from cot to cot collecting addresses and personal messages of the sick men.
Then Scottie came in. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “The rain has stopped. There’s just time for a bit of chow with the other boys here, then we’ll have to hop into the sky. Don’t forget that Sparky’s waiting.”
“Of course,” she exclaimed. “We must get going.”
A roar of farewell from the soldiers a half hour later, a burst of speed and once again they were in the air.
For some time they were silent, then Mary said in a solemn voice:
“Scottie, I saw things in that field hospital today that I hope I may never see again, but I’ll never forget them. Never! Never!”
“Yes, I know,” Scottie replied.
There was another long silence. Then Scottie spoke: “I don’t often speak of it. War’s not a thing to be talked about, really, especially when you’re talking to a girl. But did you happen to notice those two boys in the far right-hand corner of the hospital?”
“Yes, I talked to them. Such nice boys. Both college men. They were fliers.”
“Yes, and ‘were’ is exactly the word. Neither of them will ever fly again and one will never even walk.”
“Terrible,” she murmured.
“It is terrible.” Scottie’s voice rose. “They were my buddies, those boys were. More than once we flew in the same formation. We were together when it happened. Want me to tell you?” he hesitated.
“Yes, tell me.” Her voice was low.
“Well, those boys were flying a two seater, one was pilot, the other radioman and gunner. We were four planes together on patrol. Ten Zeros dropped down upon us from the clouds.”
“Oh! The clouds!” Mary looked up. Large, white clouds left by the storm were hovering above them.
“It was a hot fight,” Scottie went on. “I got me two Zeros, sent them down in flames. Having one more burst of fire I went after one more Zero. He was a tough one. Got in a burst of slugs on me and cut half my ship’s tail away. But I gave him one that set one of his wings shaking like a dead leaf. With my guns empty, I was heading for home and wondering if I’d get there, when I saw a good American two-seater going down in flames.
“‘It’s the end of those boys,’ I thought. Then I saw two parachutes blossom out.”
“Did they make it?”
“They would have.” Scottie hesitated. “You might not believe me, but those boys would tell you if you asked them—”
“Why? What—”
“The Jap that shot them down followed them, followed until their parachutes opened up and—”
“Shot them up—”
“That’s what he did. Me? I was so mad I went after him and without ammunition and with a shot-up tail I’d have got him too if I’d had to ram him, but he hid in a cloud.”
“And didn’t anyone get him?” Mary asked eagerly.
“Not that day, they didn’t, nor ever I guess. We’d know his plane if we got him and I’d know him in the air.”
“How could you?”
“The impudent monkey had the nose of his plane painted to represent our Uncle Sam with a long beard and a very red nose.”
“Giving you something to shoot at, I suppose.”
“Let me see the target just one more time,” Scottie exclaimed, “and I’ll make a bull’s eye.”
For a long time after that Mary sat staring dreamily down at the tropical beauty that glided beneath them and thinking of the people who, like bits of the jungle, had come and gone in her life during the days that had just passed. She saw again Jerry, the beachcomber, The Woman in Black, Captain Ramsey, and her father. A dozen other familiar figures passed before her mind’s eye. And then of a sudden, Scottie exclaimed:
“Look! There’s four of those black-hearted, little goggle-eyes slipping out of a cloud right now! I don’t suppose—” he hesitated. “Of course we can run, or we can climb. They’d never come near us. Perhaps that’s the best way. There’s Sparky waiting for you, and your cargo.” There was a wistful note in his voice. It was, Mary thought, like the singing note of a faithful dog’s whine when he was begging to be loosened for a fight.
“Sparky can wait, if need be—forever.” Her voice was firm. “The cargo will go through even if I’m not there.”
“Then we—”
“Go get them, Scottie!” Her words came short and quick.
“You asked for it.” His motor roared. “So did they.”
The four Zeros, sure that one of them would finish Scottie off, came right at them. As if by thundering straight on he hoped to avoid them, Scottie did not change his course until he was almost beneath them.
Then, with a “Hang on, Mary!” he tilted his plane straight up to climb toward the stars.
Caught off guard, the attackers attempted to scatter. One narrowly escaped crashing into the other and, in the confusion, found Scottie beneath him, with every gun blazing. With its fuselage sawed half in two, the Zero doubled up to go rolling and tumbling toward the jungle far below.
Just in time Scottie dropped the nose of his plane, tilted, and went into a spiral to escape an enemy on his tail.
When he came out of the spiral, he stood for a second on his wing, then rising like a comet, flashed past the would-be attacker to catch a second Zero unawares and send him down in a pillar of smoke.
Just then a stream of slugs cut across their cabin, so close to their backs that Mary felt the heat of their passing.
“The dirty—” Scottie did not finish. As the other plane flashed past him, he had seen something. Mary had seen it, too.
“Get him, Scottie,” she screamed. “Get him if it’s the last thing you ever do.”
“Never doubt it!” In deathly fear lest his ship had suffered from the attackers’ bullets he set his motor thundering her best as he set himself to beat the Zero to a cloud a mile or so away.
They gained. They halved the distance between them. They quartered it. The plane seemed a thing alive.
“Get him, Scottie! Get him!” she cried hoarsely.
It was a long chance but just as the enemy touched the edge of the cloud, Scottie let go. A burst of fire, another, then another.
The Zero had completely disappeared, when the last burst roared from his guns.
Ten seconds passed, twenty, thirty, then, down from the cloud, as if the cloud itself were falling apart, came broken bits of something that once had been a Zero fighter.
“Just blasted him apart!” Scottie muttered. “Can you beat that?”
“That picture of Uncle Sam on his plane’s nose—”
“That, Mary? That picture!” Scottie laughed hoarsely. “That’s blasted into bits. His engine must have blown up or his gas tank or both!”
A half hour later, as they circled for a landing over the field where Sparky awaited them, Scottie said:
“What’s the use of a good, American flier being over Burma without doing a little fighting, even if she is a lady?”
“Fighting, Scottie?” said Mary. “I haven’t been fighting. Just had a ride with a Flying Tiger, that’s all.”
“And one you’ll not forget.”
“Not ever.”
And so they came on down.
In the meantime, with a borrowed co-pilot, Sparky had made his way to a hidden airbase at the foot of the mountains. Since the co-pilot had made the flight several times before the trip was accomplished without mishap or adventure.
The moment they landed a Chinese boy, hopping along on one leg and a crutch, came out to greet them and guide them back into the bush where living quarters had been established.
“Oh!” he exclaimed after looking into the cabin. “Somebody say mebby lady flier come. Mebby somebody don’t know.”
“They were not mistaken,” said Sparky. “The lady pilot belongs to this plane. She’s coming later with Scottie Burns.”
“Oh! Scottie!” the boy exclaimed. “Very good flier, Scottie, mebby seventy Japs he shoot down, me not know.”
“That’s a great record,” said Sparky. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Me, Hop Sing. Alla time me hop—sometimes me sing.” The boy laughed at his misfortune.
“You’re all right.” Sparky laughed with him. “How did you lose your leg?”
“Zero plane come down,” the boy swept the air with an arm, “came zoom! Zoom! Zoom! Machine gun—rat-tat-tat, go down me. Too many times shot. American hospital doctors fix up. Now, me, I got machine gun. Want Zero come back.”
“You Chinese people have been taking the rap for us all these long years,” Sparky said soberly. “Now—here we are.”
“Very soon come many big planes,” said the boy. “Mebby bomb Tokio.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Sparky said.
After looking the plane over carefully, then locking it up tight, they made a dash through the pelting rain where a warm welcome and a good American dinner awaited them.
When Mary and Scottie came zooming down on the hidden airfield, they found Sparky waiting for them. In a jeep he whisked them away to a little eating place where they had coffee and sandwiches and where Sparky listened to their rather amazing story.
“I wish I had been with you when you visited that hospital,” Sparky said when the story was told.
“Oh! I wish you could have been!” Mary exclaimed with real feeling. “It was sad but just wonderful. I’d go around the world three times just to do that much for our fine boys, who seem to feel that they are sort of forgotten over here.”
“You took a long chance?” Sparky said to Scottie.
“When we went for that Jap after our plane had been shot up?” Scottie spoke slowly. “Yes, that’s right, we did. But if you had seen that Jap in his plane with Uncle Sam’s face painted where it was and you knew what that rat of a monkey had done,—”
“That’s right,” Sparky grinned, “I’d have gone after him.”
“Of course you would,” Mary agreed. “Any real man would have done just that. There are some things in this war that can be passed up. Others are on the must-be-done list, and that was one of them.
“But Sparky,” she leaned forward eagerly, “what comes next? When do we cross the mountains?”
“Tomorrow morning if the mountain storm gods permit,” was his reply. “This afternoon, however, I have a little trip to make.” He turned to Scottie. “Do you know the road to a town called Gonagona?” he asked.
“Very well,” said Scottie, “I’ve been there several times.”
“There’s an officer over there with secret orders for us,” Sparky explained. “It has something to do with our landing place once we are over the mountains. I must get over there. Will you drive me?”
“Oh! Sure!” Scottie grinned.
“We’ll leave Mary in charge of the plane,” said Sparky. “Think you can manage that?”
“What am I to guard it from in this wild place?” Mary asked. “The Monkeys of the Snows or something?”
“You never can tell,” Sparky did not smile. “And, by the way, there’s a one-legged Chinese boy who will help you out in a pinch. He has a sub-machine gun that someone loaned him. It’s a businesslike affair and I shouldn’t wonder if he could shoot it. He’s looking for a low-flying Zero plane. Perhaps you can find one for him. He calls himself Hop Sing. Sometimes he hops and sometimes he sings.”
“He sounds interesting,” said Mary. “Please tell him to come around.”
A half hour later Sparky and Scottie motored away, leaving Mary seated on a fallen palm tree at the edge of the narrow airfield.
Mary dreamed of many things, of wide, black waters, sifting desert sands, glorious dances in Egypt, Persian gardens, and many more. But suddenly she was startled from her dreaming by a high-pitched voice saying;
“You are the so beautiful flying lady and I am Hop Sing. Me, I got machine gun. Many times practice.” Aiming the gun at a tree the Chinese boy seemed about to mow it down but, instead, merely clicked his gun. “Can shoot very well. Come Zero plane, flying very low, I show you plenty.”
“I’m glad to see you, Hop Sing.” She slid down from her log. “You’ll protect me from the monkeys, won’t you?” she added with a laugh.
“Monkeys not hurt white lady,” was his laughing reply. “Only monkeys wearing glasses, they hurt white lady, butnothurt white lady. Me, I shoot them, all-a-same them shoot me.”
Mary took to Hop Sing at once. She enjoyed his happy, squirrel-like chatter. He told her many amusing stories of the war, how his people had learned to trick the Japs and lead them away from their goals, how they had hidden their food to return for it and so save their own lives. He told her too of things that made her blood run cold.
“How can you be so happy when such terrible things are going on?” she asked.
“No happy, bye-um-bye dead, that’s all,” was his way of saying that happiness, come what may, is a human necessity.
After a time Hop Sing wandered away. Taking a seat on the plane’s right wing, Mary sat dreaming in the bright tropical sunlight until, with startling suddenness a powerful twin-motored plane appearing to come from nowhere circled once then swept down upon the field.
The plane came to a halt not thirty paces from where she sat. Immediately four big men in officers’ uniforms leaped from the plane.
A Powerful Plane Swept Down Upon the Field
A Powerful Plane Swept Down Upon the Field
A Powerful Plane Swept Down Upon the Field
“This the plane that arrived today from Calcutta?” The younger of the four pointed at Sparky’s plane.
“I wouldn’t know.” There was something about these men that Mary didn’t like. She was thinking, ‘What’s this’?
“Where is this plane’s pilot?” the man demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“See here!” The man took a step forward. “We just came over the mountains from China. We were sent to pick up the cargo of that plane.”
“It is imperative that we have it at once.” An older man took up the story. Mary did not like his accent. He certainly did not come from America. “There has been far too much delay,” the man went on. “Bah! A woman for a co-pilot. What can you expect?”
“We are to take off that cargo at once,” said the younger man.
“And fly it to China,” the other added.
Mary, who had been studying their plane, made no reply.
“Well?” The younger man took a step forward. Mary backed away, then stood her ground.
A great silence had fallen over the jungle. From far away came the scream of a parrot. Mary’s low-spoken words scarcely broke the silence:
“I have orders to guard this plane until the man who flies it returns. He’ll be back in a half hour. If you’ve come from China you might like a cup of coffee.”
“Preposterous!” The older man’s face purpled.
The younger man took another step forward but this time Mary did not retreat. She just stood there looking him squarely in the eye as she said, “Why so preposterous? What does this mean, your swooping down like this? I haven’t been long in the Orient and I’m only a girl but all this seems strange and,—irregular.”
“Irregular!” the older man stormed. “You can’t run a war in this country in what you call a regular way. You must sometimes act in a hurry. China cannot wait, so please step aside.”
“I am remaining where I am,” she declared stoutly. “Anyway, I don’t have the key to the plane. I may be right, then again I may be wrong. If I am wrong, I may lose my wings but you’ll have to come and take me if you want the cargo of this plane.” Outwardly Mary was calm but inside, she was all atremble.
The younger man’s lips twitched. “Such stupidity!” he muttered, as his hand slipped toward a something that showed black beneath his belt. Mary trembled but did not move.
At that instant there came a sound from behind the plane. “Who can that be?” Mary asked herself. Her heart gave a great leap as she heard a thin voice say:
“I got me a tommy gun. I can shoot him very good. Wanna see?”
Before Mary could stop him Hop Sing sent out a burst of fire that burned the air above the four men’s heads.
“You little Chinese rat,” the older man stormed. “You—” He broke off short. The gleam in Hop Sing’s eyes at that moment was a terrible thing to see.
Hop Sing’s burst of gunfire, following as it did the arrival of an unidentified airplane, brought a score of officers, soldiers, and mechanics rushing to the scene.
“What’s all this?” Captain Noble, the officer in charge of the field, demanded.
“Well, sir,” said Mary, forgetting to salute, “these men say they’re from China. They say they have orders to take the cargo from Sparky’s plane.”
“Let’s see your orders,” the Captain said, turning to the four men.
“Certainly, Captain.” The younger of the four drew a sheath of papers from his pocket. “Here they are, Captain.” He shot Mary an ugly look.
“Oh! Boy!” Mary thought. “If I’m wrong, I’ll be washed out of this man’s Army, just like that—”
“Hm!” said the Captain. “Papers seem all in order. Suppose you’d like a cup of coffee before you start back?”
“There’s not much time—we—” The younger man frowned.
“Time enough for a cup of coffee.” The Captain’s smile was disarming. “Are you guarding the plane?” he asked Mary.
“Yes, I—I and Hop Sing.” She nodded toward the Chinese boy.
“Unlock the cabin and start unloading the cargo. These boys will help you.” The Captain nodded to the group of mechanics.
Mary’s heart sank. Then she remembered something. “The cabin’s locked,” she said quietly. “Sparky has the key.”
“Where is Sparky? Oh, yes, he went to see the Major. I’m afraid we can’t do a thing until the pilot returns.” The Captain smiled once again.
“Break the lock,” the older man snarled.
“You know that cannot be done.” The Captain did not smile.
At a slight nod from the younger men, the four moved toward the plane that had brought them.
Oddly enough, with just no orders at all, but with guns ready for action, the soldiers of the Captain’s squad lined up in front of that plane.
“I think,” the younger of the four licked his lips, “we’ll accept your offer of hospitality.”
Ten minutes later, when Sparky returned, he went at once into a huddle with the Captain.
A half hour later the four men returned to their plane but four armed doughboys went there with them. The Captain and a co-pilot took charge of the plane.
“Mary, you’re a wonder!” Sparky exclaimed as that plane climbed the sky.
“Who are they?” she asked in a whisper.
“That,” said Sparky, “is a military secret.”
“Where are they going?” she asked.
“I don’t exactly know.” Sparky smiled. “One thing I’m sure of, and that is they won’t come back.”
“One thing still puzzles me,” said Mary.
“What’s that,” Sparky asked.
“Why did the Captain order me to open the plane’s cabin door for those men?”
“Perhaps he knew you didn’t have the key. Then again he may have known you wouldn’t use it if you did have it. Either way he was right. What he wanted was to avoid any shooting, and he got that. I wouldn’t trade you and Hop Sing for four Lieutenant Colonels and a General,” Sparky laughed. “And you’re both going with us to China.”
“That,” said Mary, “will be swell!”
Later that day when they were together once more, Sparky and Mary lingered long over their tea in a little place run by a friend of Hop Sing.
When Mary had told her story all over again, Sparky’s admiration for his co-pilot was greater than ever before.
“Listen!” She held up her hand. The air was filled with sound.
“The bombers are here,” he said.
“And that means—”
“That we go over the mountains tomorrow providing the storm gods smile.”