She and Mac met an hour after darkness had fallen, to resume their practice.
They had been at it for a long time and were in the process of making their most perfect score when the phone on the palm tree jangled.
Gale’s heart skipped a beat as her keen ears picked up the words spoken to Mac over the phone:
“Warning! Enemy bombers, in large formation, approaching from the northeast. Be at your station.”
“Now we’ll get them!” she exclaimed, as Mac returned to his gun.
“If they don’t get us first,” Mac grumbled. “This night fighting isn’t so hot. I’ve only been in it twice, but one of those times they nearly got me.”
“We’ll get them this time,” the girl insisted. “We’ve got to do it! Think of all those women and children packed away behind those crumbling walls beside those narrow streets in the city only a ten-minute flight from here!”
“It’s murder to attack a city like that—”
“Nothing else,” he agreed.
“They’ll fly over us to get to the city, won’t they?” she asked.
“Sure will, if they don’t stop long enough to tear us apart.” Mac glanced at the dugout. “One thing I want understood. When I say ‘Duck!’ you duck. I’ve seen a lot more of this night fighting than you have.”
She made no reply, but lifting a hand to her ear exclaimed softly, “Listen! There they come!”
“That’s right.” A confused roar beat upon their eardrums. “Must be a big flight of them tonight.”
Gale looked to her instruments. They were in perfect condition—always were—but now they must be perfection personified. A slip might mean the loss of a thousand lives in that crowded city.
This done, there was nothing left but to wait.
“It won’t be long now,” she whispered.
“It won’t be long,” Mac echoed, fingering his gun.
Gale wondered if she could ever describe the feelings that coursed through her being as she waited. First a feeling of great exultation swept over her. She had power—such power as she had never known before—the power to destroy a hated enemy. A dozen, a score, perhaps half a hundred enemies might fall to death because of her radar. She had power to save countless lives.
Then she went all cold. She might fail, or be killed before she had done her work.
After that came a steady, calm resolve. She felt free as air. Her fingers would do her bidding perfectly. She wanted to sing.
“Here they come! Get set!” Mac was teetering on his toes. She knew that type too. They performed the most dangerous tasks as if they were dancing to fast music. She knew Mac. He was all right.
Now she was sending out those long electric fingers. They went here, there, everywhere, but found nothing. They could only reach for the stars.
“Too far away yet,” she murmured. “We’ll have to wait. We—
“There!” she exclaimed. “They’re coming in. Let me show you.” Seizing his gun control, she set it at a definite angle. “That’s the line they’re taking. Coming straight.”
“Swell!” Mac’s lips were drawn into a thin line. “Very kind of them. Let me know if they leave that course. When they get in close enough I’ll let them have it.”
“And keep it up,” she hissed. “We’ll get three of them.”
“Three of them! That’s a lot!”
“Not enough,” she murmured. Then—“Coming straight on. Still coming. Same direction, same height. How wonderful!”
“Mar—marvelous.” Mac’s throat went dry.
“Still coming straight on. Same direction. Same height. Seems as if I should see them.”
“But you can’t.”
“They’re close now. Get ready. Same direction. Same—Fire!” Her voice rose to a scream. Her wind-blown hair was in a mad tangle, her face lit as by a flame.
The big pom pom gun roared.
“Again!” Once more the gun spoke. “Again! Again! Again!”
Something was happening up there in the sky. The exploding shells boomed, while in between the sound of oncoming planes became more and more confused.
“They’re almost over us.” Mac glanced at the air shelter.
“We can’t stop yet. Once more,” she pleaded.
Once again the gun spoke.
Next instant, as if caught by a whirlwind, Gale was seized from behind and sent through such a dizzy circle that she had no notion where she was going until she landed on the floor of the air raid shelter.
“Let me go! We’ve got—”
She did not finish, for a pair of hands seized her and shook her hard. “You fool!” a voice hissed. “Want to get—”
The voice was drowned by a roar that tore the very earth about them, and seemed to lift their air raid shelter up to let it gently down again.
“That,” said Mac, “was one whale of a bomb.” Gale looked at Mac. He was seated before her. Who was behind her? Who had perhaps—no, most certainly had saved her life?
“We’ll have some hot tea,” Mac said calmly, as he reached for a small charcoal burner in a dark corner.
“Tea? Oh yes, tea.” Gale’s head was in a whirl.
Gale struggled to her feet so suddenly that she banged her head on the low ceiling of the air raid shelter.
“We—we’ve got to get out of here,” she exclaimed. “Just got to down one of those bombers. We—” She stopped short. The roar of more exploding enemy bombs drowned the sound of her voice.
And then, ten times louder, though from some distance off, came another roar.
“You got one of them, sister,” said a voice behind her. “You sure got one.”
Scarcely had the voice died away when there came a second terrific roar. This time it was much closer.
“Two of ’em,” the voice exclaimed. “Say! Night fighting, at that! You’re really good!”
“I wanted three,” was Gale’s instant reply. “Come on, Mac, let’s get out and down one more!”
“Something tells me you have nothing left but your hands to fight with,” said the voice.
“Noth—nothing left?” she stammered.
“I’ll bet you a coke that your outfit is blown to bits,” said the voice. “I’ve seen a lot of bombing, some of it close. Too close. But none as close as that. That bomb came very near sending us all to Glory.”
“That’s right,” Mac agreed. “Uncle Sam’ll love to fix me up with a new gun. I don’t mind that. A change is always welcome.”
“But I had everything fixed just the way I wanted it,” Gale all but wailed.
“Sure,” said the voice. “That’s the way it is in war, and all of life, I guess. Perhaps that’s what war is all about. I wouldn’t know. People get things fixed up just the way they want them—a home—a good job—a fine club—a golf course to play on—lots of friends, and—”
“Then they’re bored to death,” Mac put in.
“You’re just right, they are,” the voice agreed. “And then along comes the war and they cry to Heaven, ‘I had everything fixed just the way I wanted it!’” Suddenly the voice faded.
“Listen!” said Mac.
The sky was filled with sound, the roar of planes, some high pitched, some low, fighters and bombers. The rat-tat-tat of machine guns and the pom-pom of anti-aircraft made hash of it all.
“Our night fighters are up. Good show!” exclaimed the voice. “Your radar wouldn’t do any good now. You’d get the wrong plane. Might as well settle down and enjoy a spot of tea.”
Gale was still angry at this person who, impersonating a whirlwind, had thrown her into the dugout. She was also curious. By this time the charcoal burner gave off a ruddy glow, lighting up the place a bit.
She turned half about. The light fell on a sun-tanned face that seemed in some way at the same time absurdly youthful and very old. The eyes were dark blue and deep-set. The lips were parted in a smile. But there were lines—deep cut lines in that face.
“Who—who are you?” she asked, without meaning to.
“Well, since you’ve asked me,” he laughed in a dry sort of way, “I don’t mind telling you that I’m Jimmie Nightingale, and that I was once a Flying Tiger.”
“A flying Tiger!” Her lips parted in surprise.
“Yep. That’s a fact. But now I’m just a member of the Ferry Command. I ferry all sorts of planes and all kinds of things over the mountains into China.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Over Burma?”
“Naturally.”
“Tell—tell me what it’s like,” came in an awed whisper. “I—perhaps I’m going there.”
“It’s like nothing you ever saw before,” was Jimmie’s reply. “Mountains all piled up in a heap. Rushing streams, giant teakwood forests, head-hunters, villages and temples—all that. And then,”—he caught his breath, “Palm trees, pineapple fields, rice paddies, and again sandy deserts,—such deserts as you never dreamed of. Sands and dust that shakes you and no water to drink. No roads worth mentioning, and silly little brown men setting all sorts of traps to catch you. That’s Burma at its worst and its best.”
“How about the tea, Mac?” Jimmie’s voice dropped. “My throat is dry.”
“Water’s just ready to boil,” said Mac. “Wait. I’ve got some ginger cookies and chocolate bars hidden away here if the rats haven’t taken them.”
“Regular feed! That’s the stuff!” Jimmie enthused.
As for Gale, she dug a comb out from beneath her khaki unionalls and started putting her wind-blown hair to rights. “My name’s Gale Janes,” she volunteered.
“Nice name, but it doesn’t fit. How about Hellcat?” Jimmie asked.
“You don’t have to be terrible to be of some use in the world,” she protested. “Many a gale has moved a big ship.
“You might like to know,” she confided, “That when the time comes, I’m going to Burma with the colonel and his army on his way back—his march of triumph.”
“How nice!” said Jimmie. “Does the colonel know?”
“Not yet, so don’t breathe a word of it.”
“I won’t, but I’ve heard that it’s going to be hard for any woman to get a ride on that trip. There’s going to be a lot of hard fighting.”
“So the WACS will be left behind where it’s safe.” Her voice was filled with scorn. “The clan I belong to goes places and does things. My father was sheriff once in one of the fightingest counties of the Cumberland Mountains in old Kentucky.”
“Is that right? Tell me about it.” Jimmie was all attention.
“I don’t remember too much of it. I was only twelve then. We didn’t stay long, just long enough to sort of clean things up.”
“You and your Dad?” He laughed low.
“Just Dad, that time.” She joined in the laugh. “But we’ve done things together since. And we’d do them again over here.” Her voice went husky. “Dad’s a little bit of all right, but he’s over age and they wouldn’t take him.”
“So you came instead?” Jimmie’s voice was low, friendly.
“Something like that,” she agreed.
“Tell me about the Cumberlands,” Jimmie begged. “I read books about them when I was a boy. They went like this: ‘He jerked a blue barrelled pistol from under his arm and whang! Whang! The desperado bit the dust.’”
“That’s not very accurate, but it will do,” Gale laughed. “Tell me more about Burma and the route you take,” she begged. “Then I’ll tell you about the Cumberlands. Turn about is fair play.”
“The Burma air trail,” he mused. “That’s the toughest trail there is in all the world. No kiddin’. The Burma air route is the worst there ever was. There’s one spot at the crest of that towering ridge that we call ‘Hell’s Half Hour.’ The rocks are like iron hands reaching up to slap you, and the gales come up without a moment’s warning to lift you and whirl you into the sky.
“Some of the boys have crashed there and have never been heard from again.” Jimmie’s voice went husky. “And some of them wandered for weeks in the trackless wilderness until some wild natives picked them up, fed them, and brought them in.
“And then there’s the desert,” he went on. “A forced landing there can mean anything from murder to suicide. But mostly we make it.” He drew a long breath. “I always have.
“But let me tell you one thing, sister.” His voice rose. “We’ll be mighty glad when you and the colonel have blazed the land trail across Burma to China and straight to Tokio. And there are signs.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “There are signs, sister.” His voice trailed off.
At that instant there came the sound of some slight movement at the back of the shelter. Quick as a flash Mac threw the gleam of his electric torch into that dark corner. Its gleam fell on the startled face of a little dark-complected man.
“The black dwarf,” Gale whispered. “He was there when we had that other air raid.”
“What does that mean?” Mac whispered back.
“Who knows? Probably nothing.”
“All the same, I don’t like his looks. I have a good notion to throw him out.”
“Mac! You couldn’t do that. It’s not safe,” she protested.
“There are a lot of things that are not safe in this strange world we’re living in now,” Mac grumbled as he turned his attention to his brewing tea.
“You were going to tell me about your Cumberland Mountain experience,” said Jimmie.
“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “Well, there’s not so much to tell? I was young then. It’s all a bit vague in my mind. Some things were being done down there that shouldn’t have been—too much moonshine and lots of trouble, shooting at the feet of Union organizers who visited the mines, and all that.”
“And your father cleaned all that up?” he suggested.
“Well, yes, after a while. One scene stands out in my memory. Nothing much.” She laughed lightly. “Only you remember events that are rather dramatic, you know.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, it seems that some of the men decided to gang up on Dad.”
“And wipe him out?”
“Something like that. They caught up with him in a big room of the old brick court house. I was with Dad. And was I thrilled!”
“Scared?”
“No! Of course not! I said Dad was with me, didn’t I?”
“Oh, sure. But—”
“Dad didn’t let the gang get too close to him.” She tensed a little. “There were a dozen of those men, all armed. Dad just sort of backed off a little and then crossed his arms over his chest with one hand under each arm.”
“And then what?” he whispered.
“Dad said,” Gale drew a long breath. “I can just hear him now. He said, ‘Well, boys, you can kill me, but I’ll get two of you’.”
“What did you do?” Jimmie asked.
“I climbed up on a chair so I could see what would happen next,” she replied simply.
“Oh—a” Jimmie whistled softly. “What—you—you were magnificent! But what did happen?”
“Nothing. Just nothing at all,” she said.
“For Pete’s sake!” he exclaimed. “Why not?”
“Because those men knew that Dad had a big long blue-barrelled gun in each hand, slung from a holster under his arms, and they knew that he was faster than they were,—a lot faster. They knew that if they started things, two of them would die, and they didn’t know just which two.”
“Sayee!” Jimmie whistled again. “That was really something! And your part was the best of all. Say! I’ll join your clan just any day. What’s the countersign?”
“A good honest handshake.” She put out a hand to give his a good manly grip.
“And then,” she added with a laugh, “I’d say, ‘Well, I’ve got to be going down. Just come down with me.’”
“And I would say?” he asked.
“You would say, ‘I can’t today. Just go up with me’.”
“You got me that time!” Jimmie laughed. “Got me dead to rights. Well, maybe I’ll take you up in my plane over Burma sometimes, even if it is against the rules.”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” Gale exclaimed, as if some urgent need had suddenly pressed in upon her. “IT’s all quiet now.”
This certainly was true, at least for the moment. There was the sound of air battles dying away in the distance.
“Okay,” Mac agreed, snapping on his flashlight. “Let’s have a look.”
A moment later they stood staring at a deep pit dug in the ground by an exploding shell.
“They missed my gun by at least a dozen feet,” Mac laughed low. “Pretty good precision bombing. Or is it?”
“It may have been bad aim,” said Jimmie. “But it didn’t do your gun a bit of good.” He was examining a mass of twisted steel that had been Mac’s gun. “You can contribute that to the next scrap drive.”
“I’ll have nothing to contribute.” Gale did not laugh. To her the things she worked with, tools, scissors, radios, just everything was real, almost a part of her. And her radar set had been blown to bits.
“Come on,” said Mac, “Let’s see what we did to those Jap bombers. That nearest one we brought down should not be far away.”
“No thanks.” Gale shuddered. “I’ll never look at a wrecked plane if I can avoid it. I don’t mind helping to shoot down. That hardly seems real—sort of a game. But the results! I’ll leave them to others.”
“As you like it,” Mac agreed, in a friendly voice.
Mac and Jimmie walked away, but the girl stood there staring at the hole in the ground as if trying to convince herself it was really there. Then suddenly she exclaimed:
“Oh! Good grief! I nearly forgot!”
At that she threw on her flashlight to begin circling that black hole.
Like a reaper mowing a field of grain, she covered just so much ground with each circle of her light.
In the midst of her fifth circle she paused to exclaim: “Oh! Good!”
Bending over she picked something up to thrust it deep in her pocket.
She had been at this for some time with no further discoveries, when suddenly she caught the gleam of another light moving about the edge of the palm trees. Curious, with a little suspicion welling up in her being, still pretending to search, she wandered in the direction of that other light.
The mysterious gleam wavered about on the ground for a space of seconds, then blinked out. Instantly Gale lifted her light, at the same time clicking on a device for doubling its power. The result, considering the time and the place, was rather startling. Within the circle of light, blinking but apparently unmoved, stood a tall, dark complected young woman. Her hair and eyes were very black. She was dressed in a long silk gown of deep purple, dark as night.
“What are you doing here?” Gale asked, still advancing.
As if to meet her challenge, the woman flashed on her own light and allowed it to play upon the American girl’s face.
“Oh! You are one of those lady soldiers. So strange.” The woman spoke in low, musical tones. Her English was perfect, but she spoke with a peculiar accent.
“I am a WAC,” said Gale. “And I still want to know what you are doing here. These are military grounds. Only those in uniform are allowed to be here without military escort.”
“This is my country!” the woman replied sharply. “I go where I please. There has been a bombing. Is it not so? I find the results of these bombings of intense interest. Why should I not observe them?”
“Because it is against military orders,” Gale snapped.
“You are not of the Military Police. You are only one of those women who were sent because there are not enough men in America to fight a war.” There was a suggestion of scorn in the woman’s voice.
“I am not a member of the military police,” Gale replied in a steady voice. (Inside she was seething with anger.) “I can, however, report you, and shall do so unless you leave the grounds at once.”
“In that case I shall go. But without question, we shall meet again.” The woman laughed mirthlessly. “I am known to your colonel and many others of some importance.” At that the woman in purple gathered up the edges of her long gown and proudly marched away into the night.
“I got what I wanted,” Gale thought. “Wonder if it’s what I wanted, after all?” At that she resumed her circling search, but without visible results. So interested was she in her search that she started violently when a voice said:
“What are you looking for?”
“Oh! It’s you, Jimmie Nightingale!” she exclaimed.
“Sure!” Jimmie grinned. “But if it’s your radar set you’re looking for, you might as well forget it. All you’ll find won’t help you much.”
“No. It won’t help me.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. He was very near her now. “But it might help someone else a lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know about radar, don’t you?”
“A little.”
“It’s a marvelous invention. The Navy has used it to locate enemy boats thirty miles away, at night, in a thick fog. Yes, and has sent the boats to the bottom before the Japs knew they were anywhere near.”
“Yes, I know,” said Jimmie. “And I’ve been told that the fellow who caught the first hint of the Jap planes approaching Pearl Harbor was experimenting with radar. And so, what about it?”
“Lots about it,” Gale whispered. “Our enemies have radar sets of a sort, but not nearly as good as ours. We have secrets in our radar sets that they don’t know about. You’d find them, the three most important ones, done up in three gadgets,—none of them very large. See this?” She held up the things she had picked up only a short time before. “That’s one of them. That bomb tore it from my radar cabinet. It’s almost perfect still, for all that.”
“I see what you are getting at.” Jimmie’s eyes brightened. “If our enemies found those trinkets scattered around here they’d know the secrets.”
“That’s right. Please help me find the rest of them.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” He snapped on his light.
* * * * * * * *
“Boy! Oh boy! We sure messed up those two bombers!” a voice exclaimed a moment later. It was Mac, just back from his tour of inspection.
“Gale, old girl!” he exclaimed, “You’ll get a medal this time, whether you like it or not.”
“If I do, I’ll trade it for a new radar set,” she replied soberly.
“Oh, you’ll get that new radar set and a swell place to use it,” Mac exclaimed. “Radar experts better than you just don’t happen. You two wait here a bit.” Mac’s voice dropped. “I’ll get in my jeep and spin around to make a report. The phone’s dead.”
“Don’t hurry back,” Jimmie chuckled. “We’ve got an appointment with destiny.”
At that Mac hurried away and the two of them, Gale and Jimmie, continued their search for the secrets of radar.
For a full half hour, with flashlights painting circular patterns of light on the grey earth, they continued the search. Twice Jimmie came to her with the query:
“How about this?”
Both times the reply was: “Nope. That’s not it.”
The third time was the charm. “Jimmie!” she cried. “That’s really one of the secrets of radar! It’s in perfect condition, too! Oh! Jimmie! You’re a jewel!”
“I’m glad you think so,” he replied soberly. “I was afraid you’d think I was a heel the way I dragged you into that raid shelter a while back.”
“I—I didn’t like it,” she admitted. “But that’s all forgiven now.”
“Really,”—his voice was husky—“I did just the right thing. In war, you have to be daring but must never be reckless. Your life, Gale, is the one priceless thing you have to give to your country. Your radar set, your car, my plane,—all that we have and use, can be replaced. When you and I are gone, it’s final. So for your family’s sake, for Uncle Sam, and for me, save yourself for a good long fight.”
“Jimmie,” she whispered, “That’s a grand speech. I won’t forget it, ever.”
“But there’s one more secret of radar lying around loose. We just must find it,” she whispered.
“It may be gone for good,” was his answer. “But we can try.”
That is just what they did for another quarter of an hour, but without success. Then Mac came rattling back in his jeep.
“What’s up?” he called when he saw their circling lights.
“Gale lost the three secrets,” was Jimmie’s reply. “We’ve found two of them, but the third is still missing.”
“Skip it,” said Mac, when this puzzle had been taken apart for him. “This has been a hard day. We need sleep. Here comes the guard. Not a soul will be allowed on the grounds before sunrise.”
“I saw a woman,” Gale began.
“Oh, sure,” Mac broke in. “I’ve seen a lot of them. Some I wish I’d never met. Come on. Hop in. Let’s go.”
“Here comes the guard” was right, and there was no mistaking its coming. A jeep came careening around a cluster of palm trees.
In it rode four doughboys singing at the tops of their voices.
“Oh, we won’t go home until morning, we won’t go home until morning, we won’t go home until morning, and that is Irish too.”
“Any smart woman could tie and blindfold that bunch,” Gale grumbled.
“All right. Stick around and try it,” Mac challenged. “Or else climb into this jeep.”
Gale capitulated. She and Jimmie climbed in and they rattled away. But even as she rode through the shadows, Gale could close her eyes and see the tall, stately figure of that woman in purple.
Mac found three of his weary comrades waiting patiently for his return to the parking space. Like Mac, they had their billets in the city and hoped for a ride in. They got it, too, for Jimmie volunteered to ride with Gale in her jeep. Since a jeep is one of those vest pocket sized imitations of a real car, whose front seat is comfortably and delightfully crowded by two people, this was no great sacrifice on Jimmie’s part.
“Chums for a night,” he murmured as he slipped into his place and the jeep went gliding away. “That’s war for you!” he mused. “You are here today, and away tomorrow, and tomorrow may be your last day on earth.”
“So you live that day as if it were your last, with all the excitement and happiness you can pick into it,” was Gale’s comment on war and life.
“Happiness, yes. Loads of it!” he agreed. “Excitement? Well, I don’t know. At least, if you still hope to stretch that day into several more—and who doesn’t?—you don’t go out and make a fool of yourself, get drunk, and all that.”
“I should hope not!” she exclaimed. “Not if you are a flyer. I’ve heard that high octane gas and alcohol don’t mix.”
“You’re darn tootin’, they don’t,” he exclaimed. “I’ve seen it tried, but the fellow who tried it didn’t come back to tell us how it worked. He saw two zeroes and thought they were only one.
“But say!” his voice dropped. “I’ve just got one more day in the city,—a day and a night, and then I’m off on a dangerous mission—big four-motored job, loaded to the top with bombs, little gifts for the little brown devils. How about you and me having a night off together?”
“This night is spent,” she laughed softly.
“But not tomorrow night? How about it?” His tone voiced his eagerness.
“That—I think that will be swell, if I can get the night off—and I suppose I can,” she agreed.
“Sure you can! What chance is there of locating Jap planes with one secret of radar missing?”
“Not a chance. But, O dear! I’ll have to be out there at break of dawn looking for the third secret.”
“You needn’t let that bother you. It may be blown to bits.”
“Something seems to tell me it’s not. Anyway I must do my best to find it.”
“If you do find it you’ll want to celebrate,” he insisted.
“And if I don’t find it I’ll need consolation.”
“Nice, either way,” he laughed. “So I’ll be around to—”
“My club.”
“Oh! You live in a club house?”
“Wait till you see it!”
“I’ll be there at 8 P. X. and we’ll make a night of it. Nothing rough. Just the swellest dinner you ever ate, a little dancing, and confessions. There must always be confessions before a parting that may be forever.”
Gale did not know exactly what he meant by “confessions”, but let it go at that.
* * * * * * * *
She did not find the “third secret of radar” next day, and that in spite of four hours of searching in the hot sun. “It’s not here,” she told herself at last, “But I’m still sure it’s somewhere around here.”
That evening Jimmie Nightingale called at the appointed hour.
As he stepped into the big, cool lounge of the Club his eyes wandered from corner to corner. He took in all the big easy chairs where girls in slacks, shorts and robes lounged in comfort. He saw the white-clad attendants and the gleaming glasses at the bar, listened to the low murmur of voices and the whir of electric fans, then exclaimed under his breath:
“Boy! Oh boy! This is something!” A strange smile played around his lips as she joined him.
“And you’d give all this up for a tent on some mountainside by a dusty road,” was his quiet comment. “Or at the edge of a desert? You’d stand in the mud for an hour with a mess kit in your hand waiting for a service of ‘gold fish’—meaning canned salmon—or ‘corned Willie’—which is soldier for corned beef? You’d sleep on a canvas cot, or on the ground, with all sorts of insects crawling round you? You want to really be in the war? Why?”
“Just to be a soldier, Jimmie.” Her voice was husky. “To be a real soldier like my Dad. Just to do my part.”
“Come on,” her voice rose, “This is our night. There may never be another. Let’s not talk about war. Let’s just have us a time.”
It was their night, just that. He took her to a place she had never so much as heard of, a gorgeous place to dine and dance. Behind living palm trees slow fans wafted breezes from the distant sea. From farther back, quite out of sight, a strange Oriental band played bewitching music. Gale could name neither the instruments nor the tunes, but together they invited one to dance.
They did dance for a full hour until the aroma of strange, appetizing food drew them to a table.
A waiter with gleaming black eyes set their table, then placed the menu before them.
Without looking up Jimmie ordered for them both.
“It’s no use asking you what you’d like,” he stated without apology. “You won’t know what you’ve eaten when you’ve finished. I know that. I’m that way myself tonight. It’s nice to be sort of delirious, half crazy, once or twice a year. It sort of clears one’s brain.”
“That’s right,” she smiled at him in a strange way. “This is our night. There may never be another.”
“Something seems to tell me we are to meet again.” He did not smile.
“Over ‘Hell’s Half Hour’ perhaps,” she suggested.
“Stranger things than that have happened in this crazy war of ours. But if this is our last meeting,” he was serious again, “I’m not afraid. In war, after quite a time, you stop being afraid. To die is not so tough. I died once, as hard as anyone can die.”
“How, Jimmie?” she whispered huskily.
“A Jap shot my plane from under me. There were four of them. I got three, but the other one got me,” he explained.
“I had to bail out. In getting away I hit my head on something and went out like a match. When I came out of it—two hours later—my watch was still running—I was lying on a bed of flowers beside a stream on the only flat, treeless bit of land for miles.”
“Flow—flowers for a funeral,” she murmured.
“Perhaps,” he agreed, “but not for mine. But I ask you. Didn’t I die? If I’d gotten a little harder crack it would have split my skull and that would have been the end. What’s the difference?”
“But if you’d gone into another world?” she spoke.
“I don’t know much about that,” he replied soberly. “I hope there’s a future life. Here’s hoping. That’s all I can say.”
“Here’s hoping.” She held up two fingers, crossed. “But Jimmie!” she exclaimed, bringing him back to his story. “We left you lying on a bed of flowers with a cracked head.”
“Oh, it wasn’t so badly cracked,” he laughed. “I washed off the blood, tied my handkerchief about my bean and stumbled along until a native in a canoe caught up with me. The native liked the looks of my knife, so I traded it with him for a lift back to civilization. And, so, here we are.”
“That,” she said, “was a happy ending.”
“Jimmie,”—she leaned forward—“You’d be interested in what Dad said to me when I went away.”
“I’m sure I would,” Jimmie grinned.
“He said, ‘Gale, you’re going to war. You’re not the sort to choose the soft and easy way. Sooner or later you’ll find yourself in a foxhole. They say there’s a lot of religion in foxholes. Maybe so but I never saw much of it in France during the first World War, and I was in lots of foxholes,—Chateau Thierry, Belleau Woods, the Argonne’.
“He said that, Jimmie.” Her eyes were shining. “Then he said, ‘I’ve never been so strong for the kind of religion you get in big buildings with steeples and towers. It’s all right, I guess, but for my part I stand alone with God.
“‘Yes, I believe in God’. He said that, Jimmie. ‘That’s not all,’ he said, ‘I trust God, just as I have trusted my fellow men. They’ve treated me fairly well. I expect God to be as good to them, or even better. When my work’s done here, if I discover there’s another world after this one, I expect God to give me a square deal and a real interesting job over there, and that’s all I ask.’
“Jimmie,”—there was a glint of tears in her eyes, “Wasn’t that a strange speech for a father to make when his only daughter was going to war?”
“Pretty swell, I’d say!” Jimmie brushed his forehead. “Makes me think I’d like to meet him.”
“Perhaps you will meet him, Jimmie,” she whispered.
“Could be,” he agreed.
“You will, Jimmie, if—”
“If we both come out of this thing alive. Here’s hoping.”
Lifting a glass, he was joined by the girl in a silent toast to the future.
And then, there was the waiter with a big tray of food. Jimmie had been mistaken. Gale did know what she was eating, and was delighted. She could not have named one of the dishes, but she did know that this one was a strange new soup with a wild tang to it like the glorious breath of a tropical wilderness; that that one was a rare combination of fruits some of which she had never before tasted, and that this was chicken cooked in a new and delectable manner.
“Jimmie!” she exclaimed. “How did you ever discover this place!”
“I was taken to it by a very high ranking British officer,” he replied. “Not that his rank mattered. Men are all alike to me. I neither honor nor trust them too much until I know them well.”
“But how did it happen that he brought you here?” she asked.
“I hate to tell you.” He was plainly embarrassed. “But it seems I shot down quite a lot of Jap Zeroes just at a time when they needed shooting down, so this brass hat who turned out to be quite a fine fellow, got some of his friends together and gave a party in my honor.
“I was bored,” he admitted frankly. “All I wanted to do was to go out and shoot down more Zeroes. I wasn’t doing it for glory but for China. I had seen what the Zeroes had done to defenseless little people—men, women and children—in China, and I wanted to pay them back for it.”
“And I suppose that’s how you feel right now.” Gale gave him a teasing smile. “A little bored.”
Jimmie grinned back at her, then exclaimed—“Not on your life!”
Then suddenly Gale forgot all this. “Jimmie!” she exclaimed, nodding toward a table in the corner. “See that woman in purple?”
“Yes,” he whispered back. “Rather striking, isn’t she? An Indian woman of very high class. Perhaps a little European blood in her veins. But what about her?”
“She’s the woman I saw out at the field last night. She was searching the field just as I was until I made her go away. Jimmie!” she gripped his arm. “I suspect her of having the third secret of radar.”
“What? Impossible!”
“But why impossible?” she demanded.