Roy J. Snell

“ 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. ”

“ When the great throng stood up, when some soldiers struck the chords of Star Spangled Banner and those men, twenty thousand of them, roared out the national anthem, Gale felt her soul lifted to the stars that shone above the treetops.
The colonel stepped to the microphone and like a football coach before the big game of the season, gave the boys a pep-talk that was brief as it was impressive. ”

“ They truly needed no urging. And so, with the little man hopping on ahead and the flaming torch making black giants of all the great trees, they found their way down the mountainside.
When they reached the first house at the foot of the hill, as if afraid of being seen, the little monk cast his torch on the ground, dashed out the flames—then vanished into the night.
“Such a weird experience,” Isabelle murmured.
“Tomorrow I shall visit your colonel,” Gale declared. “I shall say, ‘Colonel, I no longer feel safe in India. ”

“ Isabelle suggested. “There’s nothing I like better than following a strange path, and I’ve heard there’s a temple up here somewhere.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” Gale led the way.
The path grew steep and rocky as they advanced, but the rocks were worn smooth, as if ten million pairs of feet had passed that way.
“Ten million,” Gale thought. “India is very old. But where could they all have been going?”
The forest trees that loomed above the trail grew thicker and taller as they advanced until at last they shut out the sun. ”

“ Gale got her answer to the question regarding the absence of U. S. fighter planes. Long after she had given up hope, when the formation of enemy bombers and fighters were all but over the forest, all of a sudden, seeming to come from every side at once, a great flight of U. S. fighters filled the air.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Jan exclaimed in wild excitement. “Now there will be a big battle before our very eyes!”
The moments that followed will live long in Gale’s memory. Swarms of American flyers filled the sky. To her this was no mystery. To the enemy pilots it all must have seemed a feat of magic. ”

“ I’ve never been there, but I can see it all the same.
“We’ll steal out of the city like ships going out to join a convoy,” she whispered as she and Gale climbed into the rear seat of Jan’s jeep. “There’ll be a dozen cars in our section,—the colonel, his guard, and a few others. A convoy of trucks will leave by another road. Other cars will strike out by themselves. In the end, when we’re a hundred miles on our way, we’ll discover that there are quite a lot of us after all.” ”

“ I lived in China a long time before the war. I speak Chinese like a Chinaman. I was in China for three years as an observer, watching the Japs fight the Chinese.
“I’m a hard man. War is my business. But China wrung my heart. I have seen whole families, men, women and children who had tramped five hundred miles to a place of safety where they could start again. And always with a merry laugh on their lips, a laugh at Fate. The Chinese people will win the war. A people who laugh at Fate as they have laughed, cannot lose. ”

“ Mai-da paused.
“We take life as we find it,” was Gale’s slow reply. “If there is evil in the world, if bad men and women seem to have their way, we want to know about it. But all the time we try to kid ourselves into believing that ‘God is in His heavens—all’s right with the world.’
“And perhaps we’re not kidding ourselves so much after all,” she added softly. “Tell us about the time you nearly lost your home, Mai-da.” ”

“ But to Isabelle, who was interested in the life lived by all the people of the world, this seemed a charming interlude in the midst of a great and terrible war.
They were not, however, to be free from the war for long. On the fifth day of their stay, with the remark that her jeep was getting rheumatism in its joints, Jan drove back for an hour’s visit at camp. She had not been gone long when just at twilight from the west came the roar of heavy planes. No one paid any attention at first, believing them to be American planes. ”

“ Gale demanded.
“If you ask me,” said Isabelle, “I’d tell you that it was Pete’s outfit coming into roost beneath the Secret Forest. He’s with the tanks, you know.”
“More than that. Much more!” Than Shwe sprang to her feet to dance a jig. “Then what is it?” Gale repeated.
“It’s what the colonel calls ‘The whole damned outfit’.” Than Shwe grew vastly excited. “It’s not just tanks, but tanks, guns, men, trucks, trucks, trucks, kitchens, food, guns, tanks, Tommy guns, and men, men, men,—the most soldiers you ever saw.” Than Shwe danced all over the place. ”

“ Isabelle laughed happily. “How does he stand any storm? How did he stand defeat in Burma? How did he stand the long tough retreat? Like a man and a colonel, that’s how. And I don’t think—” the words came slowly—“I don’t think anyone is going to tell him how he is to use men and women under his command.”
“That,” said Gale, “is swell.”
Just then a miniature cyclone hit the place. That is to say Gale’s other roommate breezed in and with her was Than Shwe, the little Burmese nurse.
“Jan, this is our new roommate,” Gale said with a grin. ”

“ Always the team of Gale and Mac were on hand to watch the skies for enemy bombers. Since the days were bright they did their work only at night. Twice Gale spotted oncoming marauders, twice Mac, and night-fighting U. S. planes blasted them from the skies.
Jan stuck to her jeep. She was always at the colonel’s service. At times she drove the colonel about, at others she did some rough riding with tough buck privates, and enjoyed it. “Golly!” she would exclaim as she came in covered with sweat, dust and grease, “this is the life! It really is!” ”

“ Jan asked in surprise.
“The colonel wouldn’t have sent out all those planes to attack the Jap bombers if this was to be an important point much longer. That’s sure to tip them off to the fact that there’s something big around here somewhere. They’ll be back.”
“Oh! They’ll be back!” Jan was more frightened than ever.
“Oh! Snap out of it, Jan!” Gale scolded. “We joined up to help fight a war! We’re not worth much if we’re scared all the time!”
“Sure.” Jan’s ample figure stiffened. “Sure. That’s right. You can count on me in the pinches every time.” ”

“ Now I find myself thinking of these strange people of India. Yes, and of China, Japan and Russia. But most of all, of these people of India—they hold my attention. They say there are a billion people in Asia. There are only a few of our people in America, compared to that. Life is strange. All this disturbs me. Sometimes I almost wish I hadn’t asked to come.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Gale exclaimed, squaring her shoulders. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jimmie said. “That will get you a medal.”
“I don’t want a medal,” was Gale’s quick reply. “Show me Tokio. That’s all I ask.”
239
In half an hour her request was granted. They came out of a cloud to see a great city bathed in bright sunshine. Smoke rolled from factories making airplanes, tanks and guns for destroying American boys. Trains sped away with their loads of hate. All the city was busy and perhaps happy. Who knows?
“That,” said Jimmie, “is Tokio and yonder is our target.” He nodded toward an airfield where a hundred planes resting on the runways tossed back the sun-light. ”

“ And I have asked myself, ‘Are American women more important in the sight of God than these?’ Like American women Chinese women bear children and love them. They help to make a home for them. If occasion arises, they die for them cheerfully. No woman can do more. And these are the people we are to fight for. China is our destination—China and then Tokio. Time is precious. Too many already have perished. We must do all we can, all of us, men and women alike.”
“Yes.” Gale’s voice was husky. “Yes. That’s what I think. I—I would like to start tomorrow for Burma and then China.” ”

“ You can’t stick it. No one can at the last second, for you see it’s not really nothing that’s going from the earth. It’s YOU, and you suddenly decide that you don’t want to go—that you really want terribly to stay.”
“I think I know what you mean,” she said slowly. “All right, Jimmie.” She stood up. “I’ll join you at dawn.”
Ten minutes after that dawn Gale found herself on board the most gorgeous four-motored bomber she had ever seen. Jimmie was at the stick and she frantically at work studying the ship’s radar set, teaching herself in one short hour all she needed to know. ”

“ All the time she was listening, watching. The plane might return. The roar of motors, the rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire now seemed far away. But who could tell what a moment might bring?
With her companion lying on a sunny rock, Jan rushed back to the cellar for a gallon thermos bottle filled with cold water.
Back at Gale’s side, in her excitement she poured the entire contents of the bottle on Gale’s face. Some of it went into Gale’s mouth. Suddenly she sat up, coughing and spouting water.
“Oh! Oh! Thank God you’re not dead!” Jan was fairly beside herself with joy. ”

“ Gale told of her adventures with the tall, thin man in the temple back at the city, and of the other times she had seen him.
“Looks as if the Woman in Purple and the Black Dwarf who is sometimes a tall, thin man, were on your trail. But that,” the colonel straightened up in his chair, “That’s not why I sent for you. Tonight,”—he leaned forward to speak in a whisper—“Tonight at one A.M. is the Zero-hour. The big push starts then.” ”

“ War is never like that.”
Then, as if she had heard a phone ring,—which she had not—she sprang to her feet and hurried to her station.
Her radar set had not been humming more than a minute when she called excitedly:
“Jan! Come quick!”
“Coming!” Jan bounded into the lookout. “What’s up?”
“Plenty! Off a hundred miles due east the sky is filled with planes. Looks like a raid. Get headquarters at once!”
“Here you are,” Jan announced twenty seconds later.
“Headquarters?” Gale tried to keep her excitement out of her voice. “This is G. G. J. Looks like a raid. ”

“ Mac straightened up suddenly. “What? You think—” He stopped short, stared at her, and then in a changed voice said:
“Forget the third secret of radar! You’re as bad as the colored soldier in the first World War who was looking for his arm that had been blown off. When they told him the arm couldn’t be put back, he said, ‘Yas sir. I know dat. But thar’s a thirty dollar wrist watch on that arm!’”
Mac laughed at his own joke. Then he said:
“This is war. You can’t expect to get everything back when a block buster drops close to you.” ”

“ In half an hour the sky was filled with planes. American fighters ganged up like catbirds after crows, to down Jap bombers before they reached their objective. Nor were the fighter planes all the trouble those Jap planes met that day. Together with twenty other gunners, Gale’s friend Mac was stationed on a rocky ledge outside the forest. A lucky shot at the very start brought a bomber down so close to him that he was obliged to bury himself in a bush to escape its flying parts. Even Isabelle’s Pete had driven his tank to the edge of the forest and was having a go at them with a machine gun. ”

“ There came a roar from the hills. American planes went swooping down. A short, sharp fight, and the Jap planes vanished.
And the procession moved steadily forward. After the tanks came guns, and after these an endless procession of trucks loaded with men and equipment. After these, most impressive of all, came marching men, thousands of them. Rifles and Tommy-guns over shoulders, pack on backs, they tramped steadily forward.
Isabelle swallowed hard as she whispered, “God, this is too much. Why must all this happen?”
But Than Shwe was dancing. “The people of Burma, my people, are starving. ”

“ Gale agreed. She was standing now, and towered above him. “Someone did it, but not I. There was a man here when we came.”
“We!” he screamed. “Then there are others?”
“Only my companion,” she replied. “Don’t forget, we are soldiers—American soldiers.”
“But you are a woman!” He stared.
“Soldiers in uniform, all the same.”
“Ah, yes,” he sighed. “In China too the women fight. We shall win the war. When women fight they never lose. ”

“ You,”—he placed a hand on Gale’s shoulder, “Are to be the guardian angel of the army.”
“An angel?” Gale gasped. “Well, hardly that, colonel.”
“Exactly that,” he insisted. “Radar is much better than harps for fighting wars. Harps for angels of peace, radar for guardian angels of war.” He laughed in a strange sort of way.
“Look!” He pointed down to the forest that lay beneath them. “Soon beneath those trees tens of thousands of soldiers will be sleeping, waiting for the big push. Good American boys, they are, the kind that came from your own home town.” ”