pushed close to the side of the plane, beamed and bobbed his shaven
head up and down.
"Whoever comes from Serrangi, is always expected," the man said in
perfect German. "Permit me to introduce myself. I am Captain Kito. It
will be my honor to escort you to where General Kashomia waits. Will
you be so pleased as to descend from your plane?"
It wasn't until he had climbed down and was facing the Jap that Dave
realized the man carried a helmet and goggles in his hand. Undoubtedly
the man was the pilot of the pursuit plane that had come up to lead him
down. The little Jap stood stiff as a post, then bowed from the waist
at the two new arrivals like a mechanical doll. Then, whirling, he spat
out something at the others grouped about. They instantly split and
fell back to form a pathway. The Jap looked back at Dave and Freddy and
showed his buck teeth in a broad smile, then started forward rapidly
for all the world like a little brown terrier on the end of a leash.
The way led past the rows of planes, and stores of fuel and bombs, to
the jungle huts on the far side. There was a clearing in front of the
huts and several Japanese pilots were lounging about, taking things
easy. They flashed quick glances at Dave and Freddy, but what they saw
apparently didn't interest them much, for they all immediately resumed
whatever they were doing. Perhaps visitors to this secret airdrome were
common to them. Or perhaps it was part of their training to show no
interest in anything save the knifing of a man in the back. Preferably
one who had been their friend!
The squat Jap pilot finally came to a stop in front of the largest
of the huts. It was constructed mostly of bamboo, and on stilts that
allowed a three foot clearance between the floor and the soft spongy
ground. Evidently General Kashomia was taking no chances with crawling
jungle things, human or otherwise! The Jap paused before the hut, bowed
reverently before it, then turned to Dave and Freddy.
"If you will please be so good as to ascend," he said, and gestured
with his hand at the little bamboo ladder. "I will go and order that
food and drink be prepared for you when you have completed your
business with General Kashomia."
With a parting bob of his head the Jap pilot pivoted about and went
off at his restless gait. Dave grinned at Freddy, then shrugged and
started up the ladder. A few seconds later he was standing on solid
plank flooring and facing three men who sat cross legged Japanese
style about a table that wasn't over eighteen inches off the floor.
Three pairs of brownish-black eyes stared at him expressionlessly,
and unwaveringly. In an odd sort of way he was reminded of the nerve
rasping moments when he and Freddy had first entered Serrangi's room in
the Devil's Den. If there was any difference it was that the eyes of
these three dressed in the battle uniforms of high ranking Japanese air
force officers showed even less expression than had Serrangi's hypnotic
eyes. The same hunch came to Dave that had come to him in Serrangi's
place. He went ramrod stiff and flung up his right arm, fingers
extended stiff and close together.
"_Heil Hitler!_" he shouted.
"_Heil Hitler!_" Freddy Farmer at his side echoed, only louder.
The Jap officer seated in the middle inclined his head slightly and
made a little motion with one hand that was probably an acknowledgment
of the greeting. There was nothing particularly military about it,
however. Nor respectful, for that matter, and Dave had the sneaky
feeling that the name of Adolf Hitler didn't cut such a terrible lot
of ice with the Japs in this part of the world. They had business of
their own to attend to that was thousands of miles removed from Berlin.
Also, of late the Nazis were getting belted all over the place by the
hard hitting Russians. They had come within thirty miles of Moscow to
be stopped cold, and Hitler's boast to spend Christmas in the Kremlin
was fast going right out the window.
"We come from Serrangi in Singapore," Dave finally said when the three
Japs just continued to stare at them. "We come to give something to
General Kashomia. You are General Kashomia?"
Dave looked questioningly at the middle Jap, and the man inclined his
head again.
"I am General Kashomia," he said in flawless Berlin German, and
extended a bony hand. "Give to me what you bring from Serrangi in
Singapore."
A tiny almost indistinguishable spark of light had flickered up in the
son of Nippon's eyes. But apart from that he gave the impression that
he was no more interested in what Dave handed to him than he would be
in last week's newspaper. He took the tight roll of paper that looked
like a pencil and without a word handed it to the officer on his
right. That man took a knife from his belt and deftly slit the outer
wrapping its entire length and smoothed out flat the five or six sheets
contained inside. As though he had peeled and prepared an orange for
his master he handed the lot back to General Kashomia.
The high ranker accepted it just as blank faced and nonchalant as
before. Then with a quick stiffening of his legs he rose up onto his
feet.
"I will learn what Serrangi has to tell me," he said, and waved for
Dave and Freddy to squat down. "Be seated and rest yourselves after
your long journey. A _very_ long journey for the type of plane you
flew."
Brown black eyes bored into Dave's as General Kashomia spoke the last.
Then the Jap turned quickly and disappeared through a bamboo laced door
at the rear. Dave and Freddy squatted down, looked at each other for
a brief instant, and then gave their attention to the two remaining
Jap officers. It was like giving their attention to the stone lions in
front of the New York Public Library. The two Japs just squatted there
and stared off into space as though nothing else existed. Dave stood
the nerve racking silence for a moment, and then broke it.
"Doesn't your honored General Kashomia believe we come from Singapore?"
he asked harshly.
Brown black eyes pivoted around in heavy lidded sockets to focus
on him, but neither Jap uttered a sound. Presently one of them was
apparently struck with the bright idea of hand signals. He pointed at
Dave's mouth, then at his own ears, and shrugged to indicate he neither
spoke nor understood the German tongue. Dave relaxed, then almost
jumped up straight in the air as Freddy Farmer whispered hoarsely in
his ear.
"The swine probably lies!" he said. "I'm sure he speaks our German
tongue as well as we do. Yes! You and I will have much to report when
we return to Berlin."
For a brief instant Dave thought that Freddy had gone nuts, but when he
noticed that neither of the Japs so much as batted an eye, and caught
Freddy Farmer's faint sigh of relief, he realized that the words had
been spoken to catch the Japs off guard. To insult them and see whether
they did understand German or not. But evidently they didn't for
Freddy's swine insult sailed right over their shaven heads.
"Take it easy!" Dave breathed at Freddy. "The one in the next room
understands us, you know. I don't feel very much like having my throat
cut today. Don't get too smart with these fellows. They may be tough,
too."
"I won't," the English youth grunted. "But all that business out there.
It's unbelievable! It makes your blood run cold."
"Not mine," Dave murmured. "It was frozen stiff before we started.
But.... Oh-oh!"
The bamboo laced door swung open and General Kashomia reappeared.
He was as blank faced as ever save for two dull reddish spots of
excitement on his cheeks. His step was quicker, too, and there was a
ring in whatever he sing-songed at his two lesser ranks. They turned
to him at once, their eyes lighted up, and they both vigorously bobbed
their heads up and down and seemed to chant sounds of their native
tongue. General Kashomia answered them, and they shut up. Then the
senior officer squatted down in the middle and fixed his eyes on the
two R.A.F. aces.
"My humble apologies for even thinking you could have come from
elsewhere but Serrangi in Singapore," he said. "And the highest praise
from myself and all my countrymen for so spectacular a flight. It is
one I should not like to do in anything but a large plane. You are
indeed a credit to the Luftwaffe."
"It was a small undertaking," Dave said with a boastful shrug. "Most
any pilot and navigator in the Luftwaffe could have made it. I
understand, then, that we have brought you good news, yes?"
The Jap general's lids contracted slightly, and the tiny gleam leaped
into his eyes again.
"Serrangi always sends one good news," he said slowly. "That is why he
is a wealthy man. There is one part that is not clear, however. The new
location of Singapore Island's water supply. There has been a second
underground reservoir constructed near Mandai?"
If it was a trick question meant to trap the boys, it fell flatter than
yesterday's pancakes. Both Dave and Freddy shook their heads. And it
was Freddy who answered the question ... truthfully.
"We know almost nothing of Singapore, General Kashomia," he said. "We
have spent but one day and a night in the Singapore area. The good news
that Serrangi gives to you, he did not give to us. It was but by a bit
of good fortune that we were able to act as couriers."
If that news surprised General Kashomia he did not show it. However,
his next words indicated that he wasn't getting all of the picture,
yet.
"Strangers to Singapore?" he murmured. Then, "But not of course to
Serrangi?"
"Yes!" Dave shot right back at him and got a little comfort and
satisfaction out of the shadow of annoyed bewilderment that passed over
the Jap's face.
"That is interesting," the son of Nippon said presently. "You will be
good enough to explain, please? You are strangers to Singapore, and to
Serrangi, also? Yet you fly here to where I wait, and place the means
of a great military triumph in my hands? I have spent much time in
Berlin, but I am afraid I shall never fully understand you Germans. The
words you speak confuse me."
For a crazy second Dave was tempted to give the Jap a cockeyed story
that would practically set him on his ear with perplexity. On second
thought, though, he killed the urge. And for two very good reasons.
One was because the Jap might have some means of checking his words,
and, considering their immediate situation, it might not go so well for
Freddy and himself to be caught in a lie. The second reason was because
his eyes had become completely accustomed to the interior of the hut
on stilts, and he was able to see the array of military maps hung on
the walls. They included all sections of that part of the world, and
although the Japanese paint brush notations meant nothing to him, a
series of lines and arrows drawn on the maps had started his heart
thumping against his ribs with suppressed excitement. Unless he was all
wrong the maps definitely proved that here at Raja was the center of a
Japanese spider's web of death and intrigue that reached far out in all
directions.
And so Dave settled himself a bit more comfortably and told General
Kashomia the same story he had told Serrangi. The Jap listened in stony
faced silence right through to the end. When Dave finished he asked
a few pointed questions, and appeared satisfied with the answers the
two R.A.F. aces gave him. However, not because the blank expression on
his face altered any. Simply because he shrugged and stopped asking
questions.
"We Japanese have long admired your great Luftwaffe," the little brown
son of Nippon finally said. "As you probably know, there have been
Luftwaffe instructors in Japan for many years. They have taught us
much, and the hour fast approaches when we shall prove we were good
pupils. Yes, the news you bring me from Serrangi, in Singapore, makes
our great hour approach at great speed."
The blank, inscrutable face lighted up with a seething inner flame for
a brief instant, and the Jap's brown black eyes slid around to glance
quickly at the array of maps. A pointed question hovered on the tip of
Dave's lips, but before he could get it off Freddy Farmer spoke up.
"As we left Serrangi," the English youth said gravely, "there was
mention of a request you might be so good as to grant us."
"Request?" the Jap echoed in a hissing voice, as his eyes fairly
snapped around to Freddy's face. "Then you did make that wonderful
flight ... for a price?"
It was a wonderful opening for a bit of play acting by Freddy, and the
English youth was quick to take full advantage of the opportunity. He
puffed out his chest, pulled in his chin, and glared at the Jap general.
"Everything we do, we do only for the great love we have for our
Fuehrer, and our Fatherland!" he shouted. "The request that might be
made has to do only with further service we might give to our glorious
mutual cause."
"I humble myself before you," the Jap murmured and bowed low. "Your
first words watered the seed of a different thought within me. I was
mistaken. This request. What is it then?"
"Between his words," Freddy said slowly as the pounding of his own
heart kept time with Dave's, "Serrangi hinted of great disaster to
befall the British in Singapore. He whispered the suggestion that we
beg of you the honor of taking part in the delivery of this great blow.
His hints told us plainly that it would be a sight we would remember
to our graves. Our Fuehrer has taught us to always be a soldier, and
to always obey orders. We are here in Raja, so we are your soldiers,
and your orders are orders we would obey even as though they came
from the lips of our own Fuehrer. If you so order, we will not move
one step from Raja. But it is my dearest wish, and that of my famous
Luftwaffe comrade, here, that you do not give such an order. We pray
and hope that our eyes, our hands, and our bodies may help you avenge
at Singapore the Luftwaffe losses against the British Royal Air Force
last winter. We took part in that air battle against the English and
it would put joy in our hearts if you would permit us to help take
the lives of ten British at Singapore for every one of our Luftwaffe
friends we with our own eyes saw fall over Britain."
The speech was one of the best Dave had ever heard drop from Freddy
Farmer's lips, and it was all he could do to look pleadingly at General
Kashomia, and not leap to his feet and give his English pal a great
big hand. Nor was Dave the only one impressed. The Jap general stared
at Freddy with the faint light of pleased admiration in his eyes. He
presently nodded his head and showed his big teeth in a broad smile so
typical of the sly Japs.
"You have the power to move mountains with your voice," he said
eventually. "And heartless, indeed, would I be not to give utmost
consideration to your plea. I shall see that a few more pieces of
silver are placed in Serrangi's hand for selecting you two for the
great flight you have made. But Singapore is not everything of
importance to us. True, we shall strike at Singapore, and in such a
manner that its garrison of troops and pilots will have no opportunity
to resist. However, I shall strike at other points, also. It is not our
plan to take one place at a time. It is our plan to take all places
at the same time. It is the war technique of your own Fuehrer, and it
has as yet to be proved wrong. No, we shall not nibble at a spot until
it gives away and crumbles. We will strike at many places at the same
time."
"_Gott!_ Those are words to warm my heart!" Dave cried, and leaned
forward eagerly. "And you say, most honored General, that the hour fast
approaches?"
The Jap seemed to swell up to the exploding point with indescribable
pride and joy. He made some quick motions with his two hands, and
although he cried the words out in flawless German his voice had the
pitch of a buzz saw going through a sheet of tin.
"Tomorrow when the sun is in the east, the hour will have arrived!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
_Wings of Valor_
As the Japanese air force general's voice died away a tingling silence
seemed to hang over the jungle hut like a blanket. Not a man in the
place moved. Dave was sure that his own heart had stood still at the
sound of the words. Tomorrow morning? Tomorrow morning the Japs were
to unleash their dogs of war against an unsuspecting civilized world?
Tomorrow, when the civilized world was doing everything possible to
maintain the peace with the war lords of Nippon, the hordes and hordes
of little brown rats were going to spring savagely at white men's
throats? It seemed almost impossible to believe. It was like a dream.
Little Japan was going to strike. Little Japan? But there was just
another of the white man's mistakes down through the years. Looking
upon the Land of the Rising Sun as little Japan. Little in size, yes.
But the British Isles are little in size, too, from the standpoint of
land area in square miles. Little Japan! That was the trouble. Little
on the outside, and tremendously big on the inside. For years and years
the Sons of Nippon had been getting ready, and all the time the rest
of the world _knew it_ ... and _did nothing_. Japan would never strike
in the Pacific! No? Well, there had once been the day when, as Germany
prepared and prepared, government greybeards and has-beens scoffed at
the idea Adolf Hitler would ever take his 1918 beaten country into
war. No? Well, where was France today, and Poland, and Norway, and
Holland, and all the other "free" countries? Bleeding to death under
the crushing weight of the Nazi iron heel. _Little_ Japan? Nuts!
"Tomorrow at dawn?" Dave suddenly heard his own voice whispering
hoarsely. "It is almost too good to be true. In Germany tomorrow Der
Fuehrer will declare a national holiday in your honor, I am sure.
Forgive me, but I cannot help but repeat the plea that my comrade and I
be given a part, if only a small one."
"Your desire to fight with us, and perhaps die, makes you very eager,"
the Jap murmured. And an odd note in his voice caused little fingers
of ice to grab at Dave's heart. In that moment he had the sudden
throat drying conviction that he had displeased the Jap by his pressing
insistence. He had the feeling, and the narrow eyed look he received
indicated as much, that the Jap general was swaying just a little bit
over on the suspicious side. However, when the little brown son of
Nippon spoke again there was nothing in his words or in his voice to
justify such a thought.
"But brave soldiers should always be eager to fight and die for their
country, and their allies," he said. "And I would not be such a fool as
to deny such men their right. You, of course, have heard much of the
Burma Road. Through it our Chinese foes had been receiving supplies for
many months ... for almost the whole four years of our war of freedom
against them. The British did close the road for a few months, but it
was just a token gesture to maintain Japan's friendship. And we were
not fooled by their stupid gesture for a moment. So, if we smash the
Burma Road, China's war effort will starve to death. Her millions will
revolt against their war mongering leaders, and throw them to the
dogs ... and from then on live in peace and happiness under Japanese
rule. And so, it is...."
At that moment the entrance of the little Captain Kito who had come
aloft to lead Dave and Freddy down to the secret field snapped shut
the General's lips. The chunky pilot shot a swift look at the two
R.A.F. aces and then jabbered in lightning speed in his own tongue at
his superior officer. Watching the General, Dave saw the man's eyes
narrow, and the flaming spark to appear in their depths once more. He
saw also the man's claw-like fingers close slowly together as though
a human neck were between them. When the pilot had finished there was
a moment's silence. The Jap general looked at the two stone faced
officers seated at his side and seemed to reach an agreement with them
though neither of them uttered a sound. Then General Kashomia turned
back to the pilot and sing-songed away for a solid minute. Dave hadn't
any idea what it was all about, but he had the very strong hunch that
the Jap general was plenty burned up about something and was issuing
orders in no uncertain words.
A few seconds later the Jap pilot bowed from the waist and popped
outside and down the bamboo ladder. General Kashomia turned his
attention back to Dave and Freddy as though there had not been any
interruption at all.
"And so," he repeated, "it is of first importance that we cut China's
lifeline once and for all, but during the same hour that we strike
elsewhere. However, there is a serious problem to be solved between
now and our great hour tomorrow. For some weeks, now, a group of fools
has been giving aid to the Chinese armies. I speak of what is known
as the American Volunteer Group. The aid they are giving China is to
patrol the air of the southern end of the Burma Road and attempt to
prevent our bombers from reaching it. There are not many pilots in this
group of American fools, but they are good pilots, and they have not as
yet realized that their task is hopeless. Tomorrow at dawn they will
realize the truth at last, but it will be too late, for they will all
be dead."
General Kashomia paused and made a little sign of finality with his
hand.
"However," he continued a moment later, "word has reached me that the
Americans are being reenforced by British planes and pilots. I do not
know their strength, but I know it cannot be great because the British
have not many planes to spare out here in the Far East. They seem to be
more worried about Libya and their own British Isles. Just the same, I
do not wish to lose any more of my bombers than I can help tomorrow.
The blow I strike at the Lashio end of the Burma Road must be swift and
final so that those planes can leave and join the main aerial assault
against Singapore, and other points of our attack. Turn your eyes,
please, and look at that map, there."
The Jap general stopped talking and pointed a finger at the huge map of
Burma, Thailand, and South China, that hung on the wall to his right.
Dave and Freddy looked at it and struggled to still the booming of
their hearts. In the few moments of silence that lasted within the hut,
they heard the sound of aircraft engines being started up outside. Then
General Kashomia went on talking.
"To the north of Lashio, on the China border," he said, "is the little
village of Pidang. As the crow and the airplane fly it is not fifty
miles from here. There in a flat valley, that a blind man could find,
is located this squadron of American fools ... and the British who have
arrived to help them. For a Japanese plane to fly close to that spot in
the light of day would be but the pilot asking that he be sent to join
his ancestors. But in a British plane it would all be very different.
You would be able to see much, and learn much that I should like to
know. Three hours at the most it would take you. And the information
you bring me will count much in our success tomorrow."
The Jap stopped short and fixed his folded lid eyes on the two R.A.F.
aces. Dave and Freddy returned the stare, and then Freddy broke the
silence.
"It is your order, and it will be our joy to obey it!" he cried. "We
will leave as soon as your men have fueled our plane, and it is again
in working order."
"That is being done now," General Kashomia said quietly. "I knew before
I made the request that it would be granted. Yes, at this very moment
your plane is being repaired and made ready for flight. But there is
time to rest and eat meanwhile. It will be best that you take-off so
that your return will be made just before the light of day fades from
the heavens. Come! I am sure that the food is waiting, as I am sure you
are most eager to fill your stomachs, and quench your thirst."
The Jap senior officer made a sign with his hand and rose quickly up
onto his feet. Dave and Freddy scrambled up onto their feet, and then
followed the Jap outside, and down the bamboo ladder.