_Pete_
Eager as Gale was for a look at the scene that lay spread out beneath
her window, she gladly followed the colonel's lead in a slow, leisurely
breakfast. Full well she realized that this was one of the rare moments
of her life.
"It's the lull before a storm," she told herself. "Soon an army will
come sweeping up from below. Then we at this bleak outpost will be all
but forgotten."
As she looked at the colonel sitting there drinking coffee and munching
toast, she found it difficult to realize that he was a truly great man.
"So simple! So kind and thoughtful of others," ran through her mind. She
wondered in a vague sort of way if all the truly great ones of this
earth were not at some time simple and kind.
"Dawn must be here!" the colonel exclaimed at last. Putting down his
empty cup he walked to the window and raised the shutter.
"There!" he exclaimed. "That is Burma--the land we left behind. Now
we're going back."
"Golly!" Jan exclaimed. "Is that Burma out there?" They were looking
down first on a green ocean of treetops, then upon low rows of low
mountains, and after that, dim in the distance, green valleys.
"The distant hills and valleys are in Burma," the colonel explained. "If
you look closely you will discover a touch of blue here and there. Those
are little patches of blue in the river down which we waded for so many
hours on our retreat."
"Oh, I wish Than Shwe were here!" Gale exclaimed.
"This would be a rare treat for her," the colonel agreed.
"Unfortunately, some wounded airmen were brought in this morning. Our
little nurse will be busy."
Gale looked at him hard, but said never a word. She wanted to know about
these air battles,--wanted to be sure she would play her part in a real
war.
As if reading her thoughts, the colonel pointed down at the ocean of
treetops.
"Nature has been kind to us," he said. "All that you see in the
foreground is tops of giant trees. Beneath these trees lies an extended
plateau. In secret, working day and night, we have cut away brush and
small trees. In this way we have prepared a vast temple for the gods of
war."
"The secret forest," Gale murmured, charmed and thrilled by the thought.
"You might call it that," the Colonel agreed. "Roads have been laid out
in every direction," he went on. "Roads and airplane runways. Some of
these runways are miles long. Because of this, airplanes based at the
center of the forest may race away to spring up at the enemy far from
their base."
"Wonderful!" Gale murmured. "Those, I suppose, are the planes I heard in
the night."
"That's right," the colonel agreed. "There has been some fighting in the
air. The Japs think we are up to something, but don't know what. They
send over scout planes and some bombers that do no harm."
"Golly! You HAVE been up to something!" Jan exclaimed. "Think of making
all those roads through the jungle!"
"Up to something!" the colonel exclaimed, "I'll say we've been up to
something! As the days go by you'll realize it more and more.
"Just now," his voice dropped--"What I want most of all is to impress
you with the importance of your work here. 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."
"Yes, Yes--I know," Gale murmured hoarsely.
"Long years ago," the colonel went on, "wars were fought by professional
soldiers, men from every land, hired to fight. Even in our Civil War, if
you had money and didn't want to go when you were called, you could pay
someone to take your place."
"But in this war it's different," Gale agreed. "It's the boy who used to
work in the Post Office, and the one who sat across from you in school,
all kinds of boys who were your playmates and pals who have gone."
"Golly, yes!" Jan put in. "And then they think it's funny that some of
us girls want to drive a truck in the war, or something."
"They'll change their ideas about that," the colonel replied soberly.
"They ARE changing them now. You girls can help. That's part of the
reason why I brought you.
"What I was starting to say," he went on, "was that you're up here like
an all-seeing eye, Gale. Below you in that great forest will be
thousands on thousands of splendid boys, ready, if need be, to give
their lives for their country when the big push comes. And here you are,
with radar eyes that can see in daylight or dark, clouds or sunshine,
three hundred miles or more. When enemy planes come this way looking for
those boys, you'll know."
"Yes," Gale replied solemnly. "I'll know."
"Your equipment is the best," the colonel went on. "We ran a line up
here so you won't lack power. You have a phone and a radio for sounding
a warning.
"And here,--" he pulled a cord, letting in a flood of light from
above--"Here is your lookout above, in case the enemy is overhead.
You'll only open this on special occasions.
"If things get too dangerous, you'll take a few steps down, and--" he
led the way--"this is your refuge." They went down a narrow stone
stairway to at last step into a cavern cut from the solid rock.
"Golly!" Jan exclaimed. "I'm sure glad to see this place. I was getting
all covered with goose pimples."
As for Gale, she gave the rock-hewn room only a quick glance. All that
interested and inspired her was in the room above,--her radar set, radio
and phone.
"I can see," said the colonel after studying her face, "that the boys
down there will have a guardian angel who never fails."
"Not if I can help it," Gale replied, with deep conviction.
"Of course," the colonel added, "I wouldn't want you to feel that the
burden is all yours. That would be too much. You are not alone. There
are other radar watchers along this ridge. But yours is the key
position."
"It shall be guarded well!" Gale promised.
"Golly, yes!" "With our lives!" Jan, who could not tell a radar set from
a radiator added her bit, and they all laughed.
A moment later the colonel was gone, and Gale had lost herself in the
study of her radar set.
"How grand!" she murmured. "This is new, but I have studied about it. It
goes like this." She turned on a switch, and the set began to humm.
"Jan!" she exclaimed. "What a lovely time we could have up here if it
wasn't for the war and all the terrible responsibility it brings."
"Ain't it the truth!" Jan agreed.
Gale had not exaggerated. The view from their window, the one that faced
the world and Burma, was truly magnificent. The sea of waving green that
was tree-tops, the hills beyond where morning mist still slowly drifted
in the wind and the green valleys far beyond--was all like a picture
painted by some famous artist.
But the view over head? Ah, that was different. Just now it was blank,
Gale knew. At night stars would hang above them, and at times the moon
would look in upon them. But always there was the chance that some spy
would search out their high lonely post and mark it on a map. She
thought once more of the woman in purple, the black dwarf and the three
secrets of radar.
"If our hideout is marked on their map," she thought, "then our view
overhead will be horrible."
As she closed her eyes she seemed to see soaring planes that, banking
steeply, came shooting down. And after that the falling dots that grew
and grew and grew. "The dots that scream like demons and at last roar
like explosions in hell,"--she found herself thinking over words that
Jimmie had once spoken to her.
"I wonder where Jimmie is now," she mused. Soon enough she was to know.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime Isabelle had met with a happy surprise. In high school
she had been an "A" grade student, a real worker. Probably that was why
she was the colonel's yeoman now. She had learned to make a perfect job
of everything, and hadn't forgotten how.
There were times in those half-forgotten days when she had wished she
were different. Those were the times when at school parties the smooth
boys passed her up for girls with a light touch, an easy laugh and
plenty of "blue slips" along with their grades.
But Isabelle hadn't worried too much about that, for the smooth boys
made her a little weary. She liked the rough kind, and one boy above all
others was just that. He even had a rough and rugged name--Pete Sikes.
Pete was a redhead and his hair was always in a tangle. He had freckles,
wore a broad grin, was six feet three, and could throw a forward pass
farther and straighter than anyone in the league. And when it came his
turn to carry the ball he simply faded into the growing dusk.
Pete had on weak point--he wasn't quite all there--at least his football
togs never were. He would come to the game minus a shoe, a helmet, or
even a pair of pants.
That was where Isabelle came in. Because she was good at looking after
things and needed the money, she had worked at the school office after
hours. That was how she knew just what Pete had left behind each time he
went to the football field for a game, and why she came rushing to the
grounds in a taxi--hired by herself--to slip under the ropes and somehow
get a package to Pete.
Pete was bashful, so he'd just blush and mumble,--"Thunder! Isabelle, if
it wasn't for you I'd be playing football in my shirt and shorts!"
He couldn't know that Isabelle was crazy about him--that she longed to
untangle that mass of red hair and do a lot of other nice things for
him. So commencement came and went. Pete went with it, and she had lost
him. Forever?
Well, it had looked that way until that day the colonel took Gale to her
new location. Since the colonel was away, Isabelle was on her own, and
was wandering in and out among the great teakwood trees when she ran
squarely into a tall, grinning, redheaded sergeant.
"Pete! You old rascal!" she exclaimed, bracing herself to avoid making a
grand rush that would have ended in something quite startling to Pete.
"How did you ever get here?" she demanded.
"Oh,--by boat, train, automobile and foot," he grinned. Then he said a
whole lot, for Pete. What he said was:
"Thunder! Isabelle! It's certainly good to see you here! Any American
gal would look good to any of us doughboys, but you, Isabelle--you're
just tops!"
There were tears in Isabelle's eyes, and a rare smile on her face just
then, but all she said was:
"Pete! What are you doing here?"
"Looking for a parking lot location," was the surprising answer.
"But Pete! You're in the army!" she exclaimed.
"Sure! Oh, sure!" he agreed. "But I've got to get a parking place for a
thunderin' lot of army tanks."
"Tanks? Oh, yes! Tanks!" Isabelle stammered.
"I'm a gunner in a General Sherman tank," Pete confided, coming in close
and speaking softly. "And Isabelle, believe it or not, I can put those
big shells just any place I please."
"Just like you used to put the old pigskins into some player's mitt!"
Isabelle exclaimed. "Oh, Pete! You're wonderful! You always were!"
There might have been much more of this, but just then an orderly
hurried up to announce that the colonel would soon be at his
headquarters and would Isabelle please hurry back. So all she could say
was:
"Well, goodbye, Pete. It's been swell seeing you again."
And Pete, because he was Pete, said nothing at all. But Isabelle had not
heard the last of him. Far from that. Not that she wished to hear the
last of him. Far from that too.