_The Woman in Purple Burns a City_
It was a shame to sneak off after they had received such a grand
reception, but had they remained, they must surely have been crushed by
the mob of boys in khaki eager to congratulate the girls from America.
So, with the lady of the hour at the wheel, they piled into the old jeep
and rode away.
"They're such nice boys!" Isabelle murmured. "It seems terrible that
some of them may die horrible deaths tomorrow, or the next day."
"Perhaps not so many," Gale replied hopefully. "Tonight while we were
waiting for things to start the colonel told me how well things have
been planned. He thinks they'll just go sweeping across Burma into
China. He says this is a diversionary move. The main fight will be
farther south. The Japs don't expect this so they won't be prepared."
"He told you all that?" Isabelle exclaimed. "Oh, well, nothing matters
much. It won't be long now. And at that, he didn't tell you a great
deal. They have been at it for months. In another forest quite a way
from here, engines with portable saw mills have been cutting timber for
bridges across the river that the colonel and his party waded on their
retreat.
"It's really marvelous. Every piece is cut just right. The bridges are
set up, then taken down again in the forest. When the time comes the
parts will be sent over chutes built down the mountain.
"They've built hundreds of boats too, and they'll go down the chutes.
The whole army will be in Burma before the Japs know they're coming."
"That's marvelous." Gale sighed. "I wish the boys luck, every one of
them. One more thing I wish."
"What's that?" Isabelle asked.
"I wish I could hear from Jimmie."
"Oh! That reminds me!" Isabelle exclaimed. "A flight commander was in to
see the colonel today. The colonel was out, so I had a chance to talk to
him. I asked him about Jimmie. He said he couldn't tell me a thing, then
smiled in a queer sort of way and said something about a secret mission.
It all sounded very strange."
"I'll say it does!" Gale agreed.
"But," Isabelle exclaimed. "Did you report what we saw at the temple?"
"About the woman in purple? Oh, sure I did! I told the colonel about it
first."
"What did he say," Gale asked anxiously.
"He seemed interested. He's seen the woman--met her at some big dinner.
It seems that in India she is still quite a person. It's only in China
and Burma that she's in bad."
"That's the way it is," Gale exclaimed. "A woman in a glorious gown can
get around men. I shouldn't wonder if a lot of those English secret
agents were really stupid."
"Oh! They are!" Than Shwe agreed. "Some of them are very, very stupid.
"I meant to tell you," she added as an afterthought, "that Chinese
nurse, Mai-da, is coming to visit us tonight. Believe me, she will tell
you about this Madam Stark, the woman in purple, as you call her. She
will tell you plenty."
"The colonel wasn't taken in by this woman." Isabelle defended her boss.
"He just never has seen much of her--really doesn't know much about her.
He sent me over to the Army Intelligence Headquarters to report on her.
The head man there was out. Nearly everyone is these days. Big things
just around the corner, you know. A very nice boy with pink cheeks, blue
eyes and a smile, wrote down all I told him."
"And said he'd report on it," Gale exploded. "Oh! Sure! That's army life
for you! My Dad said I'd have to be a good waiter. And if I get my head
blown off by a bomb while I wait, what then? I saw the tall thin man who
is lame in both legs again today."
"You did?" Isabelle exclaimed. "Way up here?"
"Sure. On the ridge only half a mile from our hideout. What do you
expect? He and that woman in purple are anti-British spies, I tell you!
And they're out to wreck us--have been ever since I put my radar fingers
on those Jap planes up there in the clouds above the city and helped
bring them down. They'll get us if they can--yes--and the Three Secrets
of Radar as well."
At that moment a small round face appeared at the opening of the tent
flap and a voice said: "May I come in?" It was Mai-da, the Chinese
nurse.
"Come in! Come right on!" was their welcome.
Jan had been brewing tea. It was steeped now, so that all sat on the
floor sipping tea, munching gingersnaps and talking.
"You have been a long time away from your home," Gale said to Mai-da.
"Oh, yes! A very long time," Mai-da agreed. "India has been very kind to
me but I shall be glad to get back to my home. We ARE going back, you
know." Mai-da's voice rose. "Everyone believes that. We have great faith
in your major."
As Gale looked at the Chinese girl with her small hands and feet, her
round, doll-like face and slender body, she marvelled that she could
stand up to the work of a nurse. But Mai-da had endured more than she
dreamed.
"Tell us about your home, Mai-da," Isabelle said.
"Oh, it is really very charming. At least I hope you may say so when you
see it." Mai-da half apologized. "It is at the foot of a hill where big,
black pines seem to be marching. It has a high stone wall about it. Ours
is an old, old family. Thirty generations have lived there. And we all
live together there now, seventy people of us, but some have gone to
war. Uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmothers, great-grand-father--they are
all there." She laughed softly.
"Once we nearly lost our home." Her face sobered. "But perhaps you do
not care for sad stories,--only those that are good, beautiful and
happy." 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."
"It was truly terrible," Mai-da murmured softly. "Wicked woman came to
live in a large house built by a trader. It had been her husband's
house. He was gone now, so she claimed it. There was no one who could
tell her to go away."
"My grandfather, he is old and very wise. He said: 'If Madam Stark lives
in that house evil days will come to us'."
"Madam Stark," Isabelle murmured.
"The woman in purple," Gale added. Mai-da continued in her sing-song
voice, so slow and musical. She had learned English in a mission school
and had traveled in America. "Grandfather was right. This woman hired
many strong men to guard her men who thought China had no chance against
the terrible Japs, men who said 'It is better to give up and allow the
Japs to rule us'."
"The Japs came closer and closer to the beautiful little city of May-da,
close to our home. There was a temple on the hill above our home. The
Japs bombed it. Many priests were killed, and they were oh, such good
men, those priests, always doing good, never harming anyone."
Mai-da sighed deeply, then went on. "There was a war lord living close
to our city. He pretended to be loyal to Chiang Kai-shek, but I don't
think he ever was. Madam Stark, in her purple gown of rich silk
fascinated him. He did what she said.
"One day she said: 'The Japs are very close to the city. The city will
be captured. It is better to burn the city than to let the Japs have
it.'
"So the war lord told his men to burn the city," Than Shwe murmured
sadly. "I have heard of this. It was very terrible."
"The city was burned." Mai-da's voice was low. "Many people lost their
life. Others wandered homeless in the fields. Our home is outside the
city. We took in all the people we could.
"Then,"--her voice rose, "my grandfather, who was old but very brave,
said, 'This terrible woman must be driven out.' He talked to all the
people. They took all the guns and knives they had and went after that
woman and if she had not gone away in a plane she would have been
killed. Her big house was burned. The people joined with the soldiers.
The Japs were driven back, and the poor burnt city was never captured.
My home still smiles from the foot of the mountain. It waits for
me.--Tomorrow or the day after," the little Chinese nurse finished quite
simply,--"I'm going home."
"And that was the Woman in Purple," Gale said, springing up. "If the
army doesn't get her then we must."
"And we will!" Than Shwe exclaimed. "By all the gods of India, Burma,
China and America, we will!"