_This Is Tokio_
Without any definite plan of attack, and not once looking back, the two
girls trudged up the hill leading to the large house built in the
American style.
They had just reached the top of a flight of steps leading to the lawn
when all of a sudden a door leading to a second story balcony flew open,
releasing a flood of light. In this light stood a tall, handsome woman
and a diminutive black dwarf.
Reaching for the light brought Jan and Isabelle out in full relief.
"So you wanted to see me again?" The woman's voice was full of scorn.
"Well, take a good look." She held out a long blue automatic. In his
hands the dwarf clutched a rifle. Jan's heart sank. She was not even
sure her rifle was loaded. "Take a good long look," the woman repeated.
"You'll remember that you saw a handsome woman as you draw your last
breath." She laughed hoarsely.
At that instant Isabelle heard a sound behind her but dared not look
back.
"You take the fat one, Paedro," Isabelle heard the woman say. "She's a
good mark for you. I could kill a bird at that distance."
Isabelle's blood ran cold. As the black dwarf lifted his rifle she
thought of flight but her feet would not move.
Then all of a sudden from behind her something set up a tremendous
clatter. As if she were watching a movie she saw the woman and her dwarf
tumble in a heap. Then the bright light blinked out, leaving all in
darkness.
"Jan!" Isabelle cried. "What happened?"
"I shot them."
It was the voice of Than Shwe who spoke. She was standing behind them.
In her hand was a smoking Tommy-gun. "I shot them," she repeated in a
cool even tone. "They deserved to die. They brought death to hundreds of
my people. They would have killed you. I saw you go, so I came too."
"But Than Shwe! Where did you get that Tommy-gun?" Jan demanded.
"This?" The little nurse held the gun up proudly. "This is the Tommy-gun
the colonel carried out of Burma on his shoulder. When I came to
Mai-da's house he let me take it.
"Now," she added, "I go get Gale's radar set." With her gun across her
shoulder she marched away.
Ten minutes later she returned, lugging the set. "They are quite dead.
That is good," she said. "We will tell the Army Intelligence. When they
see what is in that house they will say I am a very good girl. She was a
very bad spy, that woman."
* * * * * * * *
Next morning at dawn a squad of U. S. engineers with a hundred Chinese
workmen appeared at Mai-da's home prepared to rebuild it. And at that
same dawn Jimmie and Gale tuned up their bombing plane to join their
flight of forty big ships bound for Tokio.
They dropped down half way to Tokio to take on gas, then sped on their
way.
It was a glorious day, with white clouds floating high. The beauty and
peace of the land far beneath them told nothing of war.
As they came closer to the sea, clouds thickened. Soon they were passing
through miles of gray mist.
Gale, busy with her instrument, feeling for danger here, there and
everywhere, suddenly exclaimed:
"Airplanes almost straight ahead; lower down than we are; ten miles
away."
"Gale! You must be wrong!" Jimmie exclaimed.
"I can't be," Gale insisted. And it was right there that the girl earned
her passage.
Jimmie lowered his plane, altered his direction, slowed down, then
popped out of a cloud almost upon three Jap scouting planes. Had the
pilots of these planes been given thirty seconds of life Tokio must have
been warned. Thirty seconds was denied them. Cannons and machine guns
raked them from engine to tail, and down they went, one, two, three.
"Good girl!" 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."
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.
"Beautiful! Glorious! Great stuff!" he exclaimed as he set his big ship
roaring over the field.
At just the right second bombs began to drop. "One, two, three, four,
five,"--Gale found herself counting as they fell among the Jap bombers
and exploded with such force that whole planes were blown into the sky
to explode there like rockets.
"Get ready!" Jimmie warned his gunners, "here come the Jap fighters."
As the gunners stiffened at their posts Gale took up a post that would
permit her to replace any man in the body of the ship who fell.
A Zero plane came in so close that she saw the leer on the pilot's face.
Receiving a burst of fire, he faded from her sight. But on they
came,--one--two--three--four, a whole squadron wheeled into view.
Cannons roared, machineguns rattled. The din was a terrible thing to
hear. Little planes went whirling down, but still they came.
All of a sudden the right waist-gunner wavered at his post, then fell
like an empty sack. As if indeed he were just that, Gale dragged him
aside, seized his gun, looked to its loading, then stood ready.
A plane flashed past, too far and too fast. It wheeled to come shooting
straight at her. Had the pilot contemplated suicide? If so, it was his
last thought. Her gun spoke. He crumpled in his place, his engine died,
then his plane went whirling down.
But here was another. Approaching with caution, this pilot swung to the
right, then sent out a burst of small slugs from a free machine gun.
Gale felt a push at her left shoulder. But her eye was on the target.
She did not waver but allowing for the enemy's speed, placed her shots
before him. His ship began to smoke, then exploded in mid air.
Then, all of a sudden everything faded into gray fog. Jimmie had headed
his plane into a huge cloud that lay on the road home.
"Here!" he said to the co-pilot. "Take the stick. I'll look things
over."
Already two men were working over the fallen gunner. Jimmie counted his
men.
"One casualty," he murmured. "Not bad." Then his eyes fell on Gale who
was sitting beside her gun. Catching a suspicious blotch of red, he tore
at her blouse.
"You're hit!" he exclaimed.
"Am I?" Her eyes opened wide.
"You know you are, you little fool!" he exploded.
"I--I feel fine."
"Here," he said, throwing out a blanket. "Lie down there. Here's a roll
for a pillow. Now! Let me have a look."
Unbuttoning the blouse, he shoved it aside. "Shoulder," he murmured.
"Not so bad. How's the bone?"
"How should I know? I--I'll try to--"
"No, no don't move. I'll just fix it up a bit. I'm no doctor. Little
first aid, that's all. But boy! If it had been a little lower there'd
have been a dead WAC."
"And Jimmie Nightingale would have been in disgrace for letting a WAC
get killed," she said.
"Something like that."
"But now he'll get another medal," she teased.
"And so will you, dam--I mean dum it. You'll get it if I have to make it
out of a coin I took from a dead Jap.
"And now," he said as he finished his first aid, "I suggest that you
relax and forget. There'll be no more Japs on our trail."
"Relax and forget," she whispered to herself. How could she ever do
that. Relax, yes, but forget, never! Never! She did not even want to
forget. She had joined the WACS, had asked for active service, and had
gotten it in good measure. Who ever would want to forget?
Strange as it may seem, by the time they reached home base she was more
than half asleep. But there was an ambulance waiting for her and in it,
Jan and Than Shwe to welcome her home.
"Golly! Does it hurt much?" Jan asked.
"Don't talk," Than Shwe warned, "Just relax and try to forget."
There it was again,--"relax and forget." Gale wanted to scream just to
let them know she was still very much alive. But remembering that she
was a patient, she did relax, even though she did refuse to forget.
* * * * * * * *
"The Army Intelligence found plenty to prove that the Woman in Purple
and the Black Dwarf were spies," Isabelle said to Gale as she sat by her
cot in the hospital next day and told her story. "They found two
servants who told them plenty more."
"It's good they're gone," said Gale. "But now," she groaned, "I suppose
I'll be shipped off to some place to convalesce."
"That's right," said a man's voice. It was the colonel who had just come
in. "Well, you wanted to see Tokio. You saw Tokio, so now you must pay
your passage.
"But it won't be half bad," he added. "I'll send you to the Secret
Forest."
"Lovely," Isabelle murmured. "I'd almost be willing to get myself shot
to go there."
"You'll have Than Shwe for your nurse and Jimmie to fly you there. And,
hmm, I'll give Jimmie a week's leave. He's really earned it, and so have
you."
"You're very thoughtful." Gale gave him a grateful smile. "But I'm
coming back."
"Oh, sure! Sure!" he agreed. "As soon as the doctor says you're able."
Transcriber's Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original--this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.