SAVAGES AND THE NIGHT
As the big plane circled, drifting slowly down, Mary leaned over to say
in a deep, impressive voice:
“Janet, if we crash, and there’s a spark of life in you, get out quick
and run, crawl, anything. Get away fast.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Janet stared. “If the ship gets on fire the gas tanks
will explode and—”
“It’s worse than that,” Mary confided. “This ship is mined.”
“Mined!” Janet stared.
“It certainly is! And by our own people. This is one ship our enemies
will never take apart piece by piece, nor its cargo either. In case of
a crash, it will be torn to ribbons.”
“That—why, that’s terrible,” Janet’s voice was husky.
“Not as bad as it seems,” was the slow reply. “Only fire will set off
the explosives. Bumping won’t do it. There’s a fuse, too. I know right
where it is. No, they’ll never get the Lone Star or her cargo. And
there’s nothing they’d like half as much to do. But they won’t get her.
Never! Never.
“And now,” she breathed. “Here we go!”
As her ship glided down, even in this moment when her own fate seemed
to hang in the balance, on the walls of Mary’s mind was painted a
picture that would not soon be erased. It was as if her first glimpse
of a tropical jungle, the waving palms, the slow, rolling black river,
the native huts, the sloping hillside all bathed in a beautiful sunset,
had been painted there by some great artist.
And then her ship’s landing wheels touched the broad, hard-trodden path
of the natives. Coming in closer to the natives’ shacks she had avoided
the treacherous hillside and suddenly, there she was. Graceful as a
plover with wings outspread the Lone Star came to rest.
“We made it!” Mary gave vent to a heavy sigh of relief. “But now!” She
was up and away in the same breath, for the solving of one difficult
problem had only served to bring her closer to another. There had been
two men in the bomber when it crashed, Sparky Ames and Don Nelson. One
had been injured. Which one? And how badly? She had to know.
“I’m going over there!” she exclaimed as she leaped from the plane, at
the same time pointing up the hill.
“Okay. I’ll watch this plane,” Janet said.
“Yes, I think that’s wise. You never can tell.”
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[Illustration: _The Lone Star Came to Rest at the Foot of the Hill_]
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Mary cast an apprehensive glance at the long row of native houses.
“Homes of a hundred people,” she thought. “Perfectly wild natives.” But
now nothing stirred there.
With long, quick strides she made her way where one man bent over the
prostrate form of another.
When she was half way there she saw the kneeling man turn his head.
Then she knew.
“Oh! Sparky!” she exclaimed. “You’re safe!”
“Sure! What’d you think?” The tall, strongly built young man with
black, kinky hair grinned.
“I—I didn’t know.” She was closer now. “It would have been terrible if
you had been seriously injured, you know.” Her voice dropped. “Secret
cargo!”
“Yes, I know.”
“But Don!” she exclaimed. “Is he badly injured?” She was standing
beside Sparky now.
“I can’t tell yet,” was the slow answer. “I have the courage to hope
not. He got a bang on the head. That knocked him out. I’ve felt him
over pretty carefully. No bones broken is my guess. But he keeps
groaning. His hand comes up to his chest. Got a cracked rib or two I
shouldn’t wonder.”
“That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Bad enough, but it might be worse. Anyway, our plane can never be
repaired. Not here it can’t.”
“And how will you ever get it out?”
“That’s it,” he agreed. “Looks as if we’re stuck—at least, our plane
is. Guess we’ll have to go it alone, Mary, just you and I. It’s the way
the Chief would want it.” His voice went husky. “That secret cargo must
go through at all cost. Those were the orders. How do you feel about
that?”
“How would you feel about going over the top somewhere in Africa?” she
challenged.
“I wouldn’t think. I’d just go, same as any other soldier does.”
“It’s the same with me now,” she replied soberly. “I—am a soldier,
too. Well, perhaps not quite, but I’m serving in a soldier’s plane, a
mighty good one, too. Any man in my shoes would have to have had five
hundred hours in the air.”
“And so where duty calls or danger—” he quoted.
“I shall always hope to be there,” she saluted. “But look!” she
exclaimed. “Don is trying to sit up. He must not do that!”
“No! No! Old man! Not yet!” Once again Sparky was at his comrade’s side
gently pushing him down.
“Wh—where am I? Who—what happened?” came in thick tones.
“You’re here and we’re here. Sparky and Mary,” said Sparky.
“Oh! Then it—it’s all right.” The injured man settled back.
“I’ll go get some pneumatic pillows,” Mary volunteered.
“Yes, and something hot to drink,” Sparky suggested. “That will help a
lot.” Mary was away.
When Don had fully recovered consciousness and had been made as
comfortable as possible, they gathered around him for a council of war.
“It’s getting dark,” said Sparky. “In another quarter of an hour it
will be darker than a stack of black cats. In this land the dawn comes
up like thunder, and the sun blinks out in the same way.”
“And there’s no moon,” said Janet.
“All of which means we’re here for the night,” said Mary. “Sparky,” her
voice seemed a little strained. “What kind of a country is this?”
“Good head-hunting country,” Sparky laughed.
“No, but really, we’ve got to face facts,” Mary insisted.
“Truth is,” said Sparky, “I don’t know about the upper waters of the
Amazon, or the people who live here. Do the rest of you?”
There came a chorus of “no”s.
“All right, then we’ll be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”
“They scattered fast enough when they saw us coming down,” Don
volunteered.
“That was natural,” said Sparky. “It is also natural to suppose that,
in the end, they’ll defend their homes. They may come back in the
night. There are two loose machine guns in each plane. The Major had
them put there for just such a time as this.”
“And for the time when we’ll be over battle zones,” Mary added. “We may
be attacked—”
“Just now we’re in a jungle, so we’ll limber up the guns,” said Sparky.
“How about you ladies fixing up a little chow?”
“Sure, oh, sure! We’ll do that!” was the quick response.
By the time Sparky had two guns set up in the Lone Star, which he
figured might, in the event of an attack in force, be used as a fort,
and had dragged the other guns to the spot, a short distance away,
which they had chosen as a camp site, darkness had fallen and the girls
had coffee brewing over a cheerful fire.
“Say! This is great!” Sparky exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to go
camping but never had time!”
“Well,” Don drawled, “You’ve got about ten hours now with nothing else
to do but camp.”
“Unless we’re attacked,” Janet supplemented with a shudder.
“Why bring that up?” Mary laughed. “Dinner is about ready to serve.
Let’s make it a date.”
“A date it is,” Sparky agreed.
Their grub box contained a little more than iron rations. Sweet
potatoes and sausages each served from a can, big, round white
crackers, a square of butter and, aromatic coffee with real sugar and
canned cream, made up the bulk of their satisfying meal. Dessert was
little wild bananas, and huge, over-ripe grapefruit that were sweet as
oranges. These came from the edge of the jungle.
“Um,” Janet breathed. “That was really a feast.”
“Yes, and listen!” Mary exclaimed low, “What was that? Really something
different!”
A low rolling sound had come drifting in out of the night.
“A native drum!” was Sparky’s instant answer.
As they listened from farther away came the answer.
“Talking drums,” Mary whispered. “I never expected to hear them.”
She was hearing them all the same and, coming as they did out of the
night with the low murmur of the dark, rushing river as their
accompaniment, they sounded weird indeed. Now came a roar close at
hand, _tom-tom-tom_ sharp and clear, and now from far away with the
booms blended into one long roar.
“Night in the jungle,” Mary whispered.
“Crawl into your ship and forget it,” Sparky suggested. “We’ll be here
in the morning.”
“Oh! I never could do that,” Janet exclaimed.
“All right,” said Sparky. “Then you girls keep the first watch and I’ll
sleep. But first we’ll fix Don up as comfortable as we can.”
It was Don whose eyes first closed in slumber. With soft pneumatic
cushions under him and a mosquito canopy to protect him and a soothing
capsule to allay his pain, he was asleep before the others could
arrange for the watches of the night.
Just as Sparky crept away to the Lone Star for three winks a bright
golden moon came rolling along the fringe of the forest.
“Oh! That’s better!” Janet exclaimed.
Was it? It was not long before every shadow cast by the moon appeared
to move and the darkened grass houses seemed alive with people.
“Ghosts,” Mary whispered. “Ghosts of native men and women who lived
here long before we were born.”
“Be still!” Janet whispered. “I heard a voice. It was somewhere down
the river. Listen!”
As they listened a voice seemed to ask: “Why? why? why?”
“That,” Mary laughed low. “That’s a big, old tree frog. He lives in a
pool of green water in a hollow tree, way up high. I read about it
once. If you drink the water he lives in you’ll go crazy.”
“I think you might,” Janet whispered. “What do you suppose he wants to
know with his eternal ‘why’?”
“Perhaps he wants to know why we are here, why my father is out
somewhere in Africa.”
“And why my two brothers are in Australia,” said Janet. “Do you know
the answer?”
“No,” said Mary. “At least not all the answer. I only know that we must
keep on being here, and in Africa, Egypt, Syria, India, China, wherever
we’re sent until this terrible war is over and all our loved ones can
come home again.”
“Yes, that’s right. But, Mary, you know we were volunteers. We didn’t
have to join up. And above all, we didn’t have to go on this long, long
trip so far from home.”
This Mary knew was true. They had, in truth, volunteered twice. Joining
the WAFS was purely on a voluntary basis. Once they were in they were
expected to ferry planes from place to place in their own country. But
a sudden, urgent call had come from China for forty planes, all but two
of them bombers. There were not enough men available so volunteers were
called from among the women.
“All of us volunteered, except those who had children,” Janet said,
thinking aloud.
“Who wouldn’t? It’s what I’ve always wanted most.” Mary’s voice rose a
little. “When Sparky used to come in after a week’s absence and say,
‘Hello, sister, I’m just back from Russia,’ I was burned up with envy.
The next week it would be Africa, and after that London, and there we
were plowing through the sky to Kansas City, Des Moines or Peoria. And
now,” she breathed, “we are on our way to China by way of Africa,
India, and all the rest.”
“We!” Janet exclaimed. “Do they expect just you and me to fly the
Atlantic, alone?”
“Why not?” Mary asked, teasingly. “Oh, well—” she added, “Sparky told
me tonight that he and I would go on alone.”
“Nice going,” Janet’s tone was a trifle cold.
“Oh, Janet!” Mary put out a hand. “Don’t look at it that way. There’s
something aboard the Lone Star that just has to go through. I wish I
could tell you what it is. I can’t because I don’t know. Naturally,
it’s better that a man pilot the plane, one who has flown the Atlantic
many times. It would be natural, too, that Don should go if he were
able, but—”
“Oh, sure!” Janet was her old, friendly self again. “I understand.
We’ll have to get Don to a hospital somewhere and I’ll stay to see him
through.”
“Yes, and you may get to China yet, both of you.”
“Oh, China,” Janet yawned. “Just now I’d love to find myself on
Broadway in little, old New York, with a run to Denver waiting for me
in the morning. It’s a funny world, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” Mary agreed.
At one A.M. Sparky climbed down from the Lone Star’s cabin. “Go on up
there and sleep,” was his gruff but kindly order. “We’ve got a tough
day ahead.”
They obeyed. While Janet wrapped herself up in blankets, Mary spread
out an eiderdown robe her father had once brought from the far North,
and they were soon fast asleep.
Three hours later, just as the moon was nearing the crest of the ridge,
lying off to the west, Mary crept down from the plane to join Sparky in
his vigil.
“Don still asleep?” she asked.
“Sure is. He’s lucky to be able to sleep.”
“Perhaps he’s not so badly injured after all.”
“Bad enough,” Sparky sighed. “We’ll have to get him over to the
hospital at Para. Then you and I’ll have to hop the little channel that
lies between South America and Africa. Your cargo must go through.”
“Secret cargo!” she whispered. “Wonder what it could be.”
“Some new weapons for destroying Japs perhaps. A new type of
sub-machine gun, or just a badly needed medicine for the soldiers up
there in Burma. They say it’s plenty bad up there this time of year.
Anyway, that secret cargo must go through.”
“‘Ours’ not to reason why—‘ours’ but to do and die,” she parodied.
“Who knows!” His voice sounded solemn in the stillness of the night.
“The enemy has our number. I’ve been looking at my motors. They’ve been
tampered with, emery dust in the pistons or something.”
“But where could that have happened!” she exclaimed.
“Caracas!”
“But there were soldiers guarding every plane.”
“Soldiers of foreign lands are sometimes traitors. So, too, are
mechanics who tune up the motors. We’ll have to be on our guard every
moment. This time we were over the land. The next it may be the sea.”
“We’ll watch,” she vowed. “Day and night. Night and day.”
“But it’s all so strange,” she mused after a time. “Why should there be
a sudden demand for so many big planes in China?”
“There are rumors of a plan to bomb Tokio.”
“Oh! I’d like to be in on that!”
“Wouldn’t we all! But it’s just a rumor. I’ve heard that we are to
attack Burma from two sides.”
“Try to re-capture the Burma Road?”
“Yes.”
“That would be glorious!”
“Then I’ve heard the Japs are going after Russia and that these bombers
are for our Russian allies. All these are rumors. We may never know the
truth. That’s the way it is in war.”
For a time after that nothing but the low rush of the river and the
croaking of the ‘Why’ frog disturbed the silence of the jungle. Then,
suddenly, Mary whispered:
“Listen!”
“Singing,” Sparky whispered back after a tense moment. “Natives on the
river.”
“The moon has gone behind the hills. They’re coming back. The natives
are coming.”
“Yes, and let them come,” Sparky rattled his sub-machine gun. “If
they’re peaceful, things will be all right. If not—” He rattled the
gun once more. “This is war. The Lone Star and her secret cargo must go
through!”
After that for some time they sat there in silence listening to the
wild native chant that, with every movement, grew louder.
Then, suddenly, the dark waters of the river came all alight. The long
canoes had turned a bend of the river. In each canoe were a dozen
torches held aloft. Mary counted nine canoes in all. To her heightened
imagination each canoe seemed a hundred feet in length.
“Do they come like that when they want to fight?” she asked gripping
Sparky’s arm hard.
“Who knows?” was the brief reply.
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