BATTLING AT CLOSE QUARTERS
“Let me see!” Sparky’s eyes flashed over the instrument board. “Fuel
and oil off, extinguisher on. Good girl!” He patted her shoulder. “You
know what to do.”
“I know more than that.” Her lips were in a straight line.
“What’s that?”
“I should have stayed with the ship last night.”
“I don’t see that.”
“Someone tampered with our left motor while you were busy with the
other one.”
“Not necessarily. Motors have caught fire many times without tampering.
Your motor is set on springs. That’s to prevent vibration. Because of
this your fuel and oil must come through flexible tubes.”
“Yes, I know all that,” she broke in. “Sometimes the connection gets
loose. Gas drips on the manifold and then there is a fire. All the
same—”
“You think our motor was tampered with. Well, I don’t. Anyway, all we
can do is to watch everything, fly on one, and hope for the best.”
“And you said this was dangerous country.”
“Very dangerous.”
“Dawn is here.”
“The most dangerous of all. If an enemy fighter spots us, he’s sure to
come after us.”
“And then—” She was feeling a little dizzy.
“Then we’ll have to try to defend ourselves. Mind if I leave you for a
moment?”
“No—I—I’ll carry on.”
“We’ve got a couple of free machine guns. I’ll have them ready just in
case.”
“Must we fight?”
“It’s all there is left to do. We can’t climb on one motor. All we can
do is to stay up a mile and go straight on.”
“Oh! Perhaps a fight,” Mary thought as he went back in the cabin.
The gray sands were turning white before the rising sun. She saw a
speck in the distance. Could it be an enemy plane? She wished Sparky
would come back.
Supposing the fire broke out of the motor enclosure and the ship
burned. She shuddered at the thought. “Of course,” she reassured
herself, “we’d take to our parachutes and escape.”
“But escape to what?” a voice seemed to whisper.
To sifting sands. That was the answer. And then there was their
precious cargo.
Here was Sparky again. “All set.” His voice was almost cheerful.
“Spoiling for a fight?” Mary teased.
“I wouldn’t mind knocking down one or two of Hitler’s desert rats,” was
the quick reply. “There’s fighting blood in my family. Grandfather in
the Civil war and Dad all the way with the Canadians in the other World
War. And here I am just flying, flying, flying, flying. Gets a bit dull
at times.
“Except,” he hastened to add, “when you have an attractive co-pilot.”
He was talking, she knew, just to quiet her nerves.
“There’s worse to come,” she told herself. And she was not mistaken.
“The fire must be about out by now,” he said a moment later. “There are
a lot of sprays shooting carbon-dioxide snow at that engine. It’s under
850 pounds of pressure. Turn off the extinguisher and I’ll work my way
back there through the wing.”
She snapped off the extinguisher. “Can you do anything about it?”
“Oh, sure!” There was a forced cheerfulness in his voice. “I can get to
that engine. I’ll take tools and a new tube. I’ll fix it. Wait and see!”
“Sparky!” She gripped his arm. “Be careful. I wouldn’t want—well, you
know, that desert looks awfully lonesome.”
“I’ll be careful.” Once again he was gone, leaving her to the ship’s
controls, the desert, and the spreading dawn. She could see a long way
now. There really was an airplane out there on the horizon. But then
there were planes everywhere these days.
This plane acted strangely. It seemed at first to be coming straight
toward her. Then it took a broad sweep and began to disappear.
“Like some old marauding crow going back to tell his friends,” she
thought. “Hope Sparky won’t be long. But then, of course, in that
cramped place he can’t work fast. Just have to be patient, that’s all.”
* * * * *
The truth is that Sparky had not even started repairing the engine.
There were, he had discovered, other matters that needed attending to
first.
All the time Mary was watching the sky. The plane out there on the edge
of the horizon had reappeared. A mere speck against the blue, it
increased in size. Even at that great distance, she somehow believed
this was a different plane.
Presently this plane too cut a broad circle, then began to fade.
“Like bees coming out from a hive,” she thought. “Afraid of us perhaps.
Our big, fighting planes have been knocking them down of late.” If that
were true she hoped they would keep on being afraid.
* * * * *
As Sparky crept on hands and knees through the low wing section of the
plane, toward this disabled engine, he had caught a disturbing sound.
“Like the hiss of a goose,” he thought. He flashed a light before him,
then recoiled as if struck a blow. Little wonder, for there, not ten
feet before him, was a pair of bulging eyes. Beneath the eyes was a
mouth with a tongue moving up and down.
“Like a snake,” he thought.
He was not deceived. It was not a snake but, of all persons, a Jap.
“Our engine _was_ tampered with!” His head spun, but his temper rose to
a white heat.
Between him and the Jap was a trap-door leading to the desert below,
providing you had a parachute. And the Jap had one, strapped to his
back.
“Ready to go,” Sparky told himself. “He would have gone before this,
but he was afraid. Now he will never jump.”
As if reading his thoughts, the Jap sprang forward. He was too late.
Sparky was solidly settled on the door.
Hissing like a snake, the little man snatched a knife from his belt.
One moment it hung in air, the next it rattled against the wing’s
floor. A heavy wrench had crushed against the Jap’s arm, all but
breaking it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _Between Him and the Jap Was a Trap-Door_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then they came to grips. It was muscle and brawn against ju-jitsu, and
all manner of oriental tricks. Now an arm, like the tail of a
boa-constrictor, was about Sparky’s neck, choking, choking him to
death. And now Sparky’s steel-like fingers were gripping the Jap’s arm,
twisting it until bones cracked.
It was a tooth-and-nail battle. Now the Jap was clawing at Sparky’s
eyes. And now Sparky had those claws between his teeth.
It became a struggle for weapons. Once the Jap gripped the handle of
his knife only to receive a blow in the face from Sparky’s fist that
sent him reeling.
Regaining possession of his wrench, Sparky aimed a blow at the head of
that serpent of the Rising Sun. Only a sudden upward thrust of a foot
saved the Jap.
“I’ll kill you,” the Jap hissed in good English.
“Come on, then. Try it!” Sparky aimed one more blow at the Jap’s face.
The Jap dodged. Sparky lost his balance and fell flat. For a space of
seconds he was at the enemy’s mercy. But to get the knife the Jap must
crawl over Sparky’s body. He tried just that and this was his undoing
for, with a mighty heave, Sparky pinned him flat and full-length
against the hard slats above him.
Rising to hands and knees, Sparky put all the power of his splendid
muscles into the task of crushing the last gasp from the now thoroughly
beaten enemy.
When the last gasp came, he slid from beneath the Jap to let him down
with a dull thud. “You wanted to go down,” Sparky panted. “Now’s your
chance.” His hands were on the trap-door’s fastening. The Jap lay on
that door.
Then he paused to reflect. It would be the end, he knew, well enough.
The Jap was not dead, but helpless. His parachute had been torn from
his back.
“You’ve got it coming,” Sparky grumbled. “You planned all this. It
would have been our end, not yours, but now—”
His fingers trembled. He undid a catch, then he fastened it again. He
was thinking of the empty desert and the jackals. “It’s too good for
you,” he grumbled, “but I can’t do it.”
At that he bound the Jap, who by this time was stirring and breathing.
Then, pushing him far back in the wing, he tied him fast. “Tomorrow,”
he said aloud, “they will shoot you at dawn—the firing squad, you
know.”
The Jap’s eyes rolled as a low hiss escaped his lips.
After that Sparky went about the business of repairing the disabled
engine.
* * * * *
And all the time Mary at the controls was growing more and more uneasy
at his prolonged absence. Little wonder for, out there on the horizon,
there were movements, like that about a beehive when the bees begin to
swarm.
They were a long way off, but an ever-increasing threat for all that.
Now there was one, now two, now three, and now five airplanes. Like a
small flock of birds they flocked toward the sky, then all went
swooping down again.
“Rehearsing for trouble,” she breathed. “I wish Sparky would come back.”
What was to be done? Trouble soared in the distant air. She feared the
worst for Sparky yet had no means of communication with him and could
not for a single instant leave the controls.
Despair had begun to grip her heart when there came a series of bumps
behind her and there stood Sparky.
“Sparky!” she exclaimed, “You look terrible! There’s blood on your
face, blood, soot and grease. What happened?”
“You were right.” He leaned heavily on the back of the seat. “There was
a man back there, a little rat of a Jap.”
“I knew it. I saw him back there at that oasis,” she exclaimed. “There
may be a tall woman in black in that other wing.”
“Now you _are_ crazy!” he exclaimed.
“Let me tell you.” She told of the tall woman in black and the Arab
woman that looked like her.
“Were those two the same person?” she asked.
“We’ll ask the Jap.” He managed a smile.
“Then you didn’t—” She hesitated.
“No, I didn’t kill him,” he answered, “but I should have. I had a coil
of insulated wire in my kit. I bound him hand and foot with that and
left him back there. I hope he likes it.”
“He won’t get loose?”
“Never! Try that engine. I cobbled it up. Take it easy.”
She eased the engine into motion once more. Soon both engines were
roaring their best.
“Sparky! That’s wonderful! Now we’re safe!”
“Not for sure. That motor needs a going over. We—”
He broke off to stare at the northern sky.
“Planes! Headed this way! A whole formation of them! Say! This is being
done according to plan! The enemy knows of our secret cargo. The Jap
was to cripple us. Those planes were to finish us off. Well, they
won’t. Get out your oxygen mask, girl! We’re going up to visit the
stars. There’s not a fighter made by those rats that can beat us to the
stratosphere!”
She set the ship climbing, then reached for her oxygen mask. When she
had it handy, she set herself for this new ordeal.
“But, Sparky!” she cried, “what about the Jap?”
“Well, what about him?” he growled.
“He’ll die!”
“Let him die, then!”
“Yes, but you didn’t finish him. You let him live.”
“All right. I’ll take him a mask and two oxygen bottles. It’s a waste
of that precious stuff, but there’s the rule of war. I’ll be back.”
He vanished and on the instant Mary wished that she had not spoken.
“What is one spy, more or less?” she asked herself. “Now I’m here to
face it alone!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------