SEALED ORDERS
Once they were safely stowed away in a cab he pulled the green-wrapped
package from his pocket.
“Papyrus,” he said softly, “like our paper of today, has caused a lot
of trouble in the world. Today a printing press rattles and bangs for
an hour or two and not many weeks later two groups of men, one a band
of thugs, the other a squad of officers, shoot it out for possession of
that printing press’s work. And all because it says on each slip of
paper, ‘Payable to the bearer on demand.’”
“But why would that man risk his life to get that roll of ancient
papyrus?” Mary asked.
“That,” said her father, “appears to be something I must find out!”
“You or I?”
“You are practically out of it. We’re taking the roll to Sparky. He’ll
hide it in his secret compartment for the night. When I fly back to
Egypt tomorrow the roll will go with me.”
“Why?” Mary’s eyes opened wide.
“Hasn’t it caused you enough trouble?”
“Not if it’s really important.”
“It seems to be all of that.”
“Then why should I give it up now?” She was very much in earnest. “You
know, in a very old book I sometimes read, it says something about
putting your hand to the plow, then turning back. I don’t like turning
back, or giving up. It’s part of my religion not to.”
“So that’s the way you feel about it?”
“Yes, but—” she hesitated, “one thing is more important than the
papyrus.”
“Your ship’s cargo? I agree with you. It is all-important. Helping to
get it through to China is the most important task you’ve ever
undertaken, or perhaps ever will.”
“Will taking the papyrus make that harder?”
“I doubt that. Sparky will always be with the ship. It is true that
somehow the enemy agents here have learned of the papyrus, and wanting
it for, God knows what reason, have made a play for it. But will they
carry this on even in India and China? I doubt that. When you hop off
from here, you will be headed for quite another world.”
“Another world,” she repeated the words softly. “That sounds strange
and, and rather frightening. But, unless you seriously object, the
papyrus goes with Sparky and me to that other world.”
“Then that’s settled,” he agreed.
And now, here they were at the airport.
“Well! For once!” Mary exclaimed as they came up to the plane. “Here’s
Sparky. And he’s not working on the engines. What’s the matter, Sparky?
Are you sick?”
“No—” he drawled. “Couldn’t think of a thing that needed doing, so
I’ve just been reading a book about Persia. Quite a place I’d say.”
“We’ll watch the ship while you look the city over,” the Colonel
volunteered.
“Oh, no, thanks all the same.” Sparky’s sun-bronzed face crinkled into
a smile. “I’m turning in—sleep on the job, you know—in a few minutes.
We’ll take off at dawn. You’ll be here, Mary?”
“Yep. Johnny-on-the-spot. And, Sparky, since you’re guarding the ship,
here’s one more little thing you can keep an eye on. Put it in our
hiding-place.”
“Oh! Sure! What is it?”
“Just a bunch of old papers.” It was the Colonel who replied.
“Very old,” Mary grinned.
“Oh, yes, I remember, that old Arab’s stuff,” Sparky yawned. “Lot of
trouble for very little, I’d say.”
“Yes,” Mary agreed. “A whole lot of trouble.” She laughed, and Sparky
wondered why.
When Mary and her father re-entered their rooms at the hotel a
half-hour later, things seemed a little strange.
“I left that bag on that low bench,” Mary recalled. “Now it’s standing
beside the bench. What’s more, it doesn’t look quite the same.”
Picking it up, she turned it on its side, placed it on the bench, then
threw back the snaps. Up came the lid.
“Dad!” she exclaimed, “it’s my bag! The things are all there, even a
candy bar I bought at the U.S.O. in Egypt.”
“Very kind of our Nazi friends to return it. Probably came in through
the window.” He wandered about testing the catches. “That’s right,” he
called at last. “The window in my sleeping room is unlocked.”
“Lock it, please,” said Mary. “I—I’m feeling a little strange.”
“You’ll be all right when the windows are locked and the shades down.”
And she was.
“Dad,” she said, after a few moments of quiet thought. “Perhaps that
other bag belonged to the woman in black.”
“The woman in black?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember? The one who seemed to be working with the Jap
spy who posed as an Arab.”
“She was in West Africa.”
“Yes, of course, and then I’ll never be sure that the French woman at
the port and the Arab woman at the secret oasis were the same person.”
“You’ll probably never know that,” was his reply. “However, it would be
my guess that they were two different people and, if there is really a
woman mixed up in this affair of the papyrus, that she is still
another. In this country and in Africa where spies are common, it is
not difficult to maintain a regular fraternity of lady spies. To pass
on a message from spy to spy is easy but for one spy to travel by plane
from place to place in territory controlled by our friends is
practically impossible. At any rate your bag is back and so is the
papyrus and that, for the moment, is all that matters. And I’m surely
going to see you safely off in the morning.”
In spite of the mysterious events of the day, and her strange
surroundings, Mary slept well that night. Why not? Was not her father
close at hand? Had he not been with her during the greater part of her
life? And had she not always felt secure when he was near?
She awoke an hour before dawn to wish with all her soul that he was
going with them all the way to the very end. But this, she knew, was
impossible. He had stretched a point coming this far. His work was in
Egypt, keeping the airways clear. He must turn back.
She bounded out of bed and, a half hour later, sprang from their car to
greet the cold, gray dawn.
“Sunshine, fountains, flowers, and now this. All a part of life,” she
thought with a shudder.
After switching on the plane’s lights she crowded her way back through
the cabin. She examined each well-bound package with care, counted them
and then, in one fleeting thought, asked herself what their contents
might be. For the time, the roll of papyrus was forgotten. Only one
thing mattered now—their cargo.
Finding everything ship-shape she worked her way back to the cabin door
to stand there polishing her glasses.
Suddenly she found herself staring at the square of white with which
the polishing was being done.
“That’s not my handkerchief,” she exclaimed. “It has embroidery in the
corners, a date palm in one corner and a flying bird in the other.”
“You must have picked it up somewhere,” her father suggested.
Digging into her purse for her own handkerchief, she pulled out one
more of the same pattern.
“This,” she exclaimed, “is getting funny.” Then: “Oh! I remember. There
was that strange bag last night, you know? I needed a handkerchief. My
bag was gone.”
“So you took those, and you have them still. Well, you got something
out of that adventure,” he laughed good-naturedly.
They were up and away at dawn. As the sun rose over the gray hills,
painting them with a golden light, it seemed to Mary that now nothing
could hinder them from reaching their distant goal in far-away China.
Two days later, weary, bleary-eyed, but happy, she found herself
looking down on the rooftops and strange towers of a great city. Like a
broad ribbon a river divided the city into two parts while, far away,
glimmering in the sun, lay the ocean.
“This,” Sparky’s voice was hoarse with emotion, “this is the heart of
India.”
As usual, they passed over the city to drop down upon a secluded
airport all but hidden by tropical trees.
They had made an overnight stop just within the border of India. From
that airport they had radioed the probable hour of arrival. Mary was
surprised to see a small crowd of people race on the field as their
plane came to a stop.
When, at last, she stood in the doorway of the plane, blinking from the
bright sun, there came a loud roar of applause which fairly set her
back on her feet.
“What is it?” She turned to Sparky. “They must think we’re a big league
baseball team or something.”
“There are a lot of Americans here,” he explained. “That’s including
the soldiers. You’re the first lady member of the Ferry Command that’s
ever showed up here.”
“Ray! Ray! Ray! for the lady pilot,” a soldier shouted.
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” came roaring back.
Mary said never a word, just stood there, blinking in the sun.
Then an attractive young lady came up close. “I’m Judy Pierce from the
big school for girls here. I heard you were to arrive and I wish you
would be my guest while you’re here.”
“That would be just fine—I—I—guess. How about it and how long?” Mary
asked Sparky.
“Ought to be swell. How long? That I can’t tell.”
“This is a city,” Judy Pierce said. “We have phones and everything. We
can keep in touch with you at the airport.”
“That will be quite all right,” Sparky agreed.
“Speech! We want a speech!” some boy from Kansas, Iowa, or Oklahoma
shouted.
“Speech! Speech! Speech!” came in a chorus.
“I can’t make a speech,” Mary’s voice carried across the field. “All I
can do is to fly a plane, and I don’t know too much about that. But it
does make me feel as if I had gone round the world and got back home to
see you all here. I know now, as I never knew before, that the sun
never really sets on the Army of the U.S.A.”
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[Illustration: _“I’m Judy Pierce,” Said an Attractive Young Lady_]
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There came one more roar of applause during which Mary leaned over to
say to her new-found friend: “I’ll be ready in just a little while.”
“That’s fine,” Judy smiled. “I have my small car. We’ll be in the city
before you know it.”
“Oh! A car!” Mary exclaimed. “Then I must be back home.”
At that she dodged back into the plane. There she came upon Sparky
waving two envelopes in the air.
“Sealed orders,” he whispered hoarsely. “One is to be opened here.
That’s got to be done before you go.”
“Oh!” Mary breathed. “Now we’ll know!”
“Not all of it,” Sparky warned. “Only part, and the least exciting part
is my guess.”
They crowded back into a dark corner of the plane, then shoulder to
shoulder, heads close together, read the note that came from the
wax-sealed envelope.
“The boxes marked (C),” they read, “are to be trans-shipped to the
Burma front. They contain quinine and should be guarded with the
greatest care.”
“Quinine!” Mary dropped down upon a case marked (C). “Is that what
we’re risking our lives to defend! Every drug-store has quinine!”
“Not any more,” said Sparky. “The supply in those cases came from
thousands of druggists in the U.S.A. They donated it to the men who are
fighting in the mosquito plagued swamps of Burma.
“And don’t you think it doesn’t matter.” He shook a finger. “At our
last landing I saw a man who came from those swamps. He was being sent
home. They thought he might live. But you should have seen him! Oh, no!
You shouldn’t. It was terrible to see a skeleton that’s still alive.
Malaria did it. Quinine would have stopped it. Those dirty little Japs
have all the quinine trees in the world and that’s one way they hope to
win the world. That’s how they fight!”
“Oh! Sparky!” Her voice was hoarse. “You’re always wonderful. If that
was all we came for it’s enough—”
“But it’s not. It’s only the beginning. There are the boxes marked (D).
We won’t know what’s in them until we are at the foot of the Himalaya
Mountains.”
“And then—”
“That, we hope, will be the beginning of the end.”
“Sparky,” her voice was tense, “I’d like to take that quinine to Burma.”
“You can’t, not in our ship. This ship goes straight through to China.”
“I’d like to see those fighting boys. That—well, that would be sort of
a reward.”
“I might be able to fix it,” he conceded. “Anyway, I’ll try. Now you
run along and have a good time with your new friends. You’ve got it
coming.”
“My best times always come in the hardest places.” She was still
thinking of Burma. For all that she left the plane to join Judy Pierce
in her bright little sport car.
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