BURMA DETOUR
When Mary arrived at the airport before dawn next morning, guards, like
gray ghosts, were moving silently about among the many planes assembled
there.
Having been challenged by one of the guards, she explained her mission
and was at once led to a cabin monoplane that was just warming up.
“Oh! There you are!” Scottie exclaimed. “I hope you’re ready for a bit
of a scrap or anything that comes along.”
“I’m with you for anything that comes our way,” she replied.
“Good!” said Scottie. “Well, then let’s get up and get going.”
Climbing to his place, he released the mechanic who had put his plane
in motion, then motioned Mary to the co-pilot’s seat.
“This is a small plane alongside yours,” he said. “We had to break up
some of the boxes of quinine and store the goods in the wings, but it’s
all there.
“Listen to her!” he exclaimed, as the motor roared. “Snortin’ to go!
She’s the sweetest ship I’ve ever flown. She’ll jump right straight up
from the ground, or nearly so, and can land on any road a car can run
on. She can do four hundred miles an hour, flying straight on, and can
cut circles around any Jap plane that’s made. I only wish I could show
you what a fighter she is, but they say all’s quiet on the Burma Front.”
“Please don’t stir it up on my account.” Mary laughed a bit nervously.
“All I’m interested in is getting that quinine to the hospital—”
“Sure!” Scottie agreed heartily. “That’s our mission and that’s what
we’ll do, but downing a couple of Zeros won’t hurt a bit.”
It seemed to Mary as they rose to greet the dawn, that he had spoken
the exact truth. His ship did appear to leap straight into the air like
a frightened bird.
“I’m glad Sparky is getting a chance to have a real rest at last,” she
said after a time.
“Yes, I imagine he can use it, all right,” said Scottie. “He told me he
was going to sleep late. After that he and one of the boys at camp will
fly your plane to the foot of the mountains. We’ll meet them there late
today.”
“And tomorrow we’ll go over the Himalayas?” Mary drew in a long, deep
breath.
“Yes, providing the mountain gods permit you. They don’t always, not by
a long ways.”
“Is it really bad?”
“It’s the toughest bit of flying between China and Chicago. Every pilot
who’s done the trip says so. And there’s a score or more of men who’ve
flown it many times. Help is coming to China from America in a big
way—by plane. And I’m glad.”
“So are we all!” Mary agreed.
For an hour they sailed on over green fields of rice and dark, tangled
forests.
“There’s a storm gathering over there,” Scottie nodded in the direction
they were going. “Hope we can beat it.”
“Oh! I hope so.”
They were over a broad stretch of water now.
“It’s getting really black over the jungle where those Jap rats are
hiding.” Scottie set his motor roaring. “They’ll not bother us today.”
As Mary watched the gathering storm she thought she saw small planes,
like birds circling before the clouds. “Scurrying home,” she told
herself.
They had reached the far side of the water when, with startling
suddenness, the storm struck. Catching their plane as if it were a wisp
of paper, the wind whirled it up—up—up a thousand, two, three
thousand feet, then sent it whirling down again.
“Just hold your seat,” Scottie’s lips were drawn into a straight line.
“I’ve been all through this before.”
When their downward rush had slackened, he kept the plane headed toward
the earth. “We’re still at five thousand feet,” he murmured. “Might be
a bright spot below.”
All the time Mary was thinking, “We’ve come all that long way with the
quinine and now—”
Suddenly, she let out a little cry of joy. From the very blackness of
night that was the heart of a storm cloud, they leaped into clear,
bright air.
Better still, beneath them lay a large clearing and at its far end,
half hidden, was a small airfield.
Scottie spoke a few words into his radio. Mary caught the answer:
“Come on down, you monkey. What you want to do, stay up there and get
wet?”
Roaring with laughter Scottie set the plane circling down. The next
minute their plane bump-bumped and they slid in for a stop.
“Here we are!” Scottie exclaimed.
“Yes, and here comes the rain,” was Mary’s answer as big drops began
beating a tattoo on their fuselage.
Three minutes later, while the rain was coming down in torrents a
laughing young doughboy carrying slickers on his arm climbed to the
plane’s cabin to thrust in his head for a look.
“I win!” he shouted to someone standing in a tent door. “You lose your
two bucks. She’s a lady! And, boy, oh, boy! Is she!”
There came a roar from the distant tent, then the boy crowded past the
boxes of quinine to hold out the slickers.
“Here. Get into these,” he urged. “We heard about your coming and about
the quinine. You won’t be here long. Gotta make every moment count.”
Smiling happily, Mary hid herself in a slicker six sizes too big, then
raced away to the tent where she found a score of young men, most of
them with full beards, singing:
“It ain’t going to rain no more.”
The instant she appeared the song broke off short.
“Here she is! Danny!” her escort shouted. “Now where’s the two bucks.”
“You gotta take that raincoat off her before I’m convinced,” came the
defiant reply.
With a happy smile Mary threw aside her raincoat.
There came a succession of low gasps, then whispers: “It is! It’s a gal
pilot.”
At that a tall doughboy shuffled forward. “We drew straws,” he began
bashfully. “I lost so I’ve got to make you a speech. We—we all want to
thank you for the quinine. A lot of our buddies are in the hospital.
We’ve been out of quinine for a week and,—and who knows which of us
goes on sick leave next so—”
“As you were—” Mary’s voice faltered, then steadied. “You should know
that we gals in the army ask only one thing, to be treated as buddies
and—and regular soldiers.”
This speech was received with a round of cheers.
“Come on, boys!” shouted a husky sergeant who beyond doubt had crashed
many a football line. “Give her the hero’s rush.”
At that they hoisted her to their shoulders and heading into the
drenching rain, carried her away to the hospital.
There, safely hidden away at the edge of the jungle, they put her down
in a big tent packed full of cots and on every cot rested an invalid
soldier.
“Boys,” said the sergeant, “we’ve brought you the two best things in
the world, plenty of quinine and a lady.”
“Speech! Speech!” came from every corner.
“Oh, boys,” Mary was close to tears, “I’m a flier, not a chaplain. All
I can say is that I shall always remember this as the happiest moment
of my life.
“One thing more before I leave. I’d like your names and addresses. If
I’m lucky enough to get back to good, old U. S. A., I’ll write to your
mothers, every one of them and tell them that I saw you.”
“Oh!” exclaimed a very young boy close beside her, “that—that will be
swell!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _“I’ll Write to Your Mothers,” She Promised_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
With aching heart but smiling face Mary went from cot to cot collecting
addresses and personal messages of the sick men.
Then Scottie came in. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “The rain has
stopped. There’s just time for a bit of chow with the other boys here,
then we’ll have to hop into the sky. Don’t forget that Sparky’s
waiting.”
“Of course,” she exclaimed. “We must get going.”
A roar of farewell from the soldiers a half hour later, a burst of
speed and once again they were in the air.
For some time they were silent, then Mary said in a solemn voice:
“Scottie, I saw things in that field hospital today that I hope I may
never see again, but I’ll never forget them. Never! Never!”
“Yes, I know,” Scottie replied.
There was another long silence. Then Scottie spoke: “I don’t often
speak of it. War’s not a thing to be talked about, really, especially
when you’re talking to a girl. But did you happen to notice those two
boys in the far right-hand corner of the hospital?”
“Yes, I talked to them. Such nice boys. Both college men. They were
fliers.”
“Yes, and ‘were’ is exactly the word. Neither of them will ever fly
again and one will never even walk.”
“Terrible,” she murmured.
“It is terrible.” Scottie’s voice rose. “They were my buddies, those
boys were. More than once we flew in the same formation. We were
together when it happened. Want me to tell you?” he hesitated.
“Yes, tell me.” Her voice was low.
“Well, those boys were flying a two seater, one was pilot, the other
radioman and gunner. We were four planes together on patrol. Ten Zeros
dropped down upon us from the clouds.”
“Oh! The clouds!” Mary looked up. Large, white clouds left by the storm
were hovering above them.
“It was a hot fight,” Scottie went on. “I got me two Zeros, sent them
down in flames. Having one more burst of fire I went after one more
Zero. He was a tough one. Got in a burst of slugs on me and cut half my
ship’s tail away. But I gave him one that set one of his wings shaking
like a dead leaf. With my guns empty, I was heading for home and
wondering if I’d get there, when I saw a good American two-seater going
down in flames.
“‘It’s the end of those boys,’ I thought. Then I saw two parachutes
blossom out.”
“Did they make it?”
“They would have.” Scottie hesitated. “You might not believe me, but
those boys would tell you if you asked them—”
“Why? What—”
“The Jap that shot them down followed them, followed until their
parachutes opened up and—”
“Shot them up—”
“That’s what he did. Me? I was so mad I went after him and without
ammunition and with a shot-up tail I’d have got him too if I’d had to
ram him, but he hid in a cloud.”
“And didn’t anyone get him?” Mary asked eagerly.
“Not that day, they didn’t, nor ever I guess. We’d know his plane if we
got him and I’d know him in the air.”
“How could you?”
“The impudent monkey had the nose of his plane painted to represent our
Uncle Sam with a long beard and a very red nose.”
“Giving you something to shoot at, I suppose.”
“Let me see the target just one more time,” Scottie exclaimed, “and
I’ll make a bull’s eye.”
For a long time after that Mary sat staring dreamily down at the
tropical beauty that glided beneath them and thinking of the people
who, like bits of the jungle, had come and gone in her life during the
days that had just passed. She saw again Jerry, the beachcomber, The
Woman in Black, Captain Ramsey, and her father. A dozen other familiar
figures passed before her mind’s eye. And then of a sudden, Scottie
exclaimed:
“Look! There’s four of those black-hearted, little goggle-eyes slipping
out of a cloud right now! I don’t suppose—” he hesitated. “Of course
we can run, or we can climb. They’d never come near us. Perhaps that’s
the best way. There’s Sparky waiting for you, and your cargo.” There
was a wistful note in his voice. It was, Mary thought, like the singing
note of a faithful dog’s whine when he was begging to be loosened for a
fight.
“Sparky can wait, if need be—forever.” Her voice was firm. “The cargo
will go through even if I’m not there.”
“Then we—”
“Go get them, Scottie!” Her words came short and quick.
“You asked for it.” His motor roared. “So did they.”
The four Zeros, sure that one of them would finish Scottie off, came
right at them. As if by thundering straight on he hoped to avoid them,
Scottie did not change his course until he was almost beneath them.
Then, with a “Hang on, Mary!” he tilted his plane straight up to climb
toward the stars.
Caught off guard, the attackers attempted to scatter. One narrowly
escaped crashing into the other and, in the confusion, found Scottie
beneath him, with every gun blazing. With its fuselage sawed half in
two, the Zero doubled up to go rolling and tumbling toward the jungle
far below.
Just in time Scottie dropped the nose of his plane, tilted, and went
into a spiral to escape an enemy on his tail.
When he came out of the spiral, he stood for a second on his wing, then
rising like a comet, flashed past the would-be attacker to catch a
second Zero unawares and send him down in a pillar of smoke.
Just then a stream of slugs cut across their cabin, so close to their
backs that Mary felt the heat of their passing.
“The dirty—” Scottie did not finish. As the other plane flashed past
him, he had seen something. Mary had seen it, too.
“Get him, Scottie,” she screamed. “Get him if it’s the last thing you
ever do.”
“Never doubt it!” In deathly fear lest his ship had suffered from the
attackers’ bullets he set his motor thundering her best as he set
himself to beat the Zero to a cloud a mile or so away.
They gained. They halved the distance between them. They quartered it.
The plane seemed a thing alive.
“Get him, Scottie! Get him!” she cried hoarsely.
It was a long chance but just as the enemy touched the edge of the
cloud, Scottie let go. A burst of fire, another, then another.
The Zero had completely disappeared, when the last burst roared from
his guns.
Ten seconds passed, twenty, thirty, then, down from the cloud, as if
the cloud itself were falling apart, came broken bits of something that
once had been a Zero fighter.
“Just blasted him apart!” Scottie muttered. “Can you beat that?”
“That picture of Uncle Sam on his plane’s nose—”
“That, Mary? That picture!” Scottie laughed hoarsely. “That’s blasted
into bits. His engine must have blown up or his gas tank or both!”
A half hour later, as they circled for a landing over the field where
Sparky awaited them, Scottie said:
“What’s the use of a good, American flier being over Burma without
doing a little fighting, even if she is a lady?”
“Fighting, Scottie?” said Mary. “I haven’t been fighting. Just had a
ride with a Flying Tiger, that’s all.”
“And one you’ll not forget.”
“Not ever.”
And so they came on down.
------------------------------------------------------------------------