IN SWIFT PURSUIT
That night, lying on a cot in a tent shared with three Red Cross
nurses, Mary did not fall asleep at once. The day had been a tremendous
one. Much that war means had come crashing in upon her. At the field
hospital she had seen what war could do to fine American boys. She had
not known that she could feel so terribly sad and yet keep on smiling
as she had done as she moved from cot to cot.
On the other hand she had never been quite so happy in her life as she
was on realizing that she had helped them in a big way by bringing the
quinine from America and that she could serve them still more by
contacting their relatives and friends in America, when she got back.
“If I do get back,” she whispered. Watching Scottie down those Jap
fighters who so richly deserved to die, she had realized as never
before how easy it was for a life, just any life, her life, to go out
like a match in a high wind.
“But my life must not go out yet,” she told herself, almost fiercely.
“I have so much to do—”
She thought again of the messages she was carrying to America, and,
strangely enough, of the roll of papyrus. She could not but feel that
this roll was somehow very important.
Most important of all was the cargo. “It must go through!” she told
herself. “We’ve only a little farther to go.”
After dinner that night she had sat on a log beside the stout-hearted
Hop Sing. He had told her how his people had suffered through all those
long years, of the speechless cruelties of the Japs, of homes
destroyed, women and children reduced to slavery, and all the rest. And
now help was coming—not enough yet—but more and more help.
What was the cargo they carried? Once again this question came up to
intrigue but not to disturb her. Neither she nor Sparky had tried hard
to guess the answer. “We shall know,” she assured herself. “It won’t be
long now.”
Why were all those bombers heading for China in such haste? Would they
help retake Burma and with it the Burma Road? Would they help defend
Russia from possible Jap attack? Would they bomb Tokio? She could not
guess the answer, but having visited that field hospital, she hoped as
never before that they were headed for Tokio.
“And I’d love to go with them,” she told herself.
“But first the mountains,” she whispered. Scottie had told her of the
pass, how during the monsoon period great storms went roaring up the
sides of those highest mountains of the world.
“You can’t imagine it.” Those were his words. “Snow rising like smoke a
thousand, two, three thousand feet from their peaks. A plane caught in
the grip of such a storm is like a chip caught in a great whirlpool.”
Shivering at the very thought, Mary drew the covers close about her and
at last fell fast asleep.
She was awake an hour before dawn and, disturbed by an overpowering
sense of something wrong, drew on her clothes and walked outside. It
was dark, gloomy, and chilly.
“Why did I leave my cozy bed?” she asked herself as she walked across
the narrow airfield and then among the shadows of many planes to search
out their own.
“There you are,” she whispered at last. “Good, old ship!”
To her surprise she saw that the door stood slightly ajar. Instantly
her curiosity was aroused. Sparky, she knew, had not slept in the ship.
For all that, he may have arisen early to look things over before the
big day. That there were guards about she knew quite well, though she
had not been challenged.
This, she told herself, was not strange. The moon was down. It was the
darkest hour before dawn. There were more planes on the field than ever
before in its history. No one would risk a light.
And yet, as she came close to their plane, she thought she caught a
faint flicker inside its cabin. This did not startle her. Sparky was
still in her mind. She would surprise him. It would be nice to spend an
hour with him in their own ship before dawn on a day that should mean
much to them.
With noiseless footsteps, she reached the plane, then climbed two
rounds of the boarding ladder. Without a sound, she opened the door
half way to peer into the darkness.
Did some good gremlin whisper, “Wait?” Who can say? She did wait. And
then—she barely suppressed a gasp. The gleam of a tiny flashlight
reflected by some bright object faintly illuminated a face within the
cabin. It was not Sparky, not a man at all, but a woman. “The Woman in
Black,” she thought, nearly falling from the ladder. She was sure that
this was the woman who had fired a shot at her back there in the city.
Fascinated, she watched. The woman had torn the top from a corrugated
box containing a unit of their precious cargo and was studying it
intently.
“This,” Mary thought, “must be stopped.” Her heart beat a wild tattoo.
In her excitement, she must have made some slight sound. The light
blinked out. There came the sound of rushing feet and before she could
think or move, she was knocked from the ladder.
Landing on her head, she was knocked unconscious momentarily. But
something made her mind fight back. When her senses started returning
she could think and hear but could neither move nor speak.
She heard steady, approaching footsteps. “A guard,” she thought. “Oh!
If I could only scream.”
With a violent effort she brought back her power of motion. Sitting up,
she _did_ scream. It was not a loud scream but enough for a voice said:
“Mary! What are you doing here? What has happened?”
“Sparky! Oh! I’m so glad!” She staggered to her feet.
“What is it?” He was near now.
“The Lady in Black! She was in the plane. She broke open a box. She
knows the secret of our cargo. She—she’s a spy. Perhaps she has the
roll of papyrus. She will escape and she must not!
“There!” Her voice rose as there came the sound of an airplane motor.
“There’s a plane! Someone is with her. They must have stolen a plane.
They will get away!”
Two guards came racing up. “Oh! It’s you!” the taller of the two said.
“What’s up? What happened?”
“A woman spy was going over the cargo of our plane!” exclaimed Mary.
“She saw too much. She may have taken something with her. We’ve got to
catch her.”
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[Illustration: _“The Lady in Black Knows the Secret of Our Cargo!”_]
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“That must be her plane warming up!”
“Did she have a plane? Why was she allowed to land?” Sparky demanded.
“No plane has come in tonight.”
“Then she and her accomplice are planning to steal a plane. Come on! We
may catch them yet!” Sparky led the way on the run.
But they were too late. As they reached the runway, the stolen plane
went gliding over the cement to rise into the air.
“That’s a fast two-seater. You’ll need a fast one to overtake them.”
“We’ll take Scottie’s plane!” Mary exclaimed. “It’s gassed and oiled,
ammunition, everything. I helped him get it in shape last night. It’s
really fast and a real fighter!”
“Come on, then!” Once again Sparky led the way.
The moment his feet hit the ship’s deck, he had the motor singing.
“All right, Mary,” he called. “Not much time. What about your jacket,
oxygen mask, and all that?”
“They’re all here. Scottie’s are there, too, for you. We left them.
I—I don’t know why.”
“That’s great! Get in and let’s ramble. Okay, boys, turn us loose!”
Blocks were removed from before the wheels. The motor thundered, then
slowed to an even grind. They glided away, faster—faster—faster. Then
up they shot into the sky to greet the dawn that “comes up like
thunder.”
“There they are!” Mary exclaimed. “Heading straight for the mountains!”
“What luck! They can’t lose us now. We’ll follow them straight to China
if we have to.”
“If we only had our plane!”
“Perhaps it’s best that we haven’t. This may be tougher than you
imagine. And this plane is faster than our own.”
“Yes, that’s right!”
As they sped on the sun rose. The sky was crystal clear. Far ahead of
them, triangles of deep purple where shadows lay and of light yellow
where sunlight fell, were the mountains.
“Beautiful,” she murmured.
“Beautiful and terrible,” he agreed.
“We’re gaining,” she said after a time. “I can see them much more
plainly. If we catch up with them—”
Mary could not go on. She was wondering how far this chase would take
them and how it was to end. Sparky had said they were headed for China.
Part of China was in Allied hands. Much of it was held by the Japs.
“They’ll lead us over Jap-held territory.” She spoke aloud. “And then—”
“Fighters may come out to meet us.”
“If they do we’ll shoot them down,” she declared fiercely. “You should
have seen Scottie in this very plane yesterday. It was wonderful!”
“You have all the luck,” said Sparky.
“Sparky,” she leaned toward him. “Suppose we don’t come back.”
“From this trip? We will, Mary.”
“But suppose we don’t. What about our plane and its cargo?”
“Scottie knows all about that. He’ll take it through. None of us is
absolutely necessary, but we’ll come back, Mary. We’ll take our own
plane to the journey’s end.”
“Look!” She pointed toward the other plane that momentarily grew larger
in their field of vision. “They’ve changed their course. They’re
heading down the mountain range.”
“Toward the highest peak of all,” said Sparky. “The one nobody’s ever
climbed.”
Mary had read of this peak and the futile attempts men had made to
scale it. She had been thrilled then. But now, she shuddered.
“They hope to tire us, run us out of gas, something.” Sparky tested his
supply of fuel. “They’ve got a long way to go yet. But we must be
careful. A forced landing on these white slopes means death!”
“We must save enough gas to take us back.”
“Exactly that.”
Once more Mary’s mind was working. Was this to be an endurance race,
endurance of plane, of fuel, and human courage?
“Hardly that,” she told herself. “We should be up with them in less
than a half hour.”
Through the clear air they could see great distances. Far ahead,
perhaps a hundred miles, stood a peak much higher than the rest. Was
this the highest peak of all? She had no way of telling. And so they
sped on.
Ten minutes passed, fifteen, twenty—they were nearing the fleeing
plane. The lofty peak was very near.
Sparky studied his fuel gages.
“In twenty minutes we must turn back or run the risk of crashing among
these peaks.”
“Or in jungles at the mountain bases.”
“Yes.”
They came nearer, ever nearer to the spy and her plane.
“A burst of fire might bring them down even now,” said Sparky. But his
fingers did not reach for the gun controls.
Five minutes more. They must decide. To turn back meant defeat. Could
they face that? Or should they turn loose the fury of their guns?
But what was this? The fleeing plane faltered, began to fall, then
righted itself and flew on. Ten tense seconds passed and again it
faltered.
“They stole the plane.” Sparky’s voice was solemn as Moses. “They did
not take time to check the ship’s fuel.”
Once again the plane picked up speed, only once and then, like a kite
that has lost its tail, the plane began to fall, slowly at first, then
faster and faster, turning over and over.
“She was a spy,” Mary said, forcing her eyes away from the sight.
The next time she looked, the plane was all but upon the mountain, the
snow-packed slope. She saw it crash, then begin rolling over and over.
Down it spun, a thousand, two, three thousand feet.
They followed it part way down. Once it leaped across an open space, to
crash again, then to roll on.
When at last it came to rest a faint film of smoke came up from it.
This grew dense, then burst into a red flame. They watched. Nothing
moved.
“The end,” said Sparky. Then, he set his motor roaring to speed away
toward the small airport they had left.
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