WHERE ARE THEY?
“Oh! They’re gone!” Mary exclaimed in dismay as they came in sight of
the airfield.
“What? They can’t be!”
“But they are! The bombers are gone. The field is practically empty.”
It was true. Warnings of an approaching storm had sent the big bomber
squadron roaring on its way over the mountains. But Mary and Sparky
landed a moment later with plenty of room to spare.
To Mary this was a great disappointment. She dearly loved being in a
parade, always had. And flying in a great formation like that was a big
parade.
“Now we’ll have to go it alone,” she said soberly.
“Nothing new about that,” Sparky grinned. “We’ve made it alone
practically all the way and you’re bound to admit that we’ve had all
the luck any flier could ask.”
“Yes, all the luck,” Mary repeated slowly.
“You’re tired, Mary,” Sparky said with a show of sympathy.
“Yes, I guess I am. Can’t take it after all, I guess.”
“Can’t take it! Man! Oh! Man!” he roared. “Listen to you talk!”
Just then Scottie came over from Sparky’s plane.
“I covered up the box that the spy pried open,” he said. “Then I
changed the loading so it’s on the bottom. And believe it or not,” he
added, “I didn’t peek.”
“The secret compartment?” Mary’s voice rose. “Had it been broken open?”
“Don’t know a thing about a secret compartment,” was Scottie’s reply.
“I went over the cabin with a fine-toothed comb. Everything but that
box seemed okay.”
“Then the roll of papyrus is still there and wasn’t burned up in that
plane.” Mary heaved a sigh of relief.
“So that’s what happened?” said Scottie. “Their plane burned.”
“Yes, it burned.” Mary spoke slowly. No other questions were asked.
“The Colonel said if you didn’t bring my plane back in twenty-four
hours,” Scottie laughed low, “that I could have yours.”
“And you said?” Sparky asked.
“I said it would be a fair enough trade but that guys like you and Mary
always came back.”
“Yes,” Mary agreed. “We always come back—sometimes.”
“Mary,” said Sparky, “I’m going over our plane, every bit of it. People
who open secret cargoes also put emery in engines, cut fuel pipes and
all that. When we go over those peaks, everything has to be right.”
“It certainly does.” Mary was seeing again those cold, white slopes
where a plane forced to land goes rolling down, down, down, to dizzy
depths below.
“I’ll go get a cup of coffee,” she said dreamily.
“And have a good rest,” said Sparky. “We may go over the big top yet
today. That all depends.”
While she was drinking her coffee, Mary was joined by the Captain who
had helped her save the secret cargo from the would-be hijackers.
“Sparky tells me that you chased that woman spy to her death,” he said.
Mary nodded. “I just wanted to tell you,” he went on, “that while you
were gone, I did a little investigating. That woman flew to a small
airport owned by a rich native, about forty miles from here. She must
have motored over here, though her car wasn’t found. Had an accomplice,
no doubt.
“A man I got on the phone,” he went on, “tells me she checks with a
native Indian woman who studied in America but who soured on Americans
for some reason or other, and so went into spying. Looks as if you and
Sparky have done the country a great favor.”
“I—I’m glad,” Mary swallowed hard. “But for my part I’ll do my bit
some other way after this.”
Two hours later Mary was wakened from a dream in which she was riding
on an ocean liner gliding rapidly down a swiftly moving mountain stream.
“Mary! Mary!” It was Sparky, calling outside her tent. “I’m sorry, but
orders have come through by radio. We are to start within the hour!”
“Okay. I’ll join you at the canteen for our last cup of java in Burma.”
“Here’s hoping.” Sparky was away.
“It’s not too promising,” he was telling her a half hour later, talking
between gulps of steaming hot coffee. “The barometer is falling. A
storm is on the way, but the big shots figure we can make it. This time
of year it storms for weeks once it gets a good start and it seems our
cargo is vital to some great mission.”
“Sparky,” Mary drawled sleepily, “the next time you and I fly together
we’ll insist on having a cargo of toothpicks, crackers, chewing gum,
and non-essentials.”
“Something that doesn’t count too much,” he grinned. “I wonder. It
strikes me that you’re just the sort that insists on doing hard,
important things all the time.”
“You might be right at that, and perhaps I’ve got a buddy that’s built
along the same lines,” she answered smiling.
“Might be,” he agreed. “Anyway the next hop promises to be both
important and tough so we’d better get going.” He slid off the stool.
Five minutes later, having been joined by Hop Sing, they were back at
the plane. Heavily padded suits, fur-lined jackets, and marvelous wool
socks were selected with great care for all. Sparky went through the
business of getting set for a long flight, then, when his motors were
rolling, nodded to the mechanic and they went gliding away.
As if by way of a warning from the storm gods, as they cleared the
treetops, a stiff push of wind lifted their plane high, then let it
down with a bump.
“Oh, ho!” Sparky shouted. “So that’s how it is! Blow high! Blow low!
Not all your snow can stop our motors’ steady roar.” He was in high
spirits. But Mary was ill at ease.
“They say that women have instincts,” she said to Sparky.
“Meaning what?”
“Nothing much, I guess.”
He set the ship climbing. They went speeding on toward those eternal
fields of white.
Perhaps the events of the morning had shaken Mary’s usually steady
nerves. Then again the strain of long, exciting days and nights had
begun to tell. Be that as it may, as they came closer and closer to
those mountains of eternal snow, her apprehension increased.
They came close to the place where they must climb and climb again to
make the pass in safety, and she was obliged to confess to herself that
she was really frightened.
At that moment she recalled the words of a pilot who had crossed many
times. “They call it a pass but it’s only a slightly lower level
between two towering peaks.” She looked at the peaks and the narrow
depression that lay between them. At the same time she thought she had
discovered a change in the peaks that lay far to the left.
“Some of them are gone,” she said.
“Gone? What’s gone?” Sparky asked.
“Mountains.”
“Mountains! They don’t go away. They’re eternal. It says so in the
Bible.”
“All the same there are not as many as there were,” Mary insisted.
Sparky gave her a sharp look, then he gazed away to the left.
“By thunder! You’re right!” he exclaimed. “They are vanishing. Know
what that means?”
“A storm!”
“Absolutely. With the direction of the wind, quartering to the
direction the range takes, that storm will come and come and come.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: _“That Means a Storm!” Sparky Exclaimed_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even as Mary watched the view away to the left changed. Instead of
simply disappearing each mountain began to “smoke.” It wasn’t smoke,
she knew that. It was snow blown hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet
into the air.
As the moments passed the thing grew in horror and intensity. Striking
the mountains at an angle, the storm appeared to creep upon them like a
thief in the night.
“It’s coming, Sparky!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, coming,” he agreed. “And we’re climbing.”
“Can we beat it?”
“If we can’t we can fight it. I’ve seen storms before.”
“Not a white storm.”
“Yes, white storms.”
“Not over the Himalayas.”
“Have it your own way,” he grumbled. “Anyway, we’ll fight. We’ve got it
to do.”
Frightened within an inch of her life yet fascinated by the
strangeness, the expression of power, the beauty of it all, she watched
the storm arrive. Now there were twelve mountains in the calm that lay
between them and their destiny. Now one more mountain smoked, leaving
eleven. Now there were ten, eight, six, five, four, three.
“Sparky! It’s almost here!”
No answer—only a grim look of utter determination.
“Sparky! It’s here!”
As if a white blanket had been wrapped about their plane, everything
before them vanished. At the same time, as if it were a child’s toy,
the storm caught their plane and carried it aloft. The motors still
turned, but meant nothing. Had the plane ever traveled so fast before?
Mary doubted it. Where were they? Where was the mountain? It seemed to
her that they must be approaching the stars. A stinging cold crept in
everywhere.
And then, just as she had begun to despair, still as if they were toy
people in a toy plane of a toy world, the storm gave their plane a
final push, turned it completely over, then abandoned it to its fate.
They began to drop. The motors were no longer turning. Had that intense
cold rendered them useless? If so their fate was sealed.
With benumbed fingers Sparky tried a switch here, another there. There
came a faint humming sound. It grew and grew. Somewhere a wheel turned,
then another. Then, suddenly, the motors roared.
With great skill, Sparky plied his wings, his tail controls until,
slowly, like some great, graceful bird, the plane turned over.
The motors roared on. Five minutes more and they were hanging in calm,
clouded skies.
“Question right now is, where are we?” Sparky said after a moment’s
silence. “The bear went over the mountain,” he hummed.
“Yes, but did we?” Mary asked.
No one cared to risk his reputation on an answer to that question.
------------------------------------------------------------------------