CHAPTER XVII
IN SWIFT PURSUIT
That night, lying on a cot in a tent shared with three Red Crossnurses, Mary did not fall asleep at once. The day had been a tremendousone. Much that war means had come crashing in upon her. At the fieldhospital she had seen what war could do to fine American boys. She hadnot known that she could feel so terribly sad and yet keep on smilingas 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 shewas on realizing that she had helped them in a big way by bringing thequinine from America and that she could serve them still more bycontacting their relatives and friends in America, when she got back.
“If I do get back,” she whispered. Watching Scottie down those Japfighters who so richly deserved to die, she had realized as neverbefore how easy it was for a life, just any life, her life, to go outlike 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 thatthis roll was somehow very important.
Most important of all was the cargo. “It must go through!” she toldherself. “We’ve only a little farther to go.”
After dinner that night she had sat on a log beside the stout-heartedHop Sing. He had told her how his people had suffered through all thoselong years, of the speechless cruelties of the Japs, of homesdestroyed, women and children reduced to slavery, and all the rest. Andnow help was coming—not enough yet—but more and more help.
What was the cargo they carried? Once again this question came up tointrigue but not to disturb her. Neither she nor Sparky had tried hardto guess the answer. “We shall know,” she assured herself. “It won’t belong now.”
Why were all those bombers heading for China in such haste? Would theyhelp retake Burma and with it the Burma Road? Would they help defendRussia from possible Jap attack? Would they bomb Tokio? She could notguess the answer, but having visited that field hospital, she hoped asnever 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 thepass, how during the monsoon period great storms went roaring up thesides of those highest mountains of the world.
“You can’t imagine it.” Those were his words. “Snow rising like smoke athousand, two, three thousand feet from their peaks. A plane caught inthe 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 andat last fell fast asleep.
She was awake an hour before dawn and, disturbed by an overpoweringsense of something wrong, drew on her clothes and walked outside. Itwas dark, gloomy, and chilly.
“Why did I leave my cozy bed?” she asked herself as she walked acrossthe narrow airfield and then among the shadows of many planes to searchout their own.
“There you are,” she whispered at last. “Good, old ship!”
To her surprise she saw that the door stood slightly ajar. Instantlyher 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 thebig day. That there were guards about she knew quite well, though shehad not been challenged.
This, she told herself, was not strange. The moon was down. It was thedarkest hour before dawn. There were more planes on the field than everbefore in its history. No one would risk a light.
And yet, as she came close to their plane, she thought she caught afaint flicker inside its cabin. This did not startle her. Sparky wasstill in her mind. She would surprise him. It would be nice to spend anhour with him in their own ship before dawn on a day that should meanmuch to them.
With noiseless footsteps, she reached the plane, then climbed tworounds of the boarding ladder. Without a sound, she opened the doorhalf way to peer into the darkness.
Did some good gremlin whisper, “Wait?” Who can say? She did wait. Andthen—she barely suppressed a gasp. The gleam of a tiny flashlightreflected by some bright object faintly illuminated a face within thecabin. It was not Sparky, not a man at all, but a woman. “The Woman inBlack,” she thought, nearly falling from the ladder. She was sure thatthis 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 corrugatedbox containing a unit of their precious cargo and was studying itintently.
“This,” Mary thought, “must be stopped.” Her heart beat a wild tattoo.
In her excitement, she must have made some slight sound. The lightblinked out. There came the sound of rushing feet and before she couldthink or move, she was knocked from the ladder.
Landing on her head, she was knocked unconscious momentarily. Butsomething made her mind fight back. When her senses started returningshe 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. Sheknows the secret of our cargo. She—she’s a spy. Perhaps she has theroll 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 tocatch her.”
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_“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! Wemay catch them yet!” Sparky led the way on the run.
But they were too late. As they reached the runway, the stolen planewent 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’sreally 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, thenslowed to an even grind. They glided away, faster—faster—faster. Thenup they shot into the sky to greet the dawn that “comes up likethunder.”
“There they are!” Mary exclaimed. “Heading straight for the mountains!”
“What luck! They can’t lose us now. We’ll follow them straight to Chinaif we have to.”
“If we only had our plane!”
“Perhaps it’s
best that we haven’t. This may be tougher than youimagine. 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 ofthem, triangles of deep purple where shadows lay and of light yellowwhere 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 moreplainly. If we catch up with them—”
Mary could not go on. She was wondering how far this chase would takethem 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 shouldhave 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 isabsolutely necessary, but we’ll come back, Mary. We’ll take our ownplane to the journey’s end.”
“Look!” She pointed toward the other plane that momentarily grew largerin their field of vision. “They’ve changed their course. They’reheading down the mountain range.”
“Toward the highest peak of all,” said Sparky. “The one nobody’s everclimbed.”
Mary had read of this peak and the futile attempts men had made toscale it. She had been thrilled then. But now, she shuddered.
“They hope to tire us, run us out of gas, something.” Sparky tested hissupply of fuel. “They’ve got a long way to go yet. But we must becareful. 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 lessthan 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. Wasthis the highest peak of all? She had no way of telling. And so theysped on.
Ten minutes passed, fifteen, twenty—they were nearing the fleeingplane. The lofty peak was very near.
Sparky studied his fuel gages.
“In twenty minutes we must turn back or run the risk of crashing amongthese 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 hisfingers did not reach for the gun controls.
Five minutes more. They must decide. To turn back meant defeat. Couldthey face that? Or should they turn loose the fury of their guns?
But what was this? The fleeing plane faltered, began to fall, thenrighted itself and flew on. Ten tense seconds passed and again itfaltered.
“They stole the plane.” Sparky’s voice was solemn as Moses. “They didnot take time to check the ship’s fuel.”
Once again the plane picked up speed, only once and then, like a kitethat has lost its tail, the plane began to fall, slowly at first, thenfaster 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, thesnow-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, tocrash 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. Nothingmoved.
“The end,” said Sparky. Then, he set his motor roaring to speed awaytoward the small airport they had left.
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