CHAPTER XVIII
WHERE ARE THEY?
“Oh! They’re gone!” Mary exclaimed in dismay as they came in sight ofthe 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 bombersquadron roaring on its way over the mountains. But Mary and Sparkylanded a moment later with plenty of room to spare.
To Mary this was a great disappointment. She dearly loved being in aparade, always had. And flying in a great formation like that was a bigparade.
“Now we’ll have to go it alone,” she said soberly.
“Nothing new about that,” Sparky grinned. “We’ve made it alonepractically all the way and you’re bound to admit that we’ve had allthe 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 Ichanged the loading so it’s on the bottom. And believe it or not,” headded, “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 thatbox seemed okay.”
“Then the roll of papyrus is still there and wasn’t burned up in thatplane.” 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-fourhours,” 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 Maryalways came back.”
“Yes,” Mary agreed. “We always come back—sometimes.”
“Mary,” said Sparky, “I’m going over our plane, every bit of it. Peoplewho open secret cargoes also put emery in engines, cut fuel pipes andall that. When we go over those peaks, everything has to be right.”
“It certainly does.” Mary was seeing again those cold, white slopeswhere a plane forced to land goes rolling down, down, down, to dizzydepths 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 yettoday. That all depends.”
While she was drinking her coffee, Mary was joined by the Captain whohad 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 youwere gone, I did a little investigating. That woman flew to a smallairport owned by a rich native, about forty miles from here. She musthave 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 anative Indian woman who studied in America but who soured on Americansfor some reason or other, and so went into spying. Looks as if you andSparky have done the country a great favor.”
“I—I’m glad,” Mary swallowed hard. “But for my part I’ll do my bitsome other way after this.”
Two hours later Mary was wakened from a dream in which she was ridingon an ocean liner gliding rapidly down a swiftly moving mountain stream.
“Mary! Mary!” It was Sparky, calling outside her tent. “I’m sorry, butorders 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, talkingbetween gulps of steaming hot coffee. “The barometer is falling. Astorm is on the way, but the big shots figure we can make it. This timeof year it storms for weeks once it gets a good start and it seems ourcargo is vital to some great mission.”
“Sparky,” Mary drawled sleepily, “the next time you and I fly togetherwe’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. Itstrikes 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 builtalong the same lines,” she answered smiling.
“Might be,” he agreed. “Anyway the next hop promises to be bothimportant 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 atthe plane. Heavily padded suits, fur-lined jackets, and marvelous woolsocks were selected with great care for all. Sparky went through thebusiness of getting set for a long flight, then, when his motors wererolling, nodded to the mechanic and they went gliding away.
As if by way of a warning from the storm gods, as they cleared thetreetops, a stiff push of wind lifted their plane high, then let itdown 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 highspirits. 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 eternalfields of white.
Perhaps the events of the morning had shaken Mary’s usually steadynerves. Then again the strain of long, exciting days and nights hadbegun to tell. Be that as it may, as they came closer and closer tothose mountains of eternal snow, her apprehension increased.
They came close to the place where they must climb and climb again tomake the pass in safety, and she was obliged to confess to herself thatshe was really frightened.
At that moment she recalled the words of a pilot who had crossed manytimes. “They call it a pass but it’s only a slightly lower levelbetween two towering peaks.” She looked at the peaks and the narrowdepression that lay between them. At the same time she thought she haddiscovered 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 theBible.”
“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. Knowwhat that means?”
“A storm!”
“Absolutely. With the direction of the wind, quartering to thedirection the range takes, that storm will come and come and come.”
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_“That Means a Storm!” Sparky Exclaimed_]
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Even as Mary watched the view away to the left changed. Instead ofsimply disappearing each mountain began to “smoke.” It wasn’t smoke,she knew that. It was snow blown hundreds, perhaps thousands of feetinto the air.
As the moments passed the thing grew in horror and intensity. Strikingthe mountains at an angle, the storm appeared to creep upon them like athief in the night.
“It’s coming, Sparky!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, coming,” he agreed. “And we’re cl
imbing.”
“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 itto do.”
Frightened within an inch of her life yet fascinated by thestrangeness, the expression of power, the beauty of it all, she watchedthe storm arrive. Now there were twelve mountains in the calm that laybetween them and their destiny. Now one more mountain smoked, leavingeleven. 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, everythingbefore 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 stillturned, but meant nothing. Had the plane ever traveled so fast before?Mary doubted it. Where were they? Where was the mountain? It seemed toher that they must be approaching the stars. A stinging cold crept ineverywhere.
And then, just as she had begun to despair, still as if they were toypeople in a toy plane of a toy world, the storm gave their plane afinal push, turned it completely over, then abandoned it to its fate.
They began to drop. The motors were no longer turning. Had that intensecold rendered them useless? If so their fate was sealed.
With benumbed fingers Sparky tried a switch here, another there. Therecame 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’ssilence. “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.
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