Sparky Ames of the Ferry Command, Page 3

  CHAPTER II

  SAVAGES AND THE NIGHT

  As the big plane circled, drifting slowly down, Mary leaned over to sayin a deep, impressive voice:

  “Janet, if we crash, and there’s a spark of life in you, get out quickand run, crawl, anything. Get away fast.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Janet stared. “If the ship gets on fire the gas tankswill explode and—”

  “It’s worse than that,” Mary confided. “This ship is mined.”

  “Mined!” Janet stared.

  “It certainly is! And by our own people. This is one ship our enemieswill never take apart piece by piece, nor its cargo either. In case ofa crash, it will be torn to ribbons.”

  “That—why, that’s terrible,” Janet’s voice was husky.

  “Not as bad as it seems,” was the slow reply. “Only fire will set offthe explosives. Bumping won’t do it. There’s a fuse, too. I know rightwhere it is. No, they’ll never get the Lone Star or her cargo. Andthere’s nothing they’d like half as much to do. But they won’t get her.Never! Never.

  “And now,” she breathed. “Here we go!”

  As her ship glided down, even in this moment when her own fate seemedto hang in the balance, on the walls of Mary’s mind was painted apicture that would not soon be erased. It was as if her first glimpseof a tropical jungle, the waving palms, the slow, rolling black river,the native huts, the sloping hillside all bathed in a beautiful sunset,had been painted there by some great artist.

  And then her ship’s landing wheels touched the broad, hard-trodden pathof the natives. Coming in closer to the natives’ shacks she had avoidedthe treacherous hillside and suddenly, there she was. Graceful as aplover with wings outspread the Lone Star came to rest.

  “We made it!” Mary gave vent to a heavy sigh of relief. “But now!” Shewas up and away in the same breath, for the solving of one difficultproblem had only served to bring her closer to another. There had beentwo men in the bomber when it crashed, Sparky Ames and Don Nelson. Onehad been injured. Which one? And how badly? She had to know.

  “I’m going over there!” she exclaimed as she leaped from the plane, atthe same time pointing up the hill.

  “Okay. I’ll watch this plane,” Janet said.

  “Yes, I think that’s wise. You never can tell.”

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  _The Lone Star Came to Rest at the Foot of the Hill_]

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  Mary cast an apprehensive glance at the long row of native houses.“Homes of a hundred people,” she thought. “Perfectly wild natives.” Butnow nothing stirred there.

  With long, quick strides she made her way where one man bent over theprostrate form of another.

  When she was half way there she saw the kneeling man turn his head.Then she knew.

  “Oh! Sparky!” she exclaimed. “You’re safe!”

  “Sure! What’d you think?” The tall, strongly built young man withblack, kinky hair grinned.

  “I—I didn’t know.” She was closer now. “It would have been terrible ifyou had been seriously injured, you know.” Her voice dropped. “Secretcargo!”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “But Don!” she exclaimed. “Is he badly injured?” She was standingbeside Sparky now.

  “I can’t tell yet,” was the slow answer. “I have the courage to hopenot. He got a bang on the head. That knocked him out. I’ve felt himover pretty carefully. No bones broken is my guess. But he keepsgroaning. His hand comes up to his chest. Got a cracked rib or two Ishouldn’t wonder.”

  “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “Bad enough, but it might be worse. Anyway, our plane can never berepaired. Not here it can’t.”

  “And how will you ever get it out?”

  “That’s it,” he agreed. “Looks as if we’re stuck—at least, our planeis. Guess we’ll have to go it alone, Mary, just you and I. It’s the waythe Chief would want it.” His voice went husky. “That secret cargo mustgo through at all cost. Those were the orders. How do you feel aboutthat?”

  “How would you feel about going over the top somewhere in Africa?” shechallenged.

  “I wouldn’t think. I’d just go, same as any other soldier does.”

  “It’s the same with me now,” she replied soberly. “I—am a soldier,too. Well, perhaps not quite, but I’m serving in a soldier’s plane, amighty good one, too. Any man in my shoes would have to have had fivehundred hours in the air.”

  “And so where duty calls or danger—” he quoted.

  “I shall always hope to be there,” she saluted. “But look!” sheexclaimed. “Don is trying to sit up. He must not do that!”

  “No! No! Old man! Not yet!” Once again Sparky was at his comrade’s sidegently pushing him down.

  “Wh—where am I? Who—what happened?” came in thick tones.

  “You’re here and we’re here. Sparky and Mary,” said Sparky.

  “Oh! Then it—it’s all right.” The injured man settled back.

  “I’ll go get some pneumatic pillows,” Mary volunteered.

  “Yes, and something hot to drink,” Sparky suggested. “That will help alot.” Mary was away.

  When Don had fully recovered consciousness and had been made ascomfortable as possible, they gathered around him for a council of war.

  “It’s getting dark,” said Sparky. “In another quarter of an hour itwill be darker than a stack of black cats. In this land the dawn comesup like thunder, and the sun blinks out in the same way.”

  “And there’s no moon,” said Janet.

  “All of which means we’re here for the night,” said Mary. “Sparky,” hervoice seemed a little strained. “What kind of a country is this?”

  “Good head-hunting country,” Sparky laughed.

  “No, but really, we’ve got to face facts,” Mary insisted.

  “Truth is,” said Sparky, “I don’t know about the upper waters of theAmazon, or the people who live here. Do the rest of you?”

  There came a chorus of “no”s.

  “All right, then we’ll be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”

  “They scattered fast enough when they saw us coming down,” Donvolunteered.

  “That was natural,” said Sparky. “It is also natural to suppose that,in the end, they’ll defend their homes. They may come back in thenight. There are two loose machine guns in each plane. The Major hadthem put there for just such a time as this.”

  “And for the time when we’ll be over battle zones,” Mary added. “We maybe attacked—”

  “Just now we’re in a jungle, so we’ll limber up the guns,” said Sparky.“How about you ladies fixing up a little chow?”

  “Sure, oh, sure! We’ll do that!” was the quick response.

  By the time Sparky had two guns set up in the Lone Star, which hefigured might, in the event of an attack in force, be used as a fort,and had dragged the other guns to the spot, a short distance away,which they had chosen as a camp site, darkness had fallen and the girlshad coffee brewing over a cheerful fire.

  “Say! This is great!” Sparky exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to gocamping but never had time!”

  “Well,” Don drawled, “You’ve got about ten hours now with nothing elseto do but camp.”

  “Unless we’re attacked,” Janet supplemented with a shudder.

  “Why bring that up?” Mary laughed. “Dinner is about ready to serve.Let’s make it a date.”

  “A date it is,” Sparky agreed.

  Their grub box contained a little more than iron rations. Sweetpotatoes and sausages each served from a can, big, round whitecrackers, a square of butter and, aromatic coffee with real sugar andcanned cream, made up the bulk of their satisfying meal. Dessert waslittle wild bananas, and huge, over-ripe grapefruit that were sweet asoranges. These came from the edge of the jungle.
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  “Um,” Janet breathed. “That was really a feast.”

  “Yes, and listen!” Mary exclaimed low, “What was that? Really somethingdifferent!”

  A low rolling sound had come drifting in out of the night.

  “A native drum!” was Sparky’s instant answer.

  As they listened from farther away came the answer.

  “Talking drums,” Mary whispered. “I never expected to hear them.”

  She was hearing them all the same and, coming as they did out of thenight with the low murmur of the dark, rushing river as theiraccompaniment, they sounded weird indeed. Now came a roar close athand, _tom-tom-tom_ sharp and clear, and now from far away with thebooms blended into one long roar.

  “Night in the jungle,” Mary whispered.

  “Crawl into your ship and forget it,” Sparky suggested. “We’ll be herein the morning.”

  “Oh! I never could do that,” Janet exclaimed.

  “All right,” said Sparky. “Then you girls keep the first watch and I’llsleep. But first we’ll fix Don up as comfortable as we can.”

  It was Don whose eyes first closed in slumber. With soft pneumaticcushions under him and a mosquito canopy to protect him and a soothingcapsule to allay his pain, he was asleep before the others couldarrange for the watches of the night.

  Just as Sparky crept away to the Lone Star for three winks a brightgolden moon came rolling along the fringe of the forest.

  “Oh! That’s better!” Janet exclaimed.

  Was it? It was not long before every shadow cast by the moon appearedto move and the darkened grass houses seemed alive with people.

  “Ghosts,” Mary whispered. “Ghosts of native men and women who livedhere long before we were born.”

  “Be still!” Janet whispered. “I heard a voice. It was somewhere downthe river. Listen!”

  As they listened a voice seemed to ask: “Why? why? why?”

  “That,” Mary laughed low. “That’s a big, old tree frog. He lives in apool of green water in a hollow tree, way up high. I read about itonce. If you drink the water he lives in you’ll go crazy.”

  “I think you might,” Janet whispered. “What do you suppose he wants toknow with his eternal ‘why’?”

  “Perhaps he wants to know why we are here, why my father is outsomewhere in Africa.”

  “And why my two brothers are in Australia,” said Janet. “Do you knowthe answer?”

  “No,” said Mary. “At least not all the answer. I only know that we mustkeep on being here, and in Africa, Egypt, Syria, India, China, whereverwe’re sent until this terrible war is over and all our loved ones cancome home again.”

  “Yes, that’s right. But, Mary, you know we were volunteers. We didn’thave to join up. And above all, we didn’t have to go on this long, longtrip so far from home.”

  This Mary knew was true. They had, in truth, volunteered twice. Joiningthe WAFS was purely on a voluntary basis. Once they were in they wereexpected to ferry planes from place to place in their own country. Buta sudden, urgent call had come from China for forty planes, all but twoof them bombers. There were not enough men available so volunteers werecalled from among the women.

  “All of us volunteered, except those who had children,” Janet said,thinking aloud.

  “Who wouldn’t? It’s what I’ve always wanted most.” Mary’s voice rose alittle. “When Sparky used to come in after a week’s absence and say,‘Hello, sister, I’m just back from Russia,’ I was burned up with envy.The next week it would be Africa, and after that London, and there wewere plowing through the sky to Kansas City, Des Moines or Peoria. Andnow,” she breathed, “we are on our way to China by way of Africa,India, and all the rest.”

  “We!” Janet exclaimed. “Do they expect just you and me to fly theAtlantic, alone?”

  “Why not?” Mary asked, teasingly. “Oh, well—” she added, “Sparky toldme tonight that he and I would go on alone.”

  “Nice going,” Janet’s tone was a trifle cold.

  “Oh, Janet!” Mary put out a hand. “Don’t look at it that way. There’ssomething aboard the Lone Star that just has to go through. I wish Icould tell you what it is. I can’t because I don’t know. Naturally,it’s better that a man pilot the plane, one who has flown the Atlanticmany times. It would be natural, too, that Don should go if he wereable, but—”

  “Oh, sure!” Janet was her old, friendly self again. “I understand.We’ll have to get Don to a hospital somewhere and I’ll stay to see himthrough.”

  “Yes, and you may get to China yet, both of you.”

  “Oh, China,” Janet yawned. “Just now I’d love to find myself onBroadway in little, old New York, with a run to Denver waiting for mein the morning. It’s a funny world, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is,” Mary agreed.

  At one A.M. Sparky climbed down from the Lone Star’s cabin. “Go on upthere and sleep,” was his gruff but kindly order. “We’ve got a toughday ahead.”

  They obeyed. While Janet wrapped herself up in blankets, Mary spreadout an eiderdown robe her father had once brought from the far North,and they were soon fast asleep.

  Three hours later, just as the moon was nearing the crest of the ridge,lying off to the west, Mary crept down from the plane to join Sparky inhis vigil.

  “Don still asleep?” she asked.

  “Sure is. He’s lucky to be able to sleep.”

  “Perhaps he’s not so badly injured after all.”

  “Bad enough,” Sparky sighed. “We’ll have to get him over to thehospital at Para. Then you and I’ll have to hop the little channel thatlies between South America and Africa. Your cargo must go through.”

  “Secret cargo!” she whispered. “Wonder what it could be.”

  “Some new weapons for destroying Japs perhaps. A new type ofsub-machine gun, or just a badly needed medicine for the soldiers upthere in Burma. They say it’s plenty bad up there this time of year.Anyway, that secret cargo must go through.”

  “‘Ours’ not to reason why—‘ours’ but to do and die,” she parodied.

  “Who knows!” His voice sounded solemn in the stillness of the night.“The enemy has our number. I’ve been looking at my motors. They’ve beentampered with, emery dust in the pistons or something.”

  “But where could that have happened!” she exclaimed.

  “Caracas!”

  “But there were soldiers guarding every plane.”

  “Soldiers of foreign lands are sometimes traitors. So, too, aremechanics who tune up the motors. We’ll have to be on our guard everymoment. This time we were over the land. The next it may be the sea.”

  “We’ll watch,” she vowed. “Day and night. Night and day.”

  “But it’s all so strange,” she mused after a time. “Why should there bea sudden demand for so many big planes in China?”

  “There are rumors of a plan to bomb Tokio.”

  “Oh! I’d like to be in on that!”

  “Wouldn’t we all! But it’s just a rumor. I’ve heard that we are toattack Burma from two sides.”

  “Try to re-capture the Burma Road?”

  “Yes.”

  “That would be glorious!”

  “Then I’ve heard the Japs are going after Russia and that these bombersare for our Russian allies. All these are rumors. We may never know thetruth. That’s the way it is in war.”

  For a time after that nothing but the low rush of the river and thecroaking of the ‘Why’ frog disturbed the silence of the jungle. Then,suddenly, Mary whispered:

  “Listen!”

  “Singing,” Sparky whispered back after a tense moment. “Natives on theriver.”

  “The moon has gone behind the hills. They’re coming back. The nativesare coming.”

  “Yes, and let them come,” Sparky rattled his sub-machine gun. “Ifthey’re peaceful, things will be all right. If not—” He rattled thegun once more. “This is war. The Lone Star and her secret cargo must gothrough!”

  After that for
some time they sat there in silence listening to thewild native chant that, with every movement, grew louder.

  Then, suddenly, the dark waters of the river came all alight. The longcanoes had turned a bend of the river. In each canoe were a dozentorches held aloft. Mary counted nine canoes in all. To her heightenedimagination each canoe seemed a hundred feet in length.

  “Do they come like that when they want to fight?” she asked grippingSparky’s arm hard.

  “Who knows?” was the brief reply.

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