  The girl with wind-blown hair ordered the coolie pushing a cart loaded with instruments and strange radio-like boxes to come close to the big anti-aircraft gun and leave the cart there. “You runnee this-a wire backee and fixee him plenty good.” She handed the coolie a long electric cord. The coolie vanished into the shadows of the palm trees. “What’s the big idea?” The sergeant in command of the anti-aircraft gun sat up. The air of India was hot and moist that afternoon. He had been half asleep. Now he stared at the cart and its odd contents and then sent a second questioning look at the girl with the wind-blown hair. “You and I are going to do a little practicing.” The girl spoke in a steady even tone. Then she smiled. The sergeant looked her up and down. She was, he decided one of those rare girls who could make even the drab uniform of a WAC look good. She was rather large but well proportioned. “An oversize copy of a beautiful gal,” he told himself. To the girl, after recalling her words, he said: “Says who?” “Says the Colonel.” Smiling a little more broadly she fished a crumpled bit of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. “Military papers,” he grumbled as he smoothed out the sheet. “Should be kept in perfect condition, folded neatly.” “And read.” She did not smile. “Okay—okay, sister. All the same, that’s general orders I’m giving you. I—” He broke off to stare at the paper. “What’s this?” He glared at the paper some more. “You are to send small balloons carrying hollow steel balls up into the sky. Then you are to find them up there in the clouds and I am to try and shoot them down?” “That’s right.” “What’s this? A new game for a soldier’s pastime in a strange and foreign land?” He stared at her afresh. “Ever hear of radar?” she asked. “Sure! They use it in the Navy.” “They do. And they’ll use it in the Army too, providing it is possible to get the co-operation of the Army sergeants in charge of anti-aircraft guns.” “Meaning me? Okay. You win,” he agreed with an unwilling grin. “But there’s one line in this paper that is coo-coo. It should say that you are to try and find those steel balls in the clouds and I’m to shoot ’em down.” “Wait and see.” She stood her ground. The coolie returned with one end of the electric cord. She connected it to the box on the cart. Something began to burn. Some tubes lighted up. “Now,” she sighed. “It’s hot, don’t you think?” “What? That thing? I wouldn’t know,” he said. “No. The weather,” she replied. “Terrible!” he agreed with conviction. “Just at the end of the rainy season! It’s awful having your rest period broken into by a gal in an army uniform.” He winked at the two buck privates who helped man his gun, and they laughed. Paying not the least attention to this unflattering bit of drama, the girl went about her work. Removing a short steel tube from the cart, she connected it with a large paper balloon, then turned on a valve. A hissing sound followed. The balloon inflated rapidly and pulled at the cord that held it to the cart. After attaching a metal ball about a foot in diameter to the balloon, she allowed it to float skyward. It rose rapidly. Squinting his eyes, the sergeant said: “You expect me to hit that steel ball after it gets into the clouds?” “If your shell explodes within fifteen feet of the balloon the balloon will burst and the steel ball will come down,” she explained with the patient tone of a born teacher. “If you burst the balloon, you score. Hit the steel ball and you score double. Get me?” she asked. “Oh, sure. But when do you score?” he asked. “If you score, I score.” Her smile was broad and friendly. “Fair enough,” the sergeant grinned. “Well, boys, we’ll give it a real try, huh?” “Sure! Oh, sure!” came from his crew. The balloon went up. In silence they watched it rise to at last disappear in the clouds. At once the girl with wind-blown hair got busy with her instruments. “I’m feeling for the steel ball,” she explained. “I’ll have it presently.” “She’s feeling for the steel ball,” one of the buck private gunners repeated. “She’ll have it presently,” said the other. “Like h—l,” he muttered, under his breath. The eyes of the gun crew were on the girl. It was as if she had learned some Hindu magic there in India. They questioned that she could do the trick, but gave her the benefit of the doubt, nevertheless. “Something like making a boy climb a rope into the sky,” one of them suggested. “Uh huh. Probably,” the other agreed. “I saw an old guy do that trick once. And say! Was it spookey!” “Did the boy come back?” “Not that I saw, he didn’t.” The two buck privates settled back in their places. “There now,” the girl sighed. “I’ve got it.” “She’s got it,” one of the privates repeated. The other was silent. He had seen magic work. A boy had gone up a rope and hadn’t come down. “Show me how your gun is adjusted,” the girl said to the sergeant. He showed her, carefully—painstakingly as if she were a child. She grinned, but said nothing. “The balloon is drifting south by southeast,—three miles an hour,” she said at last. “I’ll find it again. Then I’ll set your gun on the spot. Your job is to follow the drift and shoot the balloon down after a sixty second wait.” “Okay.” The sergeant waited. There was an odd grin on his face. The girl bent to her task. Then suddenly she straightened up. Her keen eyes had detected a movement in the shadow of the palm trees. A dozen paces away she saw a man, a black dwarf, with strangely bowed legs and a grotesquely dried up face. Her first impulse was to say: “You go away!” She did not say it, but returned to her task. “Now,” she sighed once more, “I’ve got the steel ball’s location. I’ll set your gun.” This task she performed with speed and accuracy. The boys of the gun crew watched in some surprise. One whistled softly through his teeth. “She knows about guns,” the other whispered. “What d’you know about that!” “Now.” The girl straightened up to fix her eyes on the sergeant. “You take it.” The sergeant took over. The girl held a watch on him. The sergeant was on the spot. A girl had offered him a challenge. As a gentleman he had accepted the challenge. His face tensed as the seconds—one, two, three, four, five—ticked away. “Now,” came from the girl in a hoarse whisper. The sergeant’s fingers moved like triggers. Instantly the gun boomed. They waited one, two, three, four, five seconds. Then came the dull roar of the exploding shell. They waited again—one, two, three, four, five—up to the count of twenty. Fragments of the shell could be heard dropping. And then, at the edge of the cloud appeared a gray shadow that rapidly developed into a black ball. “By thunder! They got that balloon in the bag!” one of the boys exclaimed. Turning about, the sergeant held out his hand to the girl. She took it, man to man, a good hearty grip. “That,” said one of the privates, “is better than the boy chinning the rope. You’d ought to go in for magic, Miss. There’s money in magic.” The girl smiled, but made no reply. She glanced away at the shadows of the palm tree. The black dwarf was still there. Not knowing why, she shuddered, but she still did not tell him to go away. The steel ball reached earth some distance away. The first gunner, still a bit of a skeptic, ran over to retrieve it. “You never touched the steel ball!” he called on the way back. “But he got the balloon!” the girl insisted. “That was very good indeed for the first try.” “Thank—O—Thanks.” The sergeant made a bow. “Sometimes the Captain says I’m good and sometimes he says I’m—well, never mind just what he says. It’s not fit language for a lady.” “I’m no lady,” the girl laughed. “I’m just a soldier, a WAC. So let’s just be nice and natural. Shall we have another try?” “Oh sure! As many as you like.” The sergeant adjusted his gun. A telephone attached to a tree jangled. “I’ll get it.” The first gunner jumped up. “It’s for you, Sergeant,” he announced a moment later. “Be right there.” The sergeant was away. There was a serious, all but stern look on the sergeant’s face when he returned. “Sorry, lady,” he half apologized. “School’s dismissed for today.” “Why—what—” she began. He broke in: “Some nasty old Jap bombers are headed this way to mess things up a bit. And did they pick on a swell day to do their stuff! They’ll come hopping out of the clouds, drop their bombs and drop back into the clouds again.” “Before we get a good crack at ’em,” the first gunner broke in. “The dirty—” “Lady, you’d better scram,” said the sergeant. “This is no place for you right now.” “I hear ’em comin’!” The second gunner’s ears were covered by a listening device. “I’m not leaving,” the girl said, as she shook her hair into a tangled mass. “This may be a man’s war, but they’ll have to put me in the guard house to keep me out of it.” “Oh! Miss! I’m sorry,” the sergeant exclaimed, “but orders are orders. No ladies.” “Who’s giving the orders?” she snapped. “You’re a sergeant. I’m a second officer of the WACS. You tell me who’s ranking officer on this gun! I’m staying! And we’re going to get one of those bombers!” “Get what? Get—” A strange light shone in the sergeant’s eyes like the glint of a diamond. “Last time they got a whole gun crew and one was my particular pal,” he grumbled. He whistled a bar of “Lady Be Good”, then said: “Have it your own way. Let’s get set.” By this time the enemy planes could be heard rumbling through the overcast. “They’re heading for the airdrome. We’re practically on the edge of it,” the sergeant explained. “They may take time to wipe us off the map first,” he added as a comforting afterthought. If the girl heard, she made no sign. “They’ll circle over the place first, won’t they?” she asked in a matter-of-fact voice. “That’s what they most generally do,” the sergeant agreed. “That’s when we’ll get them,” she murmured, as she adjusted her radar set. “They’ve got one-track minds, those Jap pilots have. They circle about in the same track two or three times.” “That will make it nice,” said the sergeant. “Practically no trouble at all. Shoot ’em down like clay pigeons right out of those thick clouds.” To him one toy balloon shot out of those clouds meant very little just then. “Here they come,” the gunner with the earphones announced. “They’re headed right this way.” “Probably got one of those cute little maps with an X marking the spot!” the sergeant grumbled. Then his voice rose. “All right, you guys. Get set to do your stuff. They’re practically over us now.” Tense seconds ticked themselves away, and then the girl who had been working and looking toward the clouds said: “They’re beginning to circle now, at an altitude of three thousand feet. They’re off to the right a quarter of a mile.” Her figure stiffened. One of the privates thought she looked like Washington at Valley Forge. He drew a long sharp breath. “Coming in closer,” she said ten seconds later. “Now an eighth of a mile away. They’re coming down slowly. About twenty-five hundred up now—and almost directly over us.” “Gee!” the first gunner exclaimed. “Why don’t we have a try at them?” “How many more times will they circle?” she asked, turning to the sergeant. “Well, now,—” The sergeant’s voice sounded dry. “You can’t almost always tell. Three is a perfect number. You might count on that.” “That’s a go,” the girl agreed. “They’ll be down to fifteen hundred feet by then. We’ll check on their second circle.” “Just to see if it’s the same as the first?” The sergeant began taking short steps back and forth. “Yes. That’s it,” the girl agreed coolly. “Now they’re half way ’round—two thirds. There!” Her voice rose. “They passed over at exactly the same spot.” “Fo—four of them,” the second gunner announced with a slight stutter. “We’ll get one of them, maybe two,” said the girl. “My father was a Kentucky sheriff. He packed two guns. “Now!” She was on her toes. “Everybody ready?” Her voice was husky. “I’ll count one, two, three. Fire on three and keep on firing.” “O—Okay,” the sergeant stammered. Seconds passed, one—two—three—four—five—up to fifteen,—and then: “One—two—three—Fire!” The girl’s voice rose high. The gun roared and kept on roaring. All was wild excitement until all of a sudden the sergeant shouted: “Everybody duck!” There was an air raid shelter three jumps from the gun. They landed in a heap, the four of them, at the very center of the shelter. And then came a terrific roar. At once all manner of things began falling on the shelter. One was so heavy it seemed it might come through, but it stayed outside. “Oh!” the girl breathed, once they had unscrambled themselves. “How terrible! We missed them and they dropped a block buster.” “What?” the sergeant roared. “Nothing like that! We didn’t miss them. We got one, maybe more. That little noise you heard outside was a Jap plane in a crash with all its bombs still in the bomb bay.” “Oh! Good!” The girl tried to stand up, bumped her head, then sat down dizzily. “At ease,” said the sergeant. “Our work’s done. They’d be out of range by now. They might drop a bomb or two, but I doubt it. “Say!” he exclaimed. “You’re wonderful! Marvelous! You can join our outfit any time you say. What’s your name?” “You’d never guess, so I’ll tell you.” The girl’s face was a study. She had won her first battle with the men of the Army. Did she want to laugh or cry? Who could tell. “My name is Gale,” she said after an inner struggle. “Gale—the girl with the wind-blown hair,” the sergeant murmured. “Not bad. But at times I imagine Typhoon would be better. You should get a medal for this day’s work.” “No,”—her voice dropped—“I’ll not get a medal. Know what I’ll get?” “No. What?” He stared at her. “I’ll get a reprimand for not ducking the moment the raid was announced. After that probably I’ll get sent back to Texas to run a radio in an army camp.” “Nothing like that!” he protested. “Yes. Something like that.” Her voice rose. “This is a man’s war. That’s what they say. Oh yeah? What about those Russian girls fighting in the trenches? What about the women and children killed by air raids in England? “Work far back of the lines.” Her voice dropped. “That’s all right. It’s fine, and it really helps. Perhaps life can be fun without excitement for some people, but not for me.” She sank back to her place on the cold bare floor. “Well, sister, don’t give up hope.” The sergeant’s voice was husky. “You’re a real sport. The Colonel in charge of this man’s army over here ain’t just like everybody else. He’s different. You’ll see! He’ll fix things up. We’ll march together yet.” “Here’s hoping.” She gripped his hand. “And now, can we go out?” “Sure thing,” the sergeant agreed. “Let’s get out and collect a few souvenirs.” As the girl turned to creep out at the far end of the half-dark shelter, she caught the gleam of a pair of eyes. “Oh!” she exclaimed softly. She had made out the shadowy form of the black dwarf crouching there. “What’s up?” the sergeant demanded. “N—nothing, I guess.” She hesitated. “Nothing.” Her mind flashed over their conversation there in the shelter. “We betrayed no secrets,” she told herself. Then to the sergeant she said: “Come on. Let’s go.” |
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