  The trail the three girls followed was strange. It was not a road. There were no wheel tracks, and yet it was well traveled, trodden down and smooth by years of constant use. Here and there in soft places beside the path they found footprints of horses and donkeys. “Perhaps this is the trail the colonel and you took down the mountain, Than Shwe,” Isabelle suggested. “I don’t think it can be,” was the answer. “This is a good trail. Ours was horrible. We lost it more than once because it just vanished into nothing.” The upward climb was much longer than they had expected it to be. Gale thought that any minute they would find themselves turning sharply to the right, then starting down toward the Secret Forest. They did not turn, but kept straight on up an incline that every moment grew steeper. Gale was ready to suggest that they give it up and turn back. “We’re paying too much for our view of the parade,” said Isabelle. “I wouldn’t have missed it,” said Than Shwe. “For now I know we cannot fail.” Gale said nothing, but trudged straight on. “Tomorrow is another day,” she was thinking. “And I must be guardian angel for many thousands. I made a mistake by coming, but now we must get back.” Suddenly they reached the crest of the ridge. “Oh! This is better.” Gale sighed. “Now we’ll follow along the ridge a little way and then start down.” But there was no trail along the crest of the ridge, only scrub trees and rocks. “Look.” Isabelle flashed on her light. “The trail goes over the ridge and down on the other side.” “Wrong direction,” Gale groaned. “If we go that way we’ll never reach our forest, Isabelle. That Pete of yours is some little trail blazer.” Just then Than Shwe, who had made her way around an immense rock, called softly to them: “Girls! Come see!” When they had reached her side they stood staring in amazement, for there beneath them, seeming so close in the moonlight that Gale half fancied she could step on its roof, stood a Buddhist temple surrounded by a high wall. “So that’s it! That’s the reason for the trail!” Gale exclaimed. “What a strange place for a temple.” “It is a monastery where Buddhist monks live,” Than Shwe explained. “They are everywhere, these monks. Perhaps there are native villages not too far away, or a trail where people may get lost. They are like your Christian monks in the high Alps.” “There is always a gate keeper,” she went on. “They may have a trail to the Secret Forest. It is but a little way. We might go down and ask.” “It’s worth trying,” Gale agreed. And so they took to the trail again. They had covered two-thirds of the distance when Gale, who was in the lead, came to a sudden halt. “Look!” she whispered. “A woman.” She pointed at a window of the temple that could be seen above the wall. There was a light in the room. Through the window they saw a tall woman. She was combing her hair. “This is not strange,” Than Shwe whispered back. “Everyone is welcome to spend a night in one of these temples. They make a little offering in the morning, or perhaps a very good one if they are rich.” “But that woman looks familiar.” Gale did not move. Taking a small pair of binoculars from her pocket, she studied the scene, the temple, the window and the woman standing at a crude dressing table. “This is eavesdropping,” she whispered. “All the same it must be excusable. “Yes,” she whispered hoarsely ten seconds later, barely avoiding dropping her glasses. “Yes! It surely is.” Then she whispered four startling words: “The woman in purple!” “Let me look.” Than Shwe took the glass while they all shrank deeper into the shadows. Than Shwe studied the woman and her surroundings for some time. When at last she returned the glasses to their owner, she said: “This is a very bad woman.” “What? Do you know her?” Gale whispered in surprise. “Oh yes! For a long time.” Than Shwe shrank still deeper into the shadows. “She is called Madam Stark, and comes from India, but she lived a long time in Burma. She is very dangerous.” “But Stark is an English name,” Gale whispered in surprise. “Yes. She married a very rich English trader. He was not a good man. There are bad men from every land. They say he traded in opium. He treated her badly. That is why she hates all English people.” “Is she really a spy?” Gale asked. “This I do not know,” Than Shwe pondered. “Perhaps she may be. Anyway she did great harm in Burma. She paid men to wreck bridges and tear up railway tracks when the British army was coming. She was in China, too. Oh yes! And she was a bad one there! We have a Chinese nurse, Maida, at our hospital here. She knows about her in China. She will tell you plenty. “But look!”—the little Burmese girl’s whisper changed. “Look. On her dressing table she has a dresser set that seems very strange.” Putting the glasses once more to her eyes Gale stared in silence for a long time. “Yes,” she agreed. “That IS a strange collection, stranger than you think, Than Shwe.” She seemed greatly excited. “Let me look,” Isabelle whispered, naming the articles in the leather case as she looked—“The comb is missing. She is using it; a nail buffer; sharp pointed dagger; nail file; little blue automatic pistol; shoe horn, and—and something else I can’t make out. I’d hate to meet that lady in the dark.” “And I,” Than Shwe agreed. “But that ‘something else’ is the most important of all, unless I miss my guess,” Gale put in. “I can’t be quite sure, but I think it’s one of the three secrets of radar.” “Secrets of radar!” Isabelle whispered. “Sure, Isabelle. Don’t you know how, after my radar set had been blown up, I looked so long for the three parts that might give our secrets away?” “Oh yes. You found two of them, but—” “But the third was gone. It was while I was looking for those parts that I first saw that woman in purple. She too appeared to be looking for something. I always have thought that she found that part. I am almost sure of it now. It would be terrible if she succeeded in getting all three secret parts. The Jap’s radar is a poor one, but with those secrets—” “They’d be shooting down our planes in the fog and the dark,” said Isabelle. “That’s what they would. Tell you what!” Gale exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I am going down there and demand the right to see the contents of that case!” “Oh no!” Isabelle whispered. Her eyes were on the dagger and the automatic. “You will not get inside the walls,” said Than Shwe. “At sundown the gates are locked. They are opened only at sunrise.” “And there’s a day’s work waiting for each of us!” Isabelle suggested. “Oh yes! A day’s work!” Gale murmured. “I’ll report this to the colonel or the army intelligence office first thing tomorrow.” “That makes sense,” Isabelle agreed. “Only you’ll have to leave the reporting to me—your day starts too soon.” “But what are we to do just now?” Gale sank to a seat. “We’ll go down and thumb a ride in the giants’ parade,” said Isabelle. “That at least will be an adventure.” “Thrilling,” Gale agreed. “Well, what are we waiting for?” She prepared to lead on the return march. They made their way down the ridge in half the time it took to go up. Then again, this time, quite unwillingly they witnessed the colonel’s grand parade. Fifteen minutes after their arrival the parade came to a halt. “Come on!” Gale exclaimed, dashing for a truck. “Now’s our chance!” Arrived at the back of the truck, she pulled at a canvas flap. It gave way, letting out a flood of light. “Hey! What?” a boyish voice began. Then the voice rose: “Jeepers! Girls! Can you tie that!” “We’re a couple of WACS and a nurse,” Gale grinned. “How about bumming a ride?” “Sure! Hop in! Crowd over, you fellows. It’s not always we ride with ladies.” “We’re not exactly ladies,” said Gale when they had found their places and the flap was closed. “We’re soldiers, same as you are, in for the duration. My friend Isabelle here is the colonel’s yeoman, and—” “What do you know about that!” one of the boys exclaimed. “Think of meeting the colonel’s yeoman!” “Hey, Isabelle!” another boy exclaimed. “I don’t like this war. Not enough fun. I want to go home. Fix it up with the colonel, will you?” The boys all laughed. The question required no answer, so Gale went on: “This nurse, Than Shwe, came over the mountains with the colonel on his retreat. Now she’s going back.” “Leave it to us Than Whatever!” exclaimed a burly redhead. “We’ll cut a wide path for you all the way to China.” “That’s fine,” the little Burmese girl chimed in. “And if you stub your toe or something, come to my hospital. I’ll fix you up.” “Say! You’ve been up there ahead!” another boy exclaimed. “What sort of a place is it?” “Swell,” said Isabelle. “It’s a forest of immense trees and it’s big enough to hide the whole army. But you won’t be there long, and neither will we. We travel with the colonel.” “And boy! Does he ever travel fast!” exclaimed a boy with a Cumberland Mountain accent. “While you’re in the Secret Forest I am to be your guardian angel,” said Gale. “Are you an angel?” someone exclaimed. This called for one more laugh. “Well, not quite,” Gale replied when the laugh was over. “I sit in a box among the rocks and watch for naughty Jap planes that might bomb you.” “With a spyglass?” One boy was impressed. “With radar. That’s lots better,” Gale explained. “I can spot them two hundred miles away. I send in a report and our fighters go out to meet them. We had a grand scrap today.” “Beat the livin’ daylights out o’ ’em? Huh?” said a voice. “That’s what we did. It was grand, only—” Gale hesitated. “Only I’m afraid the Japs got one of my friends, Jimmie Nightingale. He was a Flying Tiger.” “Jimmie Nightingale!” a dark eyed youth exclaimed. “He’s from my home town, and no kidding. He’s one swell guy. But say, sister, if you think any dirty Jap got Jimmie you’ve got one more guess coming, believe me!” And so amid laughter, vague fears and words of cheer the three girls rode home to their Secret Forest with one little corner of the grandest army the world has ever known. When at the edge of the forest the truck once again came to a halt, the tired trio tumbled out amid the low cheers of their hosts, and raced away to their tent where they drowned the day’s adventures in a batch of sleep. And the morrow was another day. |
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