  For some time after retiring that night Gale lay on her army cot, eyes staring at the blank walls of her tent, fully awake. Through her mind whirled delicate chimes, ladies, long lines of marching soldiers and a city of many small houses surrounded by a wall. Then the scene changed, became more bright, but it shifted to her hillside. Bombers came whirling over, bombs dropped. She trembled with fright. And then she saw the black dwarf—or was it the thin man a little lame in both feet? As her mind held the picture the two figures appeared to merge into one. At that she fell asleep. She awoke early next morning, routed the sleepy Jan from her cot, then headed for her hideout. That this might prove a day of great importance she knew right well. If the Japs had any way of guessing or knowing that soldiers were camped in the shade of the Secret Forest, their planes would come swarming over. And if she failed to detect them? “We can’t fail!” she declared to Jan as they climbed through the dark just before dawn to their roost among the rocks. “Where do you get that ‘we’?” Jan exclaimed. “You know good and well that I’m only your orderly, or—or something.” “You do your part, and do it well,” Gale insisted. “So together we stand. “For all that,” she added, “you don’t need any more glory. You got your share last night.” “Didn’t I wow them!” Jan laughed. “I could do it all over a hundred times and like it. “But I keep thinking of those fine boys!” she added soberly. “How many do you think will get to go back to America after it’s over?” “Probably most of them. The Japs can’t do much to a bunch like that. And Jan,”—Gale’s tone was thoughtful—“Did you ever stop to think that going to war isn’t a total loss?” “How’d you dope that out?” Jan demanded. “Well now, look at those boys we tried to entertain last night. What would they be doing if the war hadn’t come along?” “Going to school, shining shoes, driving tractors, selling shirts, making automobiles, and—” “There you are!” Gale exclaimed. “Most of them wouldn’t have gotten more than a hundred miles from the old home town.” “That’s right, and they’d have worked at the same old thing all their lives.” “And now look!” Gale added eagerly. “Nine out of ten will get back home all okay, and what a lot they’ll have to talk about. India, Burma, China. They’ll know a lot too and maybe they’ll help this poor old world with a headache figure out some of its problems.” “Well, yes, maybe.” Jan agreed grudgingly. “But you can’t sell me no war. I got into this one because I thought I was needed, and it was too big a thing to stay out of. But once it’s over, watch me get a job driving a pie wagon, or just anything.” Jan laughed merrily. And so here they were at their station. And a busy station it was to be on that particular day. “Jan, when do you think the big push into Burma will come?” Gale asked, a bit out of breath as they reached their roost. “Oh, very soon!” was the prompt reply. “As your Jimmie would say, ‘there are signs’. Perhaps it will be tonight.” “Then we’d better look out,” Gale replied solemnly. They did look out every fifteen minutes throughout the forenoon. Gale’s radar fingers felt their way through the sky. There was a haze along the horizon. Those feeling fingers reached much farther than eyes could see. “All quiet,” Gale said as the noon hour came. “Fifteen minutes out for lunch. It’s bright outside. Let’s go out and sit on a rock.” Lunch was soon over. They ate little at noon. Then they spread themselves out on a narrow rock and gazed up at the cloudless sky. “Nothing up there,” Jan murmured. “Doesn’t seem like there ever could be. “Come where my love lies dreaming the happy hours away,” she sang softly. “Don’t fool yourself.” Gale sat up, picking at the grass that grew by the edge of the rock. “This is war. War is never like that.” Then, as if she had heard a phone ring,—which she had not—she sprang to her feet and hurried to her station. Her radar set had not been humming more than a minute when she called excitedly: “Jan! Come quick!” “Coming!” Jan bounded into the lookout. “What’s up?” “Plenty! Off a hundred miles due east the sky is filled with planes. Looks like a raid. Get headquarters at once!” “Here you are,” Jan announced twenty seconds later. “Headquarters?” Gale tried to keep her excitement out of her voice. “This is G. G. J. Looks like a raid. Many planes two hundred miles straight out.” “Right,” was the answer. “Report again in five minutes.” Five minutes later Gale’s report was: “G. G. J., Refer to last report. No change except approaching at two hundred miles per hour. That’s all.” That was all for Gale, at least for the time being. But for the pilots, radio men and gunners of two hundred of America’s finest fighter planes, it was but the beginning of something big, and for some, disaster. “They know we’re here and now they’re after us,” Danny Dean, the pilot of a two-seater said to his gunner. “Let them come,” was the prompt answer. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. The more we knock down here the less we’ll have to fight when the big business starts.” Not a pilot left the Secret Forest that day but caught his breath as he saw the eastern sky blackened by Jap planes. “Somebody’s tipped them off,” one bright-eyed boy shouted. “But let them come!” In half an hour the sky was filled with planes. American fighters ganged up like catbirds after crows, to down Jap bombers before they reached their objective. Nor were the fighter planes all the trouble those Jap planes met that day. Together with twenty other gunners, Gale’s friend Mac was stationed on a rocky ledge outside the forest. A lucky shot at the very start brought a bomber down so close to him that he was obliged to bury himself in a bush to escape its flying parts. Even Isabelle’s Pete had driven his tank to the edge of the forest and was having a go at them with a machine gun. “It’s a beautiful scrap,” Jan was all but sobbing with terror and delight. “Beautiful and terrible,” was Gale’s solemn reply. “I saw one of our planes go down and the pilot didn’t bail out.” In the main Gale had eyes for but one plane, a small one with long, slender wings, Jimmie’s plane. After studying the sky for ten minutes she decided he was not there. “Oh, Jimmie!” she whispered, “Where are you?” Then with a start she recalled a promise she had made to him. “If I disappear,” he had said, “And you suspect that something has happened to me, listen in at your radio every night at ten.” He had written down the wave length and given it to her. “If I have any sort of a radio,” he had added, “I’ll be on the air. I might even talk from the other world.” He gave a strange laugh. “I promised,” she told herself now. “I’ll listen tonight.” The air battle was brief, fierce and decisive. A few of the enemy bombers got through to drop their bombs on the Secret Forest. There were some casualties—not many. Most of the bombers were driven off or destroyed. Once more the boys of the U. S. Air Force had won a signal victory and not a little of the credit was due to “Radar Gale” as the young WAC with the flying hair was often called. At the very end of this battle something startling and terrible happened. Gale and Jan were in their hideout. Gale was feeling about in the sky with her radar for possible Jap attackers when Jan exclaimed: “Look, Gale! That Jap plane is coming straight at us and no one is after it!” The plane, a rather large Zero with a powerful motor was headed straight for them. Only a few moments before Gale had seen just such a plane drop a bomb. “Quick!” she cried. “Get into the cellar! He’s got us spotted!” They tumbled rather than climbed down the rocky stairs and had half way slid the steel door to their bomb shelter shut when an explosion all but over their heads seemed to tear the very side of the mountain away. Jan reeled backward but stayed on her feet. Gale crumpled down, hit her head on the rock floor, rolled over and lay still. “Oh! My God!” Jan exclaimed. “She must be dead! It’s the concussion! What shall I do?” Greatly excited she cried: “Gale! Gale!” But Gale neither moved nor answered. |
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