  In the brightening dawn of that eventful day Isabelle watched Pete ride away leading the big push, atop his tank. She saw him cross the bridge that only a few hours before had not been there, then follow the river along the opposite side, only to cross and re-cross the river, then to vanish into the great unknown. Overhead three Jap planes appeared. There came a roar from the hills. American planes went swooping down. A short, sharp fight, and the Jap planes vanished. And the procession moved steadily forward. After the tanks came guns, and after these an endless procession of trucks loaded with men and equipment. After these, most impressive of all, came marching men, thousands of them. Rifles and Tommy-guns over shoulders, pack on backs, they tramped steadily forward. Isabelle swallowed hard as she whispered, “God, this is too much. Why must all this happen?” But Than Shwe was dancing. “The people of Burma, my people, are starving. The Japs have taken all the rice. But now they shall be set free. They shall eat again. See, Isabelle, tanks, guns, men and Tommy-guns! The colonel fetched out a Tommy-gun on his shoulder. Now we have thousands of Tommy-guns. It is beautiful and wonderful!” “And terrible,” Isabelle murmured. For all that, she was thrilled as never before. It was strange. With Isabelle’s rose tightly gripped in his teeth Pete rode on into the dawn. They came at last to enemy territory. Here the road was old and quite rough. But still they rumbled on. They went several miles without a shot being fired. “I don’t like this.” Pete took the rose from between his lips to consult the captain of his tank. “It’s sort of ominous.” “Like moving pictures of them frontier days,” Bud Rankin, the tank’s boss, agreed. “Indians lyin’ for you on the edge of some river bank, an’ all that.” “Sure! Sure!” Pete agreed, sticking the rose in his cap as if it were a red feather. “Look!” he exclaimed suddenly. “There’s some kind of a track going over that clay bank. Let’s have a look.” They had gone into the lead of the other tanks by several hundred feet. Quickly climbing down, he made a running leap and was atop the clay bank. “Man! Oh man!” he exclaimed softly. “Track of a giant!” At that he raced back to mount the tank once more. “Bud,” he spoke in a low tone, leaning far over, “that’s the track of a giant tank. Alongside of that tank ours is just a baby. The Japs never made that tank. It came all the way from Hitlerland. They’ve been dodging our blockade, bringing in guns and tanks and taking out rubber and tin. They must have brought these tanks, maybe a whole shipload.” “What do you know about that!” Bud exclaimed. “They’ll hang around behind these banks, then come up and blast us,” said Pete. “We’ve got to get them first. Wait. I’ll have one more look.” Again he streaked up the bank. He dropped flat when he reached the top, then crept forward. A moment later Bud saw him hold up three fingers. “Three of them!” Bud groaned, speaking to his engineer. “Three giants. What now?” When Pete returned, his strategy was all worked out. “They’re German Mark Sixes,” he exclaimed. “Sixty ton babies. But what do we care for that? This here gun of ours can shoot.” “An’ you sure can lay ’em down in the groove,” said Bud, who was from the Kentucky mountains. “You’re the gunshootinest feller I most ever seen.” “Sure I am,” Pete agreed. “Now look! This is the way it is. The ground is level about half a mile farther up. They’re waitin’ up there to blast us. We’ll climb right up the next ridge behind these little low trees and we’ll give them the surprise of their lives.” “I’ll leave it to you, Pete. Let’s ramble.” Bud agreed. So with the red rose still in his cap, Pete again mounted the tank and directed its course. When they started up the bank the treads began to slip but increased power drove them forward until at last they stood at the crest. There Pete squinted through low trees for a space of seconds. Then tumbling down into the tank he dropped the door softly, swung his turret about, squinted down the gun, moved the turret just a little, squinted again, then exclaimed: “Here’s something for you, Tojo!” At that his gun roared. The smoke had not cleared before a second shot rang out, and after that a third. “Now! Let’s see!” Shoving back the door, Pete climbed to the turret top. “Running like blazes,” he exclaimed. “We got ’em all right. Now, Tojo! Count your men! Count your men!” He sent a hail of machine-gun fire after the fleeing Japs. “We’ve got to move fast!” Pete exclaimed, once more popping out of the tank’s top. “I can’t see the next one. Slide her up a bit.” The General Sherman rumbled forward. “There! Stop her!” He tumbled back into the tank and in ten seconds had his gun in action. The second shot resulted in a tremendous roar. “Blowed up. That Mark Six blowed right up,” he exclaimed. “What d’you know about that? Come on! Let’s ramble again.” Like some rogue elephant roaming the hills, the third big tank had rambled from sight. “Shucks!” Pete exclaimed. “He’s gone and lost himself! We’ll have to hunt him up. There’s a higher hill. Let’s roll up there for a look.” They rolled to the crest of the hill. Pete was about to pop out for a look around when an enemy shell saved him the trouble of lifting the tank’s lid. The shell blew the lid off. “Poor old Red Dynamite!” Pete exclaimed. “He’s lost his lid! Oh, well, I never did think much of that lid.” He thrust up his head for a look. “Watch out! You’ll git it too!” Bud warned. “Lightnin’ never strikes twice in the same place,” said Pete, climbing half way up for a better look. “Neither do Tojo’s shells.” This might be true, but it would seem that the Japs are good at near misses, for just then a shell whizzed past him so close that the suction almost dragged him from the tank. “Why! You dirty—” He stopped short. After dropping back into the tank, he put up a hand. His cap was gone and with it Isabelle’s rose. “He can’t do that to me!” he stormed. “That’s a big field gun. I saw where that shell came from. Let me at him.” No one held him back. He squinted once, then fired three shells in quick succession. There came no reply from the enemy. “Got him!” he exclaimed. “Now maybe I can enjoy a little fresh air.” He climbed back to the tank’s shattered top. In the meantime three other U. S. tanks had cornered the remaining giant enemy and proceeded to beat him into submission. And so as the grand parade proceeded to spread itself out over the landscape, the battle went on. And far away in the wilds the native drums told their story over and over while Gale and Jan moved ever closer to their goal. At last, an hour before sunset, a weird sound began drifting through the trees. “What is it?” Gale asked, pausing to rest her tired body. “It’s the native marching chant,” said the doctor. “They are coming. Soon they will be with us. We may wait here.” Tired as she was, Gale could not wait. Hurrying forward, she met the dusky caravan with Jimmie carried on a litter in their midst. “Jimmie!” she called. “Are you badly injured?” “Gale!” he exclaimed in astonishment. “Are you here?” “Sure! Why not? I heard your call and I came. I hear you calling, calling me,” she chanted. Needless to say the native marchers were given a rest while Jimmie and Gale made up for lost time in certain little matters. “But Jimmie, are you badly injured?” she repeated at last. “I’ll be flying again soon, and I’d better be,” was his reply. “The colonel must be half way across Burma by now. And don’t forget, we have a date. Our destination is Tokio!” “Oh, Jimmie! You must take me with you!” she exclaimed. “I surely will, if I have to kidnap you!” he vowed. Arrived at the spot where the monks were busy preparing a camp for the night, they rested while tea was brewed and some sort of wild meat was roasted over the fire. Jungle dinner over, the doctor took charge of Jimmie. He discovered an arm out of its socket, a cracked rib, and a badly bruised leg that, after all, was not broken. When these injuries had been cared for, they all rolled up in their blankets and slept while dusky forms took turns at watching through the night. Just after dark on that same day Pete came bursting into the colonel’s temporary headquarters, a deserted roadside store—a full fifty miles inside Burma. Isabelle, who sat typing orders, looked up wearily to say: “Did you want to see—” She broke off short to exclaim, “Pete! It’s you!” “Who else?” Pete grinned. “The colonel sent for me. He wants to see me.” “Does he? Then come on in here.” She led him to an improvised washroom where a wooden tub full of water awaited him. “Dust an inch thick on your face and caked with blood at that,” she grumbled. “And your hair’s a mess.” “They blowed my hat off and my rose! Blast ’em!” “Never mind that. Duck your head,” she commanded. When she had scrubbed his neck and hair she rubbed him down good with a coarse towel. “Now!” she exclaimed, laughing, “the colonel can really see you. He wants to congratulate you and pin a medal on you for being the best gunner of the day.” “Shucks! Isabelle! It was nothing!” he said with a grin. “It was just because they made me mad, blowing away my rose the way they did. “But Isabelle,” he squared off for a good look, “you sure are one swell gal. I shouldn’t wonder if we’d have a lot of dates when we get back home. Maybe we’ll have so many we’ll just decide to move in together.” “That,” said Isabelle, “will be just swell.” And to prove she meant it, she sealed the bargain with something better than a handshake. After that they hunted up the colonel to collect Pete’s medal, which to Pete, considering what had happened before, was practically nothing at all. And so the war went on. |
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