allison and o’malley sat across the desk from stan. he regarded them with an amused grin. they treated him with the respect due his rank only when they were in the presence of other flying tigers. in barracks or when they were reporting to him in his office they liked to ruffle him if they could. either of them would have tackled a squadron of japs at his order, but when the heat of battle was over they kidded him.
“it’s our duty to report you to the general,” allison said with a wicked gleam in his eye.
“faith, an’ you’ll get busted for sure,” o’malley added. “i’ll be after havin’ a word with chiang kai-shek himself.”
stan laughed. “i have to get something out of being in command of a lot of lunatics.178 this time i aim to do as i please. i merely mention my plans to you fellows because i am forced to put allison in command while i am away. i have called major o’malley in simply as a witness.”
allison leaned back. “it’s a three-man job, colonel. put kirby or texas in command and we’ll go along.”
“you boys are on regular patrol and combat duty. i’m just an extra around here,” stan said. “the full strength of the squadron is needed right here. we are likely to get shoved back into china as it is. the full force stays here on the job.”
“meanin’ the force can afford to lose a colonel but not a combat major?” o’malley asked sourly.
“that’s about it,” stan agreed.
“as flying leader i will patrol certain areas beyond the salween river during your absence,” allison drawled.
“you’ll patrol and protect the rangoon area, unless you get orders to shift base,” stan snapped.
“sure, an’ you wouldn’t be after bringin’179 nick munson back? you spoke only of this colleen,” o’malley teased.
“i may not have to bring him back,” stan said grimly.
allison shook his head and his smile vanished. he leaned forward. “i say, old man, isn’t it just a bit foolish and risky?”
“if it is then i’m a foolish nut,” stan answered. “we owe that girl a great deal.”
“when you put it that way, all i can do is give you my blessing,” allison said, the old-time flicker of a derisive twinkle gleaming in his eye.
“the japs may well take rangoon. they have to get it out of the way in order to slow up the flow of supplies to china. they can put ten planes into the air for every one we can send up. but as long as rangoon stands, it will not be blasted from the air. that’s our record so far and that record is going to stand. it’s up to you fellows to make it stick.” stan stared hard at his pals. “now don’t let me catch you running out on the job to start looking for me.”
“if yer in that mood, i guess we may as180 well start plannin’ a celebration for the colleen,” o’malley conceded.
“now get out and keep still. i’m going up on routine patrol flight. just to check up on what you fellows are doing. regulations call for a man in command while i’m out.” stan grinned as he got to his feet. “and i’m itching to be on my way.”
allison and o’malley went out and stan got into his flying outfit. he had done a bit of work on his p–40. he had fixed a seat in the crowded bird cage for an extra passenger. he walked out and examined the ship. the ground men stepped back and stood watching him admiringly. stan wilson was very popular with all of the crews.
stan climbed in and opened up the motor. he roared off the field and spiraled up to ten thousand feet, then headed south and east. his flight was hardly that of a commander checking his patrols. he flew in a line and kept the ship knifing along well above cruising speed. sweeping over the salween, he headed out over the jungle. he checked the rice plantations in the clearings below.
the sky was clear of all planes. he saw181 no flying tigers and no japs. easing down in a steep dive he floated over the edge of the jungle. he had sighted the clearing where he and allison had set the martin down. skimming low over the grass he set down and rolled up to the edge of the timber.
he moved along slowly until he located a spot where there was an opening, a little avenue between big trees. stan spent the next half-hour backing the p–40 into the avenue and covering her with vines and creepers. if his calculations were right, he should find a road leading into the jungle. that road should take him to the temple with the red roof. the jap general had driven a car over a road in getting to this spot, so there must be at least a trail.
with the p–40 well hidden he started moving along the edge of the jungle. after a short time he found a dim trail leading into the jungle. stan patted the automatic pistol snuggled against his hip and started down the road.
he had not gone far when he came to the wreckage of the general’s car. it lay where it had tumbled when he riddled it that day.182 already vines were beginning to shoot out over it. he trudged on for an hour, being careful to pause every few hundred yards to listen. once he heard voices. fading back into the jungle he watched four natives trudge past. they were pulling a cart loaded with fruit. after they had passed on stan emerged from the jungle and hurried on.
after walking another hour he came to a small clearing with several huts clustered at one end. this called for a detour. heading into the jungle, stan fought his way along. he had no brush knife and the going was slow and painful. thorns raked his arms and face and scratched his hands. grass blades cut like knives. a dog barked furiously and he heard natives shouting. there was one safe thing to do and that was to stand perfectly still. for ten minutes stan stood close to a tree trunk and listened.
no one came into the jungle and the dog ceased howling. stan pushed on and after a while came back to the road well away from the huts. he found the trail wider and showing more signs of use, so he stayed close183 to the leafy wall which formed a hedge on each side of the road.
by five o’clock in the evening he was close to the village. the jungle cover thinned out and he decided to wait for darkness. hiding in a thicket he lay down.
dusk fell slowly and darkness followed even more slowly. when night came stan emerged from the thicket. he headed toward the village from which a few lights gleamed. before he had gone far he came to the sentry line the japs had thrown around their post.
stan bent low so as to get the sentry against the sky. on hands and knees he worked his way up to the sentry line. the guard was out in the open where he had a chance to see anyone approaching, even in the starlight. lying flat stan checked the ground.
he did not wish to pick off a sentry. the man could be ambushed easily but his absence from the post would be discovered within a few minutes by his companions who met him on either end of his beat. there was one distinct advantage. the lines were184 blacked out. there were no lights at all, due very likely to the smashing raid the flying tigers had made a short time before.
stan edged forward. he had discovered a shallow depression running across the guard line. this low ground was deep in shadows. the sentry paced back and forth, his rifle over his shoulder. he met his fellow guards and they exchanged gruff words but never halted to talk.
using indian tactics stan wormed his way along the hollow. he moved a few feet, then lay still for a space, then wiggled ahead a little more. when the sentry had his back turned, stan slithered across his path and on as far as he could get. when the sentry faced about, stan lay flattened against the ground. he was able to time his movements by the voices of the japs when they met and challenged each other.
the guard moved toward stan and halted. he seemed to be peering into the night. stan held his breath. he suddenly appreciated the danger a scout faced in filtering through enemy lines. the sentry lowered his rifle and leaned on it. with a low grunt he lifted185 the rifle and moved on across the hollow, passing less than ten feet from stan. a bush loomed ahead and stan wiggled toward it. he slipped behind the low clump of brush and sat up.
crouching in the shadows he listened. the sentry was standing still. suddenly a slim pencil of light poked toward the bush. stan did not move. to dive flat would have caused a movement the sentry would have seen. the light poked into the dense foliage, revealing red flowers and green leaves. then the light snapped off and the sentry moved on.
stan crawled away as fast as he could. his objective was two big trees with low-hanging branches. reaching the trees he seated himself against the trunk of one of them. ahead, the ground was fairly open. he could see the temple and the grounds through the trees. the road had led him directly to the spot where he had been made prisoner by the little yellow men on his first visit to the village.
his map was in his pocket but he did not dare flash a light to look at it. he would have to work from memory. what he could186 see of the temple showed that the bombs from the hudsons had done considerable damage. a pile of rocks and debris lay to the left of the building and he could make out two big craters where the parking space had been.
rising to his feet he walked to the left. by going around the temple grounds he should reach a grove of trees. he hoped there would be underbrush in the grove, but he did not remember kirby having shown anything of the sort on his map.
skirting the shattered wall of the temple stan located the trees. they were on a gentle slope at least a quarter of a mile away. stan moved down the slope and into the grove. beyond the trees he could see a glow of light. working his way through the trees, he discovered a stream and beyond that a stockade made of bamboo set upright in the ground and laced together. two powerful searchlights played over the stockade.
stan studied the layout carefully. the japs were not worried about marking the stockade with light. a bomb dropped on187 their prisoners would relieve them of the trouble of caring for them. he surmised, also, that kirby’s escape had caused the japs to take extra measures to guard the prisoners.
there was little undergrowth in the grove and stan had to be very careful. the reflected light from the searchlights made a glow that penetrated the shadows under the trees. reaching the tree nearest the stream stan halted behind it. the light was coming from two mobile searchlights standing well up on the far bank of the stream. the stream was wide but appeared to be shallow.
the stockade itself was about fifty feet wide by two hundred feet in length. in the center there was a thatched sun shelter, while at the far end was a hut with a thatched roof. a man’s scream rang out into the night, then choked off suddenly. a few minutes later a squad of jap soldiers came out of the lower gate of the enclosure and marched away with two ragged men tramping ahead of their bayonets. they moved toward the temple.
stan seated himself behind the tree and188 watched. his eyes followed the guards as they paced back and forth. he decided the guards came from the temple grounds. that meant the only men present now were those walking in front of the stockade and along each side. but there were plenty of them. there was also a machine-gun crew stationed on a platform which gave them command of the inside of the stockade as well as the ground around it.
crossing the hundred yards of lighted ground, not to say anything about the stream, would be no easy job. stan had a feeling he would not get far in such an attempt. he sat down to think it over.
the air was filled with many sounds. from the east came sounds of machinery running at high speed and of hammers pounding upon metal. the japs probably were trying to repair some of the damage the flying tigers had done. above these sounds rose the put-put of a gasoline motor close at hand. the noise was familiar, stan had heard such a sound many times. suddenly he realized that the steady chugging came from a portable light plant.
189 edging around the tree stan crawled toward the sound. he found a bush close to the edge of the stream and sat there peering across the water. the light plant was located close to the stream on the far side. it was a type mounted on auto wheels and designed to be trailed behind a car or truck. stan looked for poles leading away from the plant but saw none. as he bent forward one of the searchlights swung around, stabbing its broad beam over the grove and down toward the stream.
stan flattened himself against the wet ground behind the bush. the light swept on, revealing a wide hedge beyond the grove, then the trunks of the trees and the slope under them. it showed a yard back of the grove. the yard was crowded with army trucks and canvass-covered guns mounted on wheels. the band of light swung around, over the slope he had just crossed. it was a white, revealing beam and stan gripped his automatic. the screen of bushes could hardly hide him from such an intense light. then the light swept upward, stabbed into the sky and dropped again upon the stockade.190 stan sucked in his breath and sat up.
he edged out into the stream and found it had a muddy bottom. the water was only knee-deep and smelled very bad. from his position, crouching above the water, stan could see the portable light plant outlined against the light from the stockade. a man sat on a box near the plant. his head was resting on his arms which, in turn, rested on the top of an oil barrel. stan was sure the operator of the plant was taking a nap.
crossing the stream he stepped out on the bank and into the shadow back of the plant. creeping forward he stood erect behind the sleeping man. one hard rap with the barrel of his automatic made the jap engineer straighten, then slide soundlessly to the ground. stan made a quick examination of the fellow to be sure he was out cold. the jap was relaxed but breathing softly.
turning to the light plant stan bent over the small motor. his probing fingers located a spark plug. with a swift blow from the barrel of his pistol he smashed the porcelain plug. the engine coughed, backfired, then went dead.
191 instantly the blazing lights at the stockade went out. the stream and the bank were plunged into darkness. stan knew this was the moment for action. the guards would be blinded until their eyes became accustomed to the sudden darkness. he charged up the bank as fast as he could. shouts arose from the japanese soldiers and a rifle shot rang out.
stan headed for the rear of the stockade where the hut stood. the fence was not very high and he could leap up and catch hold of the top. he found one strand of barbed wire and caught hold of it. he was glad the japanese were short of metal and could not do a good job of wiring the fence. with a jerk he yanked the wire down and was on top of the fence.
down at the gate a smoky flare was waving back and forth and a jap officer was bellowing orders. stan hit the ground inside the stockade. he bumped into a man and felt clawlike fingers gripping at him. he pushed the man aside and stumbled over another lying on the ground. then he reached the wall of the hut and felt for a door.
192 “niva! niva!” he cried.
above the excited shouting of the prisoners he heard niva’s voice, coming from the hut.
“i am here, inside the hut!”
stan plunged around the hut looking for a door or window. “niva! where’s the door?” he shouted.
“here is a window!” niva called.
stan located the window and saw her face, an oval of white against a black background. his hand felt green bamboo bars. gripping them he planted a knee against the flimsy wall and yanked. the bars and a large part of the wall pulled away. stan tossed aside the section he had pulled loose and caught the girl’s wrist.
“come on! we have to get out of here before they get another light.” half dragging, half carrying the girl he charged toward the wall. his head was down and he smashed aside the natives who got in his way.
at the wall niva held back. “we ought to help them escape,” she cried.
“we’ll be lucky to get out ourselves,”193 stan said as he lifted her to the top of the wall. “but i’ll have a try.”
niva disappeared beyond the wall and stan leaped up. he was poised for a leap when a rifle flamed close to where niva stood on the ground below. a bullet screamed past stan’s head. he dived toward the flash of light from the gun.
his one hundred eighty pounds of hard body hit the guard like a bolt of lightning. the jap went down with a groan. stan caught up his rifle and set it against the wall. picking up the little sentry stan tossed him over the wall into the enclosure.
grabbing the rifle he began slashing at the lacing on the stockade. “can you call to them? make them understand?” he shouted to niva.
“i’ll try,” she answered.
stan cut through the lacings and jerked several poles loose. the jap sentry’s bayonet was as sharp as a razor and stan was able to slash the fiber bindings rapidly. in a short space he had an opening wide enough for a man to slip through.
niva was shouting to the milling prisoners194 near the opening. her cry was taken up and the prisoners surged toward the hole. stan waited no longer. he caught her arm.
“come on!” he urged.
they could hear guards running toward the opening in the stockade and behind them the prisoners were pouring out. stan caught niva up and charged away, just as the guards smashed head-on into the prisoners swarming out of the stockade. a furious battle began with the japs going down under the fists and claws of the escaping men.
stan made for the wide hedge. reaching it he set niva down. they ran along its sheltering wall for a hundred feet before they located a hole to duck through to the jungle side of the hedge. they were halted by an opening which had been cut across the thorny growth. jap sentries marched back and forth. they were unusually alert because of the commotion at the stockade.
the pandemonium below was growing. from the platform the machine guns had opened up and were blasting away. lights, coming from the direction of the temple, were stabbing into the night.
195 “this place will be swarming with soldiers in a few minutes,” stan whispered. “we have to break through the guard line. i’ll charge that jap. you keep close behind me. can you use an automatic pistol?”
“you haven’t forgotten i am a spy, have you?” niva asked with a low laugh. “give it to me.”
stan thrust the gun into her hands. he caught her thumb and showed her the safety catch.
“ready,” she hissed.
gripping the captured rifle stan charged the sentry. his rush was silent and carried him well out and upon the guard before the jap saw him coming. the sentry whirled and lowered his bayonet to meet the attack. stan was on him before he could lunge. he wasn’t sure he had room for bayonet work so he brought the butt of the gun up in a sweeping arc. the jap seemed to lift. he went rolling end over end like a rabbit, landing in a heap on the ground where he lay motionless.
beside him niva fired the automatic. another guard was charging in. he dived196 aside, however, when the girl opened up on him.
“i missed him.” her voice was cool but tinged with disgust.
stan laughed as he caught her hand and dragged her away. they raced along the hedge, keeping close to the barrier of thorns. soon their flight was slowed to a walk as they came to heavy underbrush and vines. but stan refused to halt until they were deep in the jungle.
when they were well away from the village he stopped in a little clearing. niva stood panting beside him.
“thanks, stan wilson, for coming back,” she said.
“kirby told me you were in the stockade. he made a map of the grounds.” stan grinned at her. “i owed you a rescue. now if we can get out of here we’ll be even.”
“you americans are remarkable people,” niva said. “you do not hesitate to stage a one-man invasion.” she laughed softly. “but you came just in time. von ketch was just waiting for permission to have me shot.”
197 “you’re through with axis spying, young lady. from now on you can help your own people by giving the chinese all the information you have on the jap spy system,” stan said grimly.
“you do not like spies?” niva asked.
“frankly, no,” stan answered. “i thought once that they all were rats.” he grinned down at her.
“now what do you think?” she asked.
“i think we’d better keep going or we may both be shot when the sun comes up,” stan answered.
they moved on into the jungle, stan setting his course by his pocket compass. he hoped his calculations would bring them out on the road beyond the huts in the clearing.
