Suddenly she felt as though she was unclothed to the cold blast of the Manchurian night. She was alone and weak and helpless, in the grip of a maelstrom of such force that her small strength could avail nothing in its battle against it.
Dejectedly she turned and slowly placed her slippered toe in the stirrup under the rear cockpit.
Ching helped her up and eased her into the wide seat.
Forsythe’s tones were casual. “Check the gas, Ching. The fellow was lying, of course.”
Ching stepped up on the catwalk and stabbed a flashlight at the fuel gauges. “He wasn’t lying! They’re empty!”
Forsythe stepped a pace ahead and raked the light-splotched interior with anxious eyes. He paced deeply into the hangar, pausing to pick up and shake cans.
Ching cried, “We’d better abandon the plane! Shinohari will be here any minute!”
Forsythe probed deeper into the shadowy corners. He knew that no Chinese would have the courage to waste hundreds of gallons of gasoline.
He felt soft earth under his black boot and instantly knelt to scrape at the floor. Something glittered beneath the covering and he pulled it out to triumphantly hold aloft a full gas tin.
Hurriedly he dug the others out and Ching began to race with them toward the ship.
They gashed the heads with a heavy wrench and spilled the acrid, gurgling fluid into the greedy maw of the tank.
From afar came the throb of an engine, more felt than heard. Ching shot a startled glance at Forsythe and they worked faster.
Forsythe hurled the last tin clattering to the floor and gave Ching a thrust toward the gunner’s pit. Black and crouched as a jungle cat, Forsythe stood listening and watching.
The car was coming closer.
Forsythe flung himself into the forward cockpit and threw the switches. The inertia starter began to wheeze and bark and with a chattering, protesting blast, the engine caught and raced into a jangling fanfare of strident sound.
Across the moonlit field a shadow hurtled into sight and skidded to a stop. Other, smaller shadows detached themselves hurriedly and raced toward the hangar.
“Get him!” shrieked a shrill Japanese voice.
Forsythe looked worriedly at his gauges and saw the engine was still too cold. He stood up and unbuckled a grenade from its belt.
Nothing could be heard above the roar of the clanking engine. The shadows swiftly deployed across the open. Lances of orange fire streaked the darkness. Death shrieked close beside Forsythe’s head and, cheated, went whining away.
With the slow overhand motion of a softball player, Forsythe looped the grenade into the hazy silver of the field, straight at a close huddle of hurrying soldiery.
The scarlet flash was like a physical blow. Men were silhouetted for an instant against the violence of it and then there was nothing but hovering dust and moonlight.
The firing doubled outside.
Forsythe hooked another grenade far out into the field. It spewed its flame and blast over a wide area. It had been thrown too far and it did no damage.
Forsythe threw himself down into the seat. He unlocked the brakes and struck the throttle with the heel of his hand. A thousand horses beat the air into hurricane ferocity.
The ship lunged through the entrance and charged with red flaring exhausts down the runway.
Shots racketed up from the ground. Holes were magically black in the metal wings.
Ching was standing in the bucking pit, leaning into the kicking recoil of his Matsubi .50-caliber machine gun. Pompoms of blazing vermillion battered the earth.
The huge, glittering empties from the weapon streamed in a hot smoking line not five inches from Patricia’s frightened white face.
The attack plane hurtled skyward, nose jabbing toward the cold moon low on the horizon as though the still-spinning wheels could find traction upon the wide path of the silver beams.
The attack plane hurtled skyward, nose jabbing toward the cold moon low on the horizon as though the still-spinning wheels could find traction upon the wide path of the silver beams.
Then, at an angle which would have meant suicide to any other pilot than Forsythe, the attack streaked upward at the zenith. The dwindling earth fell swiftly back. The flame of shots below was like flashing bulbs on a switchboard of steel.
As casually as though he stood up naturally instead of standing something less than horizontal, Ching raked the departing world with one last savage burst and then, contemptuously, he clicked the Matsubi’s butt into its retaining brackets, sat down, buckled his belt and pulled the hood over the rear pit.
The ship whipped over the hump and level, two thousand feet high, scudding westward to race the first pale streamers of the glowing dawn.
Ching picked up the inter-cockpit phone. “Are we hit anyplace?”
Forsythe’s cold tones came back through the receiver. “Not that I can see. The wings. Did you pot the captain?”
“I doubt it.”
“Then there’s word on the way to squadrons ahead of us. We fight again before we rest. Keep your guns unlimbered!”
“You bet,” grinned Ching. “We’ll burn us a couple Nakajimas for breakfast.”
“Don’t get cocky. Our luck can’t last forever.”
Ching’s smile widened, showing up three gold teeth in his lean face. “Aw, there ain’t a Japanese alive that could whip you.”
“Trying to dare the little jinxes?”
“Naw, but…”
“Entertain the lady and let me fly.”
“Okay. I’ll keep my peepers peeled for the squadrons.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Attacked!
THE fresh coolness of morning spread clear wine across the awakening world. The bleakness of the rolling dun hills was enlivened by the long purple shadows which lay all out of proportion to their mass. In the extreme slant of the sun, ten-foot blocklike houses made dark patches a hundred feet long.
It was an odd world, yellow and immense and grotesque, which held the attention of Patricia Weston. For minutes at a time she stared down upon the weirdness of the shadows and the hazy infinity of horizons.
The hood of shatterproof glass dulled the engine’s roar to a lulling murmur. There was no sensation of speed though they traveled at better than two hundred and fifty miles an hour.
She turned and looked questioningly at lean, slangy Ching.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Ask Akuma-no-Hané. He’s taking us there.”
“Akuma-no-Hané?”
“The Devil With Wings. Don’t you talk Japanese?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s a hell of a note. How’d you get along in Port Arthur?”
“You’ve been in the United States, haven’t you,” she decided.
“Sure. Can’t you tell Yale’s alma mammy when you see one?”
“Yale! I used to know Tommy Bronson.”
“You did!” cried Ching, interested. “He lived in the room next to mine. Boy, could he play football! Greatest star we ever had. A good guy.”
“He…he was a friend of my brother’s.”
“Hmm. Say! Was your brother the tennis star at MIT?”
“Yes.”
Ching laughed delightedly. “I knew it! That name has been bothering me ever since I heard it. Why, I played Bob Weston for the intercollegiate tennis championship one year!”
“You did? Why, then you must be Ching Tze-chang, the lightning Oriental!”
“That’s me,” said Ching. “I been swapping serves with these Japanese ever since. They got a return that smokes, too, let me tell you.”
That recalled her from the green courts of ten thousand miles away and settled upon her again the heavy, dragging weariness of her hopeless situation.
“Where is he
going?”
Ching grinned at her and his gold teeth sparkled. “Oh, no use holding it out on you. He’s probably going up to Jehol to see if he can get the facts about Bob Weston. What was he doing up there?”
“Prospecting.”
“An MIT engineer prospecting? Aw, you’re kiddin’ me!”
“No, that’s the truth. He had strange ideas about what lay there. He would not even confide in me because he knew I would laugh at him—or he felt that I would. He made it very mysterious. And then this Akuma-no-Hané—”
“You’re on the wrong track there,” defended Ching. “The Devil With Wings had nothing to do with it. Not on your life!”
She did not believe him and it was plain from her glance that she knew he spoke out of loyalty and not knowledge. She had seen Akuma-no-Hané in action.
“What does he do in this country?”
Ching stopped smiling and became interested in his Matsubi’s belts.
“Is it as mysterious as all that?” she persisted. “Japan would not offer these posters with the reward unless there was some truth in it. They say he bombed—”
“They credit him with everything that happens.”
“Doesn’t he do anything?” she said scornfully.
“Sure he does. He has to!” snapped Ching in annoyance. “Sure. He’s bombed railroads and shot down planes and killed men. But he didn’t want to.”
“Then why did he do it? Is he freelancing this career of terror?”
“No!” said Ching hotly.
“There was some talk in the streets of Port Arthur that your Devil With Wings was intent on dethroning the sovereign of Manchukuo, Pu Yi.”
“How did you find that out?” exclaimed Ching.
She smiled and he knew he had dropped neatly into her trap.
“No fear,” said Patricia. “I heard a rumor that somebody would like to. Is it some huge espionage ring?”
“Nuts,” said Ching. “Akuma-no-Hané plays his hand alone.”
“I heard,” said Patricia sweetly, “that the Japanese and Russians had clashed on the banks of the Amur River.”
“Somebody is always clashing on the Amur. Timur the Limper started his career there. Genghis Khan… Aw, what’re you pumping me for?”
“No reason. But if Japan and Russia let this squabble grow into a war, then the world will dive in and it seems to me that Henry Pu Yi and the Japanese hold on the northern border of China would best be gotten out of the way in the event of such a catastrophe. Japan is endangering the peace of the Orient as long as Pu Yi stays on the throne.”
“For a girl,” said Ching with grudging admiration, “you got brains. You’d make a statesman, sure as hell.”
“Thanks,” said Patricia. “But I would feel easier if I knew where this killer was taking me.”
“He isn’t a killer!” cried Ching.
She smiled but small lights flared in the depths of her blue eyes. She had already formed her opinion of Akuma-no-Hané and it was not very nice.
Ching was sitting up straight, looking around the horizons for possible attack. It would come sooner or later. The communication of the Japanese was too swift and accurate to miss nailing them. Hidden dromes were scattered through this barren country like wasps’ nests in the woods.
To confirm her disbelief, she said, “He wouldn’t go through all this danger just because of me.”
“He’s done crazier things than that.” Ching looked at her sharply. “What’s all this monkey business about Confucius?”
She hesitated and then decided it would do no harm. “When…when Bob last wrote to me, he said that if anything happened to him I was to do everything I could to obtain a Confucius he was carrying.”
“He wrote to you,” said Ching.
“Yes. What’s the matter with that?”
“Was there anything strange about the letter?”
“Why, no. Only that it was torn as though it had been censored.”
“It was censored. The Japanese censor everything through this country. I don’t even understand why they forwarded it to you at all. And you haven’t any idea of what this Confucius means?”
“None. But it would be valuable if he would take such care to write me about it.”
“Valuable enough to get him killed.”
“Evidently your friend thought so.”
“Aw, lay off him,” squirmed Ching. “Haven’t you got any brains at all?”
“You said just now I should have been a statesman.”
“Sure, but you weren’t talking about my boss. Besides, who ever heard of a statesman having any brains?”
Ching broke off and craned his neck nervously around the vast ring of the world, eyes probing into every cloud and trying to pierce each hill below.
“You don’t look very much at ease.”
He shook his head. “If the Japanese bumped your brother for that Confucius, they wouldn’t give it up again without a hell of a fight.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Me? Naw. But if they catch The Devil With Wings they’ll…I guess we’d better not talk about that.” He was silent for a while, searching the skies. “I don’t like this. They act like they’re saving their strength for a good hard wallop later on.”
“Where?”
“Ask Akuma-no-Hané.”
CHAPTER SIX
Shinohari’s Trap
IMPERIAL Japanese Army Headquarters at Aigun vibrated to the grumblings of trucks which paraded endlessly up the crooked dusty street outside.
Some of the dust seeped in to lay grittily upon the desk and papers of Colonel Shimizu, commanding the Amur River Patrol.
The colonel, neat until it appeared that he must change his clothes every five minutes, sniffed daintily into his handkerchief and curled his thin lips into a feline grimace of distaste for noise and dust and activity. A mustard-colored greatcoat bulked through the door and the colonel glanced up with annoyance which quickly faded into welcome.
Intelligence Captain Ito Shinohari was too important in his field to have to stand on courtesy with mere line colonels. His greeting was curt—for a Japanese.
“I trust you have been well, Colonel,” said Shinohari.
“Except for the noise and confusion, yes. And your own sacred health, Captain?”
“Excellent.”
“May the Divine Beings favor you as they always have, Captain.”
“May the Military Gods smile upon you, Colonel.”
That finished, Shinohari pulled off his flying helmet and began to strip the gloves from his thin, nervous hands. He lifted his pockmarked face and looked earnestly at Shimizu.
“Is there any news,” said the captain, “of he who is called Akuma-no-Hané?”
The colonel’s face lighted with surprised admiration. “Captain Shinohari, you amaze me! Yesterday I knew definitely that you were in Port Arthur. Today I have tidings of the white renegade and instantly you appear like a magician upon the scene.”
“My business requires something more powerful than magic, Colonel.”
“Indeed! Indeed so, Captain. If you wish to keep trace of your Akuma-no-Hané.”
“And the news…?”
“A runner,” said the colonel, “reports that Akuma-no-Hané landed last evening near the river, some fifty kilometers to the northwest. He was in company with the young Chinese with whom he associates and a young white woman. But tell me, Captain, why did I receive orders not to follow up such information? I could have taken a patrol…”
“Of course. I am sorry for the orders, Colonel. They were necessary. This time, it is imperative that he does not escape us. By the end of this week we’ll have the pleasure of hanging his head by its ear in the main street of Port Arthur.”
“Good! Good!”
“Before he has
played his hand alone, Colonel. But this time he is encumbered with a young white woman, a Miss Patricia Weston.”
“Robert Weston’s sister?”
“Yes.”
The colonel looked thoughtful and patted his stubby nose with the handkerchief. “Then you have spread the net of your entire intelligence force?”
“Yes.”
“And you have a ring of steel around him even now, I presume?”
“If,” said Shinohari, “your information about his landing is correct, he cannot escape by sky, land or water. The Gods of Destiny have ordained that his ruthless existence shall end in a matter of days, perhaps hours. You have my quarters ready for me?”
The colonel slapped his hands together and a short, smart orderly bounced like a jujitsu fighter into the room, to leap out of his final bounce into unbending attention.
“Take the Honorable Captain Shinohari to his quarters,” said the colonel.
Shinohari followed the brisk orderly from the room. They emerged into the gathering softness of dusk and made their way down a street painted with the nervous light of guttering lanterns. The jostling soldiery made swift way for Shinohari and followed him with whispers and pointing fingers.
The orderly came to a clicking stop outside a low house which stood back from the busy street as though hiding itself in the purple gloom in fear of the military bustle of activity which stirred the town of Aigun on the Amur.
“If the Captain wishes me to remain…” began the orderly.
“I want nothing. Return to Colonel Shimizu.”
The orderly saluted and Shinohari opened the door to step inside. He fumbled for matches and then touched flame to the wick of a table lamp. The saffron flood spread out through the darkness, pushing back the shadows and finally driving them shivering into the farthest corners.
The light blinded the captain for a moment or two and he wrestled irritably with his greatcoat, getting it off. Finally he managed all the buckles and buttons and cast the weight of it from him to a low sofa.
Shinohari looked around then and froze into the paralysis of shocked surprise. His obsidian eyes bored across the light.