CHAPTER XII
SEALED ORDERS
Once they were safely stowed away in a cab he pulled the green-wrappedpackage from his pocket.
“Papyrus,” he said softly, “like our paper of today, has caused a lotof trouble in the world. Today a printing press rattles and bangs foran hour or two and not many weeks later two groups of men, one a bandof thugs, the other a squad of officers, shoot it out for possession ofthat printing press’s work. And all because it says on each slip ofpaper, ‘Payable to the bearer on demand.’”
“But why would that man risk his life to get that roll of ancientpapyrus?” Mary asked.
“That,” said her father, “appears to be something I must find out!”
“You or I?”
“You are practically out of it. We’re taking the roll to Sparky. He’llhide it in his secret compartment for the night. When I fly back toEgypt tomorrow the roll will go with me.”
“Why?” Mary’s eyes opened wide.
“Hasn’t it caused you enough trouble?”
“Not if it’s really important.”
“It seems to be all of that.”
“Then why should I give it up now?” She was very much in earnest. “Youknow, in a very old book I sometimes read, it says something aboutputting your hand to the plow, then turning back. I don’t like turningback, or giving up. It’s part of my religion not to.”
“So that’s the way you feel about it?”
“Yes, but—” she hesitated, “one thing is more important than thepapyrus.”
“Your ship’s cargo? I agree with you. It is all-important. Helping toget it through to China is the most important task you’ve everundertaken, or perhaps ever will.”
“Will taking the papyrus make that harder?”
“I doubt that. Sparky will always be with the ship. It is true thatsomehow the enemy agents here have learned of the papyrus, and wantingit for, God knows what reason, have made a play for it. But will theycarry this on even in India and China? I doubt that. When you hop offfrom here, you will be headed for quite another world.”
“Another world,” she repeated the words softly. “That sounds strangeand, and rather frightening. But, unless you seriously object, thepapyrus goes with Sparky and me to that other world.”
“Then that’s settled,” he agreed.
And now, here they were at the airport.
“Well! For once!” Mary exclaimed as they came up to the plane. “Here’sSparky. And he’s not working on the engines. What’s the matter, Sparky?Are you sick?”
“No—” he drawled. “Couldn’t think of a thing that needed doing, soI’ve just been reading a book about Persia. Quite a place I’d say.”
“We’ll watch the ship while you look the city over,” the Colonelvolunteered.
“Oh, no, thanks all the same.” Sparky’s sun-bronzed face crinkled intoa smile. “I’m turning in—sleep on the job, you know—in a few minutes.We’ll take off at dawn. You’ll be here, Mary?”
“Yep. Johnny-on-the-spot. And, Sparky, since you’re guarding the ship,here’s one more little thing you can keep an eye on. Put it in ourhiding-place.”
“Oh! Sure! What is it?”
“Just a bunch of old papers.” It was the Colonel who replied.
“Very old,” Mary grinned.
“Oh, yes, I remember, that old Arab’s stuff,” Sparky yawned. “Lot oftrouble for very little, I’d say.”
“Yes,” Mary agreed. “A whole lot of trouble.” She laughed, and Sparkywondered why.
When Mary and her father re-entered their rooms at the hotel ahalf-hour later, things seemed a little strange.
“I left that bag on that low bench,” Mary recalled. “Now it’s standingbeside the bench. What’s more, it doesn’t look quite the same.”
Picking it up, she turned it on its side, placed it on the bench, thenthrew back the snaps. Up came the lid.
“Dad!” she exclaimed, “it’s my bag! The things are all there, even acandy bar I bought at the U.S.O. in Egypt.”
“Very kind of our Nazi friends to return it. Probably came in throughthe window.” He wandered about testing the catches. “That’s right,” hecalled at last. “The window in my sleeping room is unlocked.”
“Lock it, please,” said Mary. “I—I’m feeling a little strange.”
“You’ll be all right when the windows are locked and the shades down.”And she was.
“Dad,” she said, after a few moments of quiet thought. “Perhaps thatother bag belonged to the woman in black.”
“The woman in black?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember? The one who seemed to be working with the Japspy who posed as an Arab.”
“She was in West Africa.”
“Yes, of course, and then I’ll never be sure that the French woman atthe port and the Arab woman at the secret oasis were the same person.”
“You’ll probably never know that,” was his reply. “However, it would bemy guess that they were two different people and, if there is really awoman mixed up in this affair of the papyrus, that she is stillanother. In this country and in Africa where spies are common, it isnot difficult to maintain a regular fraternity of lady spies. To passon a message from spy to spy is easy but for one spy to travel by planefrom place to place in territory controlled by our friends ispractically impossible. At any rate your bag is back and so is thepapyrus and that, for the moment, is all that matters. And I’m surelygoing to see you safely off in the morning.”
In spite of the mysterious events of the day, and her strangesurroundings, Mary slept well that night. Why not? Was not her fatherclose at hand? Had he not been with her during the greater part of herlife? And had she not always felt secure when he was near?
She awoke an hour before dawn to wish with all her soul that he wasgoing with them all the way to the very end. But this, she knew, wasimpossible. He had stretched a point coming this far. His work was inEgypt, keeping the airways clear. He must turn back.
She bounded out of bed and, a half hour later, sprang from their car togreet the cold, gray dawn.
“Sunshine, fountains, flowers, and now this. All a part of life,” shethought with a shudder.
After switching on the plane’s lights she crowded her way back throughthe cabin. She examined each well-bound package with care, counted themand then, in one fleeting thought, asked herself what their contentsmight be. For the time, the roll of papyrus was forgotten. Only onething mattered now—their cargo.
Finding everything ship-shape she worked her way back to the cabin doorto stand there polishing her glasses.
Suddenly she found herself staring at the square of white with whichthe polishing was being done.
“That’s not my handkerchief,” she exclaimed. “It has embroidery in thecorners, a date palm in one corner and a flying bird in the other.”
“You must have picked it up somewhere,” her father suggested.
Digging into her purse for her own handkerchief, she pulled out onemore of the same pattern.
“This,” she exclaimed, “is getting funny.” Then: “Oh! I remember. Therewas that strange bag last night, you know? I needed a handkerchief. Mybag was gone.”
“So you took those, and you have them still. Well, you got somethingout of that adventure,” he laughed good-naturedly.
They were up and away at dawn. As the sun rose over the gray hills,painting them with a golden light, it seemed to Mary that now nothingcould hinder them from reaching their distant goal in far-away China.
Two days later, weary, bleary-eyed, but happy, she found herselflooking down on the rooftops and strange towers of a great city. Like abroad ribbon a river divided the city into two parts while, far away,glimmering in the sun, lay the ocean.
“This,” Sparky’s voice was hoarse with emotion, “this is the heart ofIndia.”
As usual, they passed over the city to drop down upon a secludedairport all but hidden by tropica
l trees.
They had made an overnight stop just within the border of India. Fromthat airport they had radioed the probable hour of arrival. Mary wassurprised to see a small crowd of people race on the field as theirplane came to a stop.
When, at last, she stood in the doorway of the plane, blinking from thebright sun, there came a loud roar of applause which fairly set herback on her feet.
“What is it?” She turned to Sparky. “They must think we’re a big leaguebaseball team or something.”
“There are a lot of Americans here,” he explained. “That’s includingthe soldiers. You’re the first lady member of the Ferry Command that’sever showed up here.”
“Ray! Ray! Ray! for the lady pilot,” a soldier shouted.
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” came roaring back.
Mary said never a word, just stood there, blinking in the sun.
Then an attractive young lady came up close. “I’m Judy Pierce from thebig school for girls here. I heard you were to arrive and I wish youwould be my guest while you’re here.”
“That would be just fine—I—I—guess. How about it and how long?” Maryasked Sparky.
“Ought to be swell. How long? That I can’t tell.”
“This is a city,” Judy Pierce said. “We have phones and everything. Wecan keep in touch with you at the airport.”
“That will be quite all right,” Sparky agreed.
“Speech! We want a speech!” some boy from Kansas, Iowa, or Oklahomashouted.
“Speech! Speech! Speech!” came in a chorus.
“I can’t make a speech,” Mary’s voice carried across the field. “All Ican do is to fly a plane, and I don’t know too much about that. But itdoes make me feel as if I had gone round the world and got back home tosee you all here. I know now, as I never knew before, that the sunnever really sets on the Army of the U.S.A.”
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_“I’m Judy Pierce,” Said an Attractive Young Lady_]
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There came one more roar of applause during which Mary leaned over tosay to her new-found friend: “I’ll be ready in just a little while.”
“That’s fine,” Judy smiled. “I have my small car. We’ll be in the citybefore you know it.”
“Oh! A car!” Mary exclaimed. “Then I must be back home.”
At that she dodged back into the plane. There she came upon Sparkywaving two envelopes in the air.
“Sealed orders,” he whispered hoarsely. “One is to be opened here.That’s got to be done before you go.”
“Oh!” Mary breathed. “Now we’ll know!”
“Not all of it,” Sparky warned. “Only part, and the least exciting partis my guess.”
They crowded back into a dark corner of the plane, then shoulder toshoulder, heads close together, read the note that came from thewax-sealed envelope.
“The boxes marked (C),” they read, “are to be trans-shipped to theBurma front. They contain quinine and should be guarded with thegreatest care.”
“Quinine!” Mary dropped down upon a case marked (C). “Is that whatwe’re risking our lives to defend! Every drug-store has quinine!”
“Not any more,” said Sparky. “The supply in those cases came fromthousands of druggists in the U.S.A. They donated it to the men who arefighting in the mosquito plagued swamps of Burma.
“And don’t you think it doesn’t matter.” He shook a finger. “At ourlast landing I saw a man who came from those swamps. He was being senthome. They thought he might live. But you should have seen him! Oh, no!You shouldn’t. It was terrible to see a skeleton that’s still alive.Malaria did it. Quinine would have stopped it. Those dirty little Japshave all the quinine trees in the world and that’s one way they hope towin the world. That’s how they fight!”
“Oh! Sparky!” Her voice was hoarse. “You’re always wonderful. If thatwas all we came for it’s enough—”
“But it’s not. It’s only the beginning. There are the boxes marked (D).We won’t know what’s in them until we are at the foot of the HimalayaMountains.”
“And then—”
“That, we hope, will be the beginning of the end.”
“Sparky,” her voice was tense, “I’d like to take that quinine to Burma.”
“You can’t, not in our ship. This ship goes straight through to China.”
“I’d like to see those fighting boys. That—well, that would be sort ofa reward.”
“I might be able to fix it,” he conceded. “Anyway, I’ll try. Now yourun along and have a good time with your new friends. You’ve got itcoming.”
“My best times always come in the hardest places.” She was stillthinking of Burma. For all that she left the plane to join Judy Piercein her bright little sport car.
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