CHAPTER VII
BATTLING AT CLOSE QUARTERS
“Let me see!” Sparky’s eyes flashed over the instrument board. “Fueland oil off, extinguisher on. Good girl!” He patted her shoulder. “Youknow what to do.”
“I know more than that.” Her lips were in a straight line.
“What’s that?”
“I should have stayed with the ship last night.”
“I don’t see that.”
“Someone tampered with our left motor while you were busy with theother one.”
“Not necessarily. Motors have caught fire many times without tampering.Your motor is set on springs. That’s to prevent vibration. Because ofthis your fuel and oil must come through flexible tubes.”
“Yes, I know all that,” she broke in. “Sometimes the connection getsloose. Gas drips on the manifold and then there is a fire. All thesame—”
“You think our motor was tampered with. Well, I don’t. Anyway, all wecan do is to watch everything, fly on one, and hope for the best.”
“And you said this was dangerous country.”
“Very dangerous.”
“Dawn is here.”
“The most dangerous of all. If an enemy fighter spots us, he’s sure tocome after us.”
“And then—” She was feeling a little dizzy.
“Then we’ll have to try to defend ourselves. Mind if I leave you for amoment?”
“No—I—I’ll carry on.”
“We’ve got a couple of free machine guns. I’ll have them ready just incase.”
“Must we fight?”
“It’s all there is left to do. We can’t climb on one motor. All we cando is to stay up a mile and go straight on.”
“Oh! Perhaps a fight,” Mary thought as he went back in the cabin.
The gray sands were turning white before the rising sun. She saw aspeck in the distance. Could it be an enemy plane? She wished Sparkywould come back.
Supposing the fire broke out of the motor enclosure and the shipburned. She shuddered at the thought. “Of course,” she reassuredherself, “we’d take to our parachutes and escape.”
“But escape to what?” a voice seemed to whisper.
To sifting sands. That was the answer. And then there was theirprecious cargo.
Here was Sparky again. “All set.” His voice was almost cheerful.
“Spoiling for a fight?” Mary teased.
“I wouldn’t mind knocking down one or two of Hitler’s desert rats,” wasthe quick reply. “There’s fighting blood in my family. Grandfather inthe Civil war and Dad all the way with the Canadians in the other WorldWar. And here I am just flying, flying, flying, flying. Gets a bit dullat times.
“Except,” he hastened to add, “when you have an attractive co-pilot.”
He was talking, she knew, just to quiet her nerves.
“There’s worse to come,” she told herself. And she was not mistaken.
“The fire must be about out by now,” he said a moment later. “There area lot of sprays shooting carbon-dioxide snow at that engine. It’s under850 pounds of pressure. Turn off the extinguisher and I’ll work my wayback there through the wing.”
She snapped off the extinguisher. “Can you do anything about it?”
“Oh, sure!” There was a forced cheerfulness in his voice. “I can get tothat engine. I’ll take tools and a new tube. I’ll fix it. Wait and see!”
“Sparky!” She gripped his arm. “Be careful. I wouldn’t want—well, youknow, that desert looks awfully lonesome.”
“I’ll be careful.” Once again he was gone, leaving her to the ship’scontrols, the desert, and the spreading dawn. She could see a long waynow. There really was an airplane out there on the horizon. But thenthere were planes everywhere these days.
This plane acted strangely. It seemed at first to be coming straighttoward her. Then it took a broad sweep and began to disappear.
“Like some old marauding crow going back to tell his friends,” shethought. “Hope Sparky won’t be long. But then, of course, in thatcramped place he can’t work fast. Just have to be patient, that’s all.”
* * * * *
The truth is that Sparky had not even started repairing the engine.There were, he had discovered, other matters that needed attending tofirst.
All the time Mary was watching the sky. The plane out there on the edgeof the horizon had reappeared. A mere speck against the blue, itincreased in size. Even at that great distance, she somehow believedthis was a different plane.
Presently this plane too cut a broad circle, then began to fade.
“Like bees coming out from a hive,” she thought. “Afraid of us perhaps.Our big, fighting planes have been knocking them down of late.” If thatwere true she hoped they would keep on being afraid.
* * * * *
As Sparky crept on hands and knees through the low wing section of theplane, toward this disabled engine, he had caught a disturbing sound.“Like the hiss of a goose,” he thought. He flashed a light before him,then recoiled as if struck a blow. Little wonder, for there, not tenfeet before him, was a pair of bulging eyes. Beneath the eyes was amouth with a tongue moving up and down.
“Like a snake,” he thought.
He was not deceived. It was not a snake but, of all persons, a Jap.
“Our engine _was_ tampered with!” His head spun, but his temper rose toa white heat.
Between him and the Jap was a trap-door leading to the desert below,providing you had a parachute. And the Jap had one, strapped to hisback.
“Ready to go,” Sparky told himself. “He would have gone before this,but he was afraid. Now he will never jump.”
As if reading his thoughts, the Jap sprang forward. He was too late.Sparky was solidly settled on the door.
Hissing like a snake, the little man snatched a knife from his belt.One moment it hung in air, the next it rattled against the wing’sfloor. A heavy wrench had crushed against the Jap’s arm, all butbreaking it.
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_Between Him and the Jap Was a Trap-Door_]
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Then they came to grips. It was muscle and brawn against ju-jitsu, andall manner of oriental tricks. Now an arm, like the tail of aboa-constrictor, was about Sparky’s neck, choking, choking him todeath. And now Sparky’s steel-like fingers were gripping the Jap’s arm,twisting it until bones cracked.
It was a tooth-and-nail battle. Now the Jap was clawing at Sparky’seyes. And now Sparky had those claws between his teeth.
It became a struggle for weapons. Once the Jap gripped the handle ofhis knife only to receive a blow in the face from Sparky’s fist thatsent him reeling.
Regaining possession of his wrench, Sparky aimed a blow at the head ofthat serpent of the Rising Sun. Only a sudden upward thrust of a footsaved the Jap.
“I’ll kill you,” the Jap hissed in good English.
“Come on, then. Try it!” Sparky aimed one more blow at the Jap’s face.
The Jap dodged. Sparky lost his balance and fell flat. For a space ofseconds he was at the enemy’s mercy. But to get the knife the Jap mustcrawl over Sparky’s body. He tried just that and this was his undoingfor, with a mighty heave, Sparky pinned him flat and full-lengthagainst the hard slats above him.
Rising to hands and knees, Sparky put all the power of his splendidmuscles into the task of crushing the last gasp from the now thoroughlybeaten enemy.
When the last gasp came, he slid from beneath the Jap to let him downwith a dull thud. “You wanted to go down,” Sparky panted. “Now’s yourchance.” His hands were on the trap-door’s fastening. The Jap lay onthat door.
Then he paused to reflect. It would be the end, he knew, well enough.The Jap was not dead, but helpless. His parachute had been torn fro
mhis back.
“You’ve got it coming,” Sparky grumbled. “You planned all this. Itwould have been our end, not yours, but now—”
His fingers trembled. He undid a catch, then he fastened it again. Hewas thinking of the empty desert and the jackals. “It’s too good foryou,” he grumbled, “but I can’t do it.”
At that he bound the Jap, who by this time was stirring and breathing.Then, pushing him far back in the wing, he tied him fast. “Tomorrow,”he said aloud, “they will shoot you at dawn—the firing squad, youknow.”
The Jap’s eyes rolled as a low hiss escaped his lips.
After that Sparky went about the business of repairing the disabledengine.
* * * * *
And all the time Mary at the controls was growing more and more uneasyat his prolonged absence. Little wonder for, out there on the horizon,there were movements, like that about a beehive when the bees begin toswarm.
They were a long way off, but an ever-increasing threat for all that.
Now there was one, now two, now three, and now five airplanes. Like asmall flock of birds they flocked toward the sky, then all wentswooping down again.
“Rehearsing for trouble,” she breathed. “I wish Sparky would come back.”
What was to be done? Trouble soared in the distant air. She feared theworst for Sparky yet had no means of communication with him and couldnot for a single instant leave the controls.
Despair had begun to grip her heart when there came a series of bumpsbehind her and there stood Sparky.
“Sparky!” she exclaimed, “You look terrible! There’s blood on yourface, blood, soot and grease. What happened?”
“You were right.” He leaned heavily on the back of the seat. “There wasa man back there, a little rat of a Jap.”
“I knew it. I saw him back there at that oasis,” she exclaimed. “Theremay be a tall woman in black in that other wing.”
“Now you _are_ crazy!” he exclaimed.
“Let me tell you.” She told of the tall woman in black and the Arabwoman that looked like her.
“Were those two the same person?” she asked.
“We’ll ask the Jap.” He managed a smile.
“Then you didn’t—” She hesitated.
“No, I didn’t kill him,” he answered, “but I should have. I had a coilof insulated wire in my kit. I bound him hand and foot with that andleft him back there. I hope he likes it.”
“He won’t get loose?”
“Never! Try that engine. I cobbled it up. Take it easy.”
She eased the engine into motion once more. Soon both engines wereroaring their best.
“Sparky! That’s wonderful! Now we’re safe!”
“Not for sure. That motor needs a going over. We—”
He broke off to stare at the northern sky.
“Planes! Headed this way! A whole formation of them! Say! This is beingdone according to plan! The enemy knows of our secret cargo. The Japwas to cripple us. Those planes were to finish us off. Well, theywon’t. Get out your oxygen mask, girl! We’re going up to visit thestars. There’s not a fighter made by those rats that can beat us to thestratosphere!”
She set the ship climbing, then reached for her oxygen mask. When shehad it handy, she set herself for this new ordeal.
“But, Sparky!” she cried, “what about the Jap?”
“Well, what about him?” he growled.
“He’ll die!”
“Let him die, then!”
“Yes, but you didn’t finish him. You let him live.”
“All right. I’ll take him a mask and two oxygen bottles. It’s a wasteof that precious stuff, but there’s the rule of war. I’ll be back.”
He vanished and on the instant Mary wished that she had not spoken.“What is one spy, more or less?” she asked herself. “Now I’m here toface it alone!”
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