CHAPTER I
In the darkness before the dawn, the sky was a vault of purple-black, hoarfrosted with the spangles of innumerable stars. The moon, in its dying quarter, was a silver scimitar dangling low on the horizon; the earth below, from this lofty eyrie, was a shadowy disc more sensed than seen.
Ramey Winters, glancing briefly from the illuminated instrument panel into the tree-spired obscurity over which he flew, felt once more, as ofttimes before during these last few weeks, the tugging hand of beauty at his heart, and a curious wonderment that Night's jet mask could so completely disguise the grim world slumbering below.
Burma by day was beautiful—but its beauty was that of the wakened Amazon, bronze-girdled and strident, riding to battle with breasts straitlaced, with soft hands gripping the sword. Steel monsters, heavy-laden, groaned endlessly up the ancient Road which sprawls from Mandalay to Bhamo and Momein, thence, over tortuous ways ripped from sheer precipice by the naked hands of a million unpaid patriots, to Tai-fu and Chunking, carrying arms and supplies to a beleaguered Dragon. Of late there were other rumblings, too. The tramp of shuttling troops, the ominous rasp of mechanized units, the hornet-tone of aircraft winging bases.
So Burma by day; a Burma not yet actively in the War but perilously close. But Burma by night—ah, that, thought Ramey Winters, was another story Burma by night ... seen from the sky. A new land: a sweet, wild land of mystery and charm ... of silver and shadow ... cool, chaste, serene! As untouched and untouchable as the brooding gods of its people. Burma—a land of stirring song and stranger story. Even up here, in these thin heights where the air should be fresh and cool, it seemed to Ramey that his nostrils scented wisps of sandalwood and musk. And beneath the persistent drone of his own motors seemed to tremble the faint, exotic pleading of native pipes.
It was a night of magic. Barrett felt it, too. Red Barrett, hard-boiled and devil-may-care as they come, Ramey's chum and co-pilot—even he felt it. He flashed his teeth at Ramey in an approving grin.
"Pretty, eh, keed?"
"Swell!" said Ramey. "Terrific! Kipling was right. Burma is the most beautiful country in the world."[1]
"Burma?" chuckled Red. "Don't look now, pal, but we ain't in Burma any more. This kite we're flying eats mileage—or didn't you know? See that hunk of silver ribbon below? Well, that ain't a ribbon; it's the Mekong River. We're over either Thailand or Indo-China, or both."