Ramey glanced down swiftly. Barrett was right. The sullen blackness below had suddenly been laced with a shining spiral of silver; the mighty Mekong, boundary-line separating Siam (now Thailand) and French Indo-China for more than 1,000 miles, coiled through the jungle like a gigantic serpent, its scales drenched with moonlight.
Winters' dreaminess vanished instantly. One look at the instrument panel and he shot into action. A tug and kick swung the old Curtis into a lifting, southward arc, following the twisting river. His words to Red Barrett were unhurried, but there was a tenseness in his voice.
"Okay. This is it, then. Keep 'em peeled, Red!"
"If I peel 'em any finer," Barrett grunted, "I won't have any eyelids. Think we'll see anything?"
"I know damn well we will. Those Japs aren't moving south for a clam-bake. They poured forty divisions into Indo-China—thanks to Vichy! Thailand is next on the hit parade; then Burma, back door to India. They want to close the Burma Road. So long as it's open, old Chiang Kai-shek will keep on giving them fits. Our job is to find out where they are concentrating their troops, so we'll be ready for them when they prance into Thailand."
Red looked hungrily at the trigger-press before him.
"If there's troops," he said hopefully, "there'll be enemy 'planes, huh, Ramey? Supposing one of them comes up to meet us? Can I—?"
"No! Definitely not!"
"But just by accident, like? I mean, if he attacked us first—"