Dave Dawson with the Flying Tigers

by Robert Sidney Bowen

"He is a Jap, isn't he?" he said to Soo Wong Kai. "I mean, he has the face."

"He is," Soo Wong Kai told him gravely. "The face, the black heart, and the mad brain of the hated enemy of my country. But cunning and great cleverness was his, too. Knoye Kyoto served his Emperor long, and well. But as to all such as he, failure and death can be his only rewards in this life."

"I say, sir!" exclaimed Freddy Farmer. "You know him?"

Soo Wong Kai smiled as he nodded, but his smile was one of sadness, and a little pity.

"For as many years as you have fingers on your two hands," he replied. "But no, not personally. I have known only of him, and of the real truth of his life in Europe, where he has resided for many years. There are many devils like Knoye Kyoto. To you they seem outcasts, men without a country. However, for every minute of their lives they remain obedient slaves to their masters. Yes, many of us here in China have known of Knoye Kyoto, but there was nothing we could do, and less that we could say—because it would not have been believed. However, the gods turned their smiles upon me. Quite by accident I saw Kyoto in London. It was the day after you had left. It was the day I started my journey home, with my heart bursting with prayers for your safekeeping, and arrival."

The new Chinese Minister of War paused for a moment and turned reverent eyes heavenward.

"I saw him, and then flew away in my plane," he went on presently. "Then in Calcutta only yesterday I saw him again. No, that is an untruth to say that. Rather, I thought I saw him. And a great worry was mine. Could it be that he, too, was bound for Chungking? Had he slipped out of England to the Germans in France, and had they provided air passage to Calcutta? Was he bound for Chungking to strike his final blow when you two did arrive? To kill you in your moment of great glory? I asked myself that many times. And the answer was the same. It could well be true, for to the Japanese brain defeat and revenge are the same. I am as sure as I am that he is there dead in the street that Knoye Kyoto gave the orders meant to doom your mission in failure. And that he came here to get his own personal revenge in the form of your lives in the face of his own defeat.

"Yes, I thought I saw him in Calcutta yesterday. So I remained there overnight, and I sought the aid of many friends of China who could accomplish in a few hours what I personally could not have accomplished in weeks and months—a search of the city for this Knoye Kyoto. But he was not found. I realized now that he had perhaps already left before my friends started the search. But—Forgive me, I beg of you, my true and dear friends; I did not dream that he would not strike his blow until this late moment. At the airport? Yes. A possibility. But here, at the very steps of the Generalissimo's headquarters? I am overwhelmed with shame for what has happened. And I can but offer you the humble apologies of my entire life for the thoughtlessness, the stupidity, and the humiliation that I have—"

"Hold on a minute, sir!" Dawson stopped him, and grinned. "It wasn't your fault at all. Not a bit. The truth of the matter is that I've got you to thank for my life for the rest of my life. No fooling, sir. If it hadn't been for you, why—well, believe me, I—"

"Quite, sir!" Freddy Farmer spoke up as Dawson stumbled over the words to say. "But for your brilliant thinking and action, there would have been terrible tragedy at the very last moment. Yes, quite!"