“How grand!” she murmured. “This is new, but I have studied about it. It goes like this.” She turned on a switch, and the set began to humm.
“Jan!” she exclaimed. “What a lovely time we could have up here if it wasn’t for the war and all the terrible responsibility it brings.”
“Ain’t it the truth!” Jan agreed.
Gale had not exaggerated. The view from their window, the one that faced the world and Burma, was truly magnificent. The sea of waving green that was tree-tops, the hills beyond where morning mist still slowly drifted in the wind and the green valleys far beyond—was all like a picture painted by some famous artist.
But the view over head? Ah, that was different. Just now it was blank, Gale knew. At night stars would hang above them, and at times the moon would look in upon them. But always there was the chance that some spy would search out their high lonely post and mark it on a map. She thought once more of the woman in purple, the black dwarf and the three secrets of radar.
“If our hideout is marked on their map,” she thought, “then our view overhead will be horrible.”
As she closed her eyes she seemed to see soaring planes that, banking steeply, came shooting down. And after that the falling dots that grew and grew and grew. “The dots that scream like demons and at last roar like explosions in hell,”—she found herself thinking over words that Jimmie had once spoken to her.
“I wonder where Jimmie is now,” she mused. Soon enough she was to know.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime Isabelle had met with a happy surprise. In high school she had been an “A” grade student, a real worker. Probably that was why she was the colonel’s yeoman now. She had learned to make a perfect job of everything, and hadn’t forgotten how.