“Looks as if the Japs were planning a big show,” she said to Jan.
“Golly, yes!” Jan agreed. “Look!” She handed Gale a pair of powerful binoculars. “You can see them plain now, even tell the fighters from the bombers.”
Gale was really startled when she had the formation within her view. For a full moment she studied that mass of flying hate. She fancied that she heard the roar of the motors, but that was impossible.
After that she swept the sky with the glass. She was looking for American planes flying out to meet them. There were none—only two observation planes—flying high.
“I wonder what that means,” she murmured. She thought of the crowded city she had recently left and shuddered at thought of the death and destruction that would follow if those planes got through. “They may be planning to attack the secret forest,” she said to Jan.
“Do they know about it?” Jan asked.
“Perhaps. Who can tell?” Gale replied slowly. “Little good that would do them now. That forest is as long as one of our states, and quite wide. There are only a few of us billetted there now.”
“Oh, sure! They’d never find us!” Jan was at ease again. But not for long.
Gale got her answer to the question regarding the absence of U. S. fighter planes. Long after she had given up hope, when the formation of enemy bombers and fighters were all but over the forest, all of a sudden, seeming to come from every side at once, a great flight of U. S. fighters filled the air.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Jan exclaimed in wild excitement. “Now there will be a big battle before our very eyes!”