Than Shwe was right. Pete had not let them down. They were to witness one of the most stupendous parades ever put on in the history of mankind.
It began with a group of cars. Gale was not sure that they carried officers, advance guard, or both.
The darkness that was all but complete—a pin-prick of light showed here and there—only served to heighten the parade of monsters.
After the cars came a convoy of trucks. Some of these were closed, some open. On some of the open trucks they made out the form of camp kitchens, on others, bent forward, half asleep, were men,—hundreds and hundreds of men.
And then came the big guns—guns on half tracks, on trucks, and propelled by their own power they one and all gave out a great bang and clatter. Now and then, as a gun threatened to leave the road, there came a shout of warning. Once the whole parade of monsters came to a jangling halt. Then the silence was appalling.
For each of the three girls the effect of it all was strangely different. Isabelle seemed stunned into silence by it all. When the tanks which followed the guns came clattering in, she wanted nothing so much as to cut and run for it, and keep on running until she was back in the quiet of the city. She had wanted to go forward to join in the war, but this brought the tremendous reality of it all to her in a new and awe-inspiring manner. “It’s as if we weren’t on earth at all,” she murmured once. “It would seem more real on Mars or the moon.
“Civilization!” she whispered. “Is this it?”
Than Shwe was delirious with joy. Flinging her hair to the wind, she danced about like a woods sprite. “The Japs, they drive the colonel out of Burma. Now see! See what the colonel has got! Oh! I wish I could ride into Burma on top of a tank!” Than Shwe was just plain mad with joy.
To Gale, that never ending procession was truly a sight she would never forget. In her mind’s eye she could see them all,—men, trucks, guns and tanks moving into places assigned to them beneath the Secret Forest. “They won’t be there long,” she told herself. “But as long as they remain, with my radar I shall be watching over them. Truly I must be their guardian angel! I must not fail.”
At that moment though her eyes saw shadowy forms moving forward in the night. The inner eyes of her being were seeing boys, bright American boys she had known, and thousands she had seen but never known.