Not a pilot left the Secret Forest that day but caught his breath as he saw the eastern sky blackened by Jap planes.
“Somebody’s tipped them off,” one bright-eyed boy shouted. “But let them come!”
In half an hour the sky was filled with planes. American fighters ganged up like catbirds after crows, to down Jap bombers before they reached their objective. Nor were the fighter planes all the trouble those Jap planes met that day. Together with twenty other gunners, Gale’s friend Mac was stationed on a rocky ledge outside the forest. A lucky shot at the very start brought a bomber down so close to him that he was obliged to bury himself in a bush to escape its flying parts. Even Isabelle’s Pete had driven his tank to the edge of the forest and was having a go at them with a machine gun.
“It’s a beautiful scrap,” Jan was all but sobbing with terror and delight.
“Beautiful and terrible,” was Gale’s solemn reply. “I saw one of our planes go down and the pilot didn’t bail out.”
In the main Gale had eyes for but one plane, a small one with long, slender wings, Jimmie’s plane. After studying the sky for ten minutes she decided he was not there.
“Oh, Jimmie!” she whispered, “Where are you?” Then with a start she recalled a promise she had made to him. “If I disappear,” he had said, “And you suspect that something has happened to me, listen in at your radio every night at ten.” He had written down the wave length and given it to her. “If I have any sort of a radio,” he had added, “I’ll be on the air. I might even talk from the other world.” He gave a strange laugh.
“I promised,” she told herself now. “I’ll listen tonight.”
The air battle was brief, fierce and decisive. A few of the enemy bombers got through to drop their bombs on the Secret Forest. There were some casualties—not many. Most of the bombers were driven off or destroyed. Once more the boys of the U. S. Air Force had won a signal victory and not a little of the credit was due to “Radar Gale” as the young WAC with the flying hair was often called.
At the very end of this battle something startling and terrible happened. Gale and Jan were in their hideout. Gale was feeling about in the sky with her radar for possible Jap attackers when Jan exclaimed: