“The colonel say: ‘We will go over the mountain.’
“The people of that town say, ‘There is no trail over that mountain. It is very high and very cold. You will die. Besides, on that mountain live head-hunters. They will eat you.’
“But the colonel tightened up his belt. He put his tommy-gun on his shoulder and he said: ‘We will go over the mountains!’ And by God! We did!”
“Than Shwe,” a WAC with a long face protested, “You shouldn’t swear. It isn’t nice.”
“Well,” the native girl’s eyes gleamed. “That’s what the colonel did say. What he say, I say, and where he goes, I go.”
For a time there was silence. Then with a sigh, the native girl concluded: “The mountain, he was not so bad. At the top we got very cold, but we slept together all in a heap and it was not so bad.
“And then we came to a hut,” she sighed. “In that hut there was a white man. He said, ‘I came for you. I have five hundred coolies. We came five days. Now you go back five days. The coolies, they carry you, carry everything. Then you are there.’ And see!” The girl spread her hands wide. “Here we are.”
“Than Shwe, you forgot to swear that time.” Gale’s eyes shone with a teasing light.
“I do that for you alone, in private.” The girl gave her an appreciative smile. “Yes,” she added, “We come. But we go back very soon.”
Than Shwe’s story was told. She lapsed into silence. For some of the girls, no doubt, it had been but the telling of an amusing adventure. For Gale it was far more than that, for though a girl, she was at heart a soldier. Her father, her grandfather and all others as far back as could be traced had been soldiers. She was a WAC, but WACS were soldiers too, in for the duration.