“Could be,” he agreed.
“You will, Jimmie, if—”
“If we both come out of this thing alive. Here’s hoping.”
Lifting a glass, he was joined by the girl in a silent toast to the future.
And then, there was the waiter with a big tray of food. Jimmie had been mistaken. Gale did know what she was eating, and was delighted. She could not have named one of the dishes, but she did know that this one was a strange new soup with a wild tang to it like the glorious breath of a tropical wilderness; that that one was a rare combination of fruits some of which she had never before tasted, and that this was chicken cooked in a new and delectable manner.
“Jimmie!” she exclaimed. “How did you ever discover this place!”
“I was taken to it by a very high ranking British officer,” he replied. “Not that his rank mattered. Men are all alike to me. I neither honor nor trust them too much until I know them well.”
“But how did it happen that he brought you here?” she asked.
“I hate to tell you.” He was plainly embarrassed. “But it seems I shot down quite a lot of Jap Zeroes just at a time when they needed shooting down, so this brass hat who turned out to be quite a fine fellow, got some of his friends together and gave a party in my honor.
“I was bored,” he admitted frankly. “All I wanted to do was to go out and shoot down more Zeroes. I wasn’t doing it for glory but for China. I had seen what the Zeroes had done to defenseless little people—men, women and children—in China, and I wanted to pay them back for it.”