“Yes,” Mary agreed, “but whether I will make it, or how, I don’t really know.”
“When you are in America,” she went on, “make sure you have five hundred hours of flying to your credit, then step right in. There are rather rigid examinations. After that you go through four weeks of tireless basic training, learning how to be a soldier and all that.”
“And then you get your wings?” the red head suggested.
“You might call it that. After that you fly and fly and fly, delivering all manner of planes to all sorts of places all over U.S.A.
“And then,” Mary drew a long breath, “if you’ve been a good girl and if the gods are kind, you get a trip round the world, practically free.”
“Tell us about this marvelous trip,” another girl said.
Mary allowed herself a fleeting thought of all the grand boys of the bombing flight waiting at the airport, then launched herself into the bright, hilarious, sober, breath-taking story of her journey. The crackup in the Brazilian jungle, the beachcomber of Brazil, the Jap spy, the Woman in Black, the battle over the desert with Burt Ramsey as hero, the missing traveling bag of Persia were all there.
“Oh! That’s how it is!” the red head gasped when Mary had finished.
“No,” Mary laughed. “That’s how it was. Once we have delivered our plane and cargo, I suspect that we shall drift back to America on flowery beds of ease and with never an adventure.”