“Nothing like that,” she laughed. “Just a flying fool of the Ferry Command.”
From here they hopped along in a leisurely manner to Honolulu.
Many a time in her younger days Mary had dreamed of sitting beneath the palms on the Hawaiian Islands. But on this trip she had seen palms in Brazil, North Africa, Egypt, Persia, India, China and the islands of the sea.
“What’s one palm more or less?” she said to Sparky. “Here’s hoping we catch an early plane home.”
They were obliged to wait two days before the long hop for San Francisco. It was on the evening of their last day at Honolulu, while they were seated in the lounge of their hotel, that a real thrill came over them as they listened to the radio.
“Listen!” Sparky sat up suddenly. Mary shifted to face the radio.
“We are now permitted to report,” said a voice in far away China: “that, four days ago, Tokio was heavily bombed by an airforce of great strength and that an enormous amount of damage was done to steel mills, airplane factories and other objectives. All our planes returned safely to their base.”
“Here it comes!” Mary whispered tensely.
“It’s the pay-off,” Sparky agreed.
“Here in the studio with me now,” the voice on the radio went on, “is Flight Commander Major Tom Cole. Major Cole, will you tell us a little about that raid?”