The truth is that Sparky had not even started repairing the engine. There were, he had discovered, other matters that needed attending to first.
All the time Mary was watching the sky. The plane out there on the edge of the horizon had reappeared. A mere speck against the blue, it increased in size. Even at that great distance, she somehow believed this was a different plane.
Presently this plane too cut a broad circle, then began to fade.
“Like bees coming out from a hive,” she thought. “Afraid of us perhaps. Our big, fighting planes have been knocking them down of late.” If that were true she hoped they would keep on being afraid.
As Sparky crept on hands and knees through the low wing section of the plane, toward this disabled engine, he had caught a disturbing sound. “Like the hiss of a goose,” he thought. He flashed a light before him, then recoiled as if struck a blow. Little wonder, for there, not ten feet before him, was a pair of bulging eyes. Beneath the eyes was a mouth with a tongue moving up and down.
“Like a snake,” he thought.
He was not deceived. It was not a snake but, of all persons, a Jap.
“Our engine was tampered with!” His head spun, but his temper rose to a white heat.