They swept in over the field and landed side by side. All the ground men were out as well as most of Stan’s fliers. A shout went up as Stan helped Niva out of the plane.
Stan presented Niva to Allison and O’Malley who were the only officers to close in on them. O’Malley bobbed his head and shuffled his big feet. He flushed and mumbled something under his breath. Allison smiled. He was perfectly at ease, very much the British gentleman.
“Welcome,” he said with a bow, “to our manor.”
The others closed in and Stan introduced Niva to his fliers. She smiled embarrassingly and blushed, probably because she looked disheveled with her torn clothes and scratched face.
Stan turned on Allison as they entered the briefing room. “I thought I told you this was a secret mission,” he growled.
“You can trust the Flying Tigers. Not a word got to a single general,” Allison answered.
Stan grinned widely. “I’ll tend to you birds just as soon as I get this girl over to headquarters and into the hands of a woman.”
CHAPTER XIII
GLORY TRAIL
Stan sat in his office looking out upon the field. He had just returned from a conference at headquarters. Things were moving fast in the South Pacific war zone. Stan had orders to be ready to take action on a new sector at an hour’s notice. The move might not come, but if it did, he and his Flying Tigers would be on their way to new fields of action. No one knew just what the orders would be, that was a secret the Chinese High Command was guarding.