Gods of the Jungle

NELSON S. BOND

CHAPTER I

In the darkness before the dawn, the sky was a vault of purple-black, hoarfrosted with the spangles of innumerable stars. The moon, in its dying quarter, was a silver scimitar dangling low on the horizon; the earth below, from this lofty eyrie, was a shadowy disc more sensed than seen.

Ramey Winters, glancing briefly from the illuminated instrument panel into the tree-spired obscurity over which he flew, felt once more, as ofttimes before during these last few weeks, the tugging hand of beauty at his heart, and a curious wonderment that Night's jet mask could so completely disguise the grim world slumbering below.

Steel monsters, heavy-laden, groaned endlessly up the ancient Road which sprawls from Mandalay to Bhamo and Momein, thence, over tortuous ways ripped from sheer precipice by the naked hands of a million unpaid patriots, to Tai-fu and Chunking, carrying arms and supplies to a beleaguered Dragon. Of late there were other rumblings, too. The tramp of shuttling troops, the ominous rasp of mechanized units, the hornet-tone of aircraft winging bases. So Burma by day; a Burma not yet actively in the War but perilously close. But Burma by night’ah, that, thought Ramey Winters, was another story Burma by night ... seen from the sky. A new land: a sweet, wild land of mystery and charm ...

It was a night of magic. Barrett felt it, too. Red Barrett, hard-boiled and devil-may-care as they come, Ramey's chum and co-pilot’even he felt it. He flashed his teeth at Ramey in an approving grin.

"Pretty, eh, keed?"

"Burma?" chuckled Red. "Don't look now, pal, but we ain't in Burma any more. This kite we're flying eats mileage’or didn't you know? See that hunk of silver ribbon below? Well, that ain't a ribbon; it's the Mekong River. We're over either Thailand or Indo-China, or both."

Ramey glanced down swiftly. Barrett was right. The sullen blackness below had suddenly been laced with a shining spiral of silver; the mighty Mekong, boundary-line separating Siam (now Thailand) and French Indo-China for more than 1,000 miles, coiled through the jungle like a gigantic serpent, its scales drenched with moonlight.

"Okay. This is it, then. Keep 'em peeled, Red!"

"If I peel 'em any finer," Barrett grunted, "I won't have any eyelids. Think we'll see anything?"

Red looked hungrily at the trigger-press before him.

"If there's troops," he said hopefully, "there'll be enemy 'planes, huh, Ramey? Supposing one of them comes up to meet us? Can I—?"

"No! Definitely not!"

"But just by accident, like? I mean, if he attacked us first—"

"No, Red. Don't you see, all they're waiting for is an excuse to invade Thailand? Let us shoot down a single Jap 'plane tonight, and tomorrow their bombers will be over Bangkok. So’no shooting! Even if they fire on us."

Ramey grinned at him; a lean, knowing grin.

"Don't you worry about that, pal. Your Uncle Samuel knows what he's doing. You and I were in the U.S. Army airforce till the bewhiskered old gentleman in the striped pants graciously permitted us to 'resign' and fly for China. But I notice our paychecks still bear Yankee signatures. And don't forget’there are a thousand more like us. Neutral soldiers of fortune, learning the ropes 'just in case.'

As they talked, Red had been deciding, as well as he could, their route on the scroll-map before him. Now he drew a dubious circle.

"Here, maybe. Or here. About Kiang-khan."

"Good enough. And nothing stirring yet, hey? Well, we'll keep looking for a few more minutes, then head back before dawn’Hey! Get a load of that! Campfires! A bivouac! Mark it, Red!"

"Get going!" roared Barrett. "We hit the jack-pot! It's an enemy airfield!"

Ramey needed no prodding. The first slashing finger of light had quickened into action the trained reflexes of an airman; already the small pursuit 'plane was lifting, bobbing and weaving away from the telltale beams. Now he gave it the gun; the snub-nosed Curtis flattened and streaked away like a startled swallow.