Page Three
out the red in the stubby beards of our party and shone in
high lights on rifle barrels and knife hilts. It was quite glorious
for a few minutes as we climbed for the mountains, then it faded
into the quick Jungle purple below and all of our faces were
gone in the shadows of evening.
Ahead then - all we could see was the blue blob of exhaust
from the tow ships starboard motor - the ship itself was shrouded
in haze. All we could feel was the breathing of tightly packed
men on either side and the animal shudder of the glider as it
swung into the prop wash and swung out again, weaving at many
miles per hour on its long snaking tow rope. All we could hear
was the thundering noise of our thrust through the air - gliders
are as noisy as power planes.
Doc Tulloch touched me, "Four thousand feet" and
I looked at my watch. We had been off for some time, with still
a very long time to go. The moon was high over the clouds now
- a great three quarter moon - and presently it broke through
its own silver wash into magnificent light above us and the bearded
faces came out of the shadows into pale life again.
"Seventy one hundred feet" Doc grinned exultantly,
"That clears the mountains|" Then in a moment we hit
turbulence and began to kick around and bounce like hell. The
tow rope looped back toward us and eased over our port wing.
Were bumped up and swayed out to the right and the rope snaked
off straight ahead again toward the flame of the tow shiots exhaust.
We were alone as far as we could see, but we knew that the rest-of
the wave was behind our spear-point - that the succeeding waves
would take-off on schedule as their time came up - that the show
was on and that it would go through.
We were at eighty five hundred feet now and in a few moments
we were across the Burma frontier, with the mountains behind
us. There had been village lights dotting the way as we crossed
% Assam, but once in enemy held Burma, the ground was conrpletely
blacked out. The thought flashed through my mind that if the
Japs had even one night fighter pilot half as good as Cats Eyes
Cunningham, that we could all be done-in like sitting birds,
for we were sneaking the invasion in without fighter cover and
in , unarmed ships- counting entirely on audacity and surprise.
The moon was very bright and very high over Burma, with its almost
forgotten war, far away from the rest of the world and very unimportant
to millions of people. If we died - was it worth the sacrifice.
Purely academic thinking - all thinking is, once you are committed
to action. But suddenly from it the whole reason behind all of
the war was as clear as a bell stroke. For centuries my part
Of the world has dreamed and thought and worked and fought for
government owned by the individual - and to some extent has attained
that ideal - and therefore dead or alive the individual doesn't
count except insofar as he attempts by all his acts to maintain
that individual ownership| Thetis what John Allison and the Doc
and Magoffin and all the thousands of men behind us were doing
up here and out hero tonight - maintaining individual ownership
- and the thinking stopped as if a door had closed on it with
a loud crash.
John turned his head and shouted "The Irawaddy River|"
We crossed it and passed within a few miles of a Jap airfield
and for minutes afterwards all of us who could, plastered our
faces to the windows watching for tracers or pursuit aviation.
But they let us through that bottleneck - they must have thought
us a night bombing mission in force.
There was a right fire presently far off to the right of us
on high ground and somebody passed-the word that we were ahead
of schedule - God bless tail winds on nights like this|