"Gliders|"                         
 
                                                            
 
 
Two more are howling down over the trees, roaring toward the 
      congestion. One of the two sees it in tins, zooms over it with 
      the last of its speed and plows in safely just beyond. But the 
      other crashes head on and welds two gliders into a ball of scrap. 
      Screams tear the night and the wrecker crew claws into the wreckage 
      with bare hands to get at the injured. A British surgeon is already 
      inside doing something under a flashlight, something quite frightful 
   with his kukris after his morphine has stilled the scream
 
                                                            
 
 
And there is a quiet North Country voice in there "Don't 
      move me - this is where I hit - and this is where I die." 
     and somebody's damned good sergeant goes out on the tid
 
                                                            
 
 
You don't have heroes in armies any more. You just have men.
 
                                                            
 
 
John Allison was changing the lights, re-rigging then with 
      Magoffin to give the following gliders a better runway to come 
      in on. Indefatigable John tearing all over the lot on his short 
      legs - no longer the fighter pilot or the glider pilot - but 
          the airport manager - sweating himself soggy.     
 
      Brigadier Calvert had his command cost set up in the jungle edge 
      and his security patrols out in all directions. Quiet Calvert 
      - with his soft English voice masking the most civilized of killers. 
      Stringy Shuttle worth deep in the Burns jungles, tmshaven, but 
      with his polished monocle stuck firmly in his left eye - well-brend 
                         jungle stalker.                    
 
                                                            
 
 
The first, short range ground patrols were back now - no enemy. 
      There had been one distant shot - but-there was no enemy in force 
      as yet. John Allison had the landing strips laid out again to 
      avoid the wrecked gliders and the lights re-rigged for the second 
      wave. In the pause between, Doc Tulloch set up his dressing station 
      and it began to fill up. Men hobbled in singly and between two 
      pals. Men were carried in on stretchers. There was no sound from 
      then. There seldom is after the first shocked screams. Across 
  %     the field, the British surgeon fought all night to save two men 
      - and lost with the dawn light - and that angered him for he 
                         had fought well.                   
 
                                                            
 
 
The breather was over and again the roar of tow ships filled 
      the night skies - and again the gliders swooped in two by two 
      - one with a bulldozer aboard to miss the trio in the darkness 
      and to dive headlong between two trees that barely cleared the 
      fuselage, to take off both wings and howl onward into the clear 
      with the murderous bulldozer torn loose inside to slam onward 
      unhinging the nose, heaving pilot and co-pilot up into the air, 
      ricocheting out under them and letting the two men drop back 
                             unhurt|                        
 
                                                            
 
 
There was now enough of a security party down to hold that 
      clearing for thirteen daylight hours - the thirteen hours necessary 
      for the Combat Engineers to make an airport for power ships, 
so Allison got on the radio and stopped the final waves of g
 
                                                            
 
 
With the first fish-belly light, the bulldozers began to growl 
      and the Engineers were at it, grading and filling, leveling off 
      hummocks, cutting the rank buffalo grass, hauling disabled gliders 
                         under the trees.                   
 
      A British captain hobbled in on a broken foot. He had found his 
      way in from a deep jungle crash with his sergeant weaving along 
      behind him- both of them dazed. Two more men were alive in that 
      crash they said, so Doc Tulloch got the position from the captain 
      and machete in hand and stretcher-bearers behind him he started 
      across the clearing to cut hi, way in to find them.