tenderly slipped his feet to Shorty Hassfurther.
The eyes of the man in the sky-blue uniform widened with horror as he saw the blood-saturated body of Red Gleason. But he didn't forget why he had been sent out to greet Bill Barnes.
He saluted and began, “Wing Commander Kestrel sends his compliments to Mr. Barnes and his men, and re —”
“Stow that!” Shorty Hassfurther snapped at him. “We need an ambulance. Hop!”
Kestrel's adjutant stared at Shorty for a fraction of a second. “Right!” he exploded as he swung on his heel and sprinted toward a group of buildings.
Bill Barnes had cut away Red's white overalls and was packing gauze against his horribly mutilated shoulder. Shorty was doing what he could to help, while Sandy looked on with that touch of sadness and horror in his eyes that bespoke his youth.
“Do you think it's very bad, Bill?” he asked.
“Plenty bad,” Bill growled. “The bird who did that is going to pay for it. Red's lost a lot of blood, and I don't see how the bone can avoid being shattered.”
He glanced up as an ambulance came clanging across the field with two or three men hanging on the back— then back at Red. His hard eyes became misty as he gazed at the calm stillness of Red's white face.
“Guts!” he said, half to himself. “He has what it takes.” He knew what pain that last forty-five minutes must have cost Red. He knew how he must have struggled to fight off unconsciousness until he had his ship down safely.
“That,” Shorty Hassfurther said, his voice husky, “is something he learned in France when they used to give us orders to bring our ships back. They didn't care if we got shot through the head. That was all right with them. But they needed the ships.”
Bill and Shorty lifted the inert form of Red into the ambulance, hung on the back step while it clanged its way across the field to the hospital.
Ten minutes later they saw Red wheeled into the operating room, his face as white as the sheet that covered him.
BILL BARNES' face was a thundercloud as he faced Wing Commander Kestrel across his desk. Both he and Shorty had shaken the commander's hand.
“How did this thing happen, Barnes?” Kestrel asked, “Is he badly hurt?”
“We left Sandy with him,” Bill Said. “He is still under the ether. We don't know how bad it is. But some one is going to pay for it.”
“Could he have shot himself accidentally while he was in the air?” Kestrel asked. “They told me it was a bullet wound.”
“It is a bullet wound,” Bill said grimly. “It's a wound from a machine-gun bullet fired from a Royal Air Force plane by a man in British uniform!”
“I say!” Kestrel exclaimed. He started to rise from his chair, then sank back again while the color drained from his face.
“ A bullet fired from a British plane by a man in British uniform,” he said stupidly.
“What about it?” Bill barked. “We were about two hundred miles from Ma'an when eight one-seater biplanes dived on us with all their machine guns yammering. Luckily Gleason was the only one who was hit. The rest of us managed to get out of their line of fire. Hassfurther and Sandy joined Gleason at twenty-five thousand feet. I stayed down to learn who had attacked us.”
“Eight one-seater biplanes,” Kestrel repeated. He talked like a man under the influence of a strong drug. “How could you tell who they were at night?”
“My Lancer is equipped with an infrared-ray telescope,” Bill said. “I could see them as plainly as I could in the daytime. I saw their uniforms. They were not wearing overalls. And I saw the British cockade and the squadron insignia checked the insignia with a plane on the field a few minutes ago. They are the same.”
“Yes,” Kestrel said, like a man who is tired beyond endurance, “they are the same. About two hundred miles northwest of here?”
“That's right!” Shorty barked. Kestrel looked at him for a moment as though he didn't see him. Then a faint smile flickered on his twisted lips.
“I'm sorry this has happened, Barnes,” he said. “I am more sorry than I can say. Things are happening so fast I can't keep up with them mentally. I must explain to you, I'll try not to bore you. You must be patient. I hope this won't make a difference. I've been hoping since I learned you were coming you would help me, Barnes:”
“How did you know I was coming?” Bill asked.
Kestrel's eyes left Bill's and traveled upward to a point on the wall across from Bill, then shifted back to Bill's face, then to Shorty's. He shook his head sadly as he spoke.
“I learned it from a letter Douglas was writing to you, Barnes. We found it in his rooms in town. He-he-, —”
“What about Douglas?” Shorty snapped again. “Where is he? We know about his court-martial. Where is he?”'
“He's dead,” Kestrel said. “He was murdered night before last!”
“Murdered!” Shorty said slowly. His own face was white now, and he was thinking about the parents of young James Douglas. He was thinking about the tragic death of James' older brothel during the War. Thoughts rushed through his mind. He tried to speak and found that he couldn't,
Kestrel's eyes softened as he saw the tragedy written on Shorty's hard face. He put up a hand and spoke softly.
“Let me tell you about things,” he said. “I'll lay all the cards on the table. You'll understand if you let me tell you the whole story. It can't be told in halves. You wouldn't understand if I told you that way.”
Bill and Shorty sat spellbound while Kestrel unfolded the whole weird story. At times Kestrel stopped as they glanced at one another incredulously. He told them of the unrest of the natives and the attempt to mutilate the sacred Dushara. He told them of the theft of eight British planes and the cashiering of young Douglas. He told them all he knew up to the time he had gone to bed the night before.
“Those planes that attacked you,” he said, “were the ones that were stolen. It is as I thought: some one is working from the inside. They knew you were coming. They sent out those ships to stop you. But who sent them? And from where did they come? Those two things, gentlemen, are the things that confront us. If we can find out those things we will learn who murdered your friend.
“I admit now I was a fool to listen to the charges against him. He was not guilty, and he was determined to prove it to us. The things he learned cost him his life. What were they?
“If I had not been such a fool he would be alive to tell us. One of your own men has been dangerously wounded through no fault of his own. It seems that you are drawn into this thing without being able to help it. The long arm of the man behind it reached all the way to China to enmesh you in a fiendish plot that may cost thousands of lives. I need your aid. I beg you to work with me. By working together we can each satisfy our own interests.”
“We're in, all right,” Bill said. “ And we're going to stay. Have no fear about that. We want to know who murdered Douglas. And if Gleason doesn't pull through-”
He stopped, unable to go on.
“What about Douglas?” Shorty asked. “Will he be sent home?”
'I have cabled his parents,” Kestrel said. “I will do what his parents wish.”
“I'll take care of that,” Shorty said abruptly. “They are friends of mine, too.”
VI—PETRA'S STRONGHOLD
BILL and Sandy paced nervously up and down the anteroom of the hospital. Shorty Hassfurther, whose anxiety was even greater than theirs about his best friend and War-time pal, sat reading a newspaper and mentally cursing his nerves.
An interne had told them that they would not be permitted to see Red that day. He was so heavily doped, he said, he would not be able to recognize any one.
But they were waiting to get a report from the doctors who had worked on his shoulder in the operating room. They knew it was very possible that his left arm might be amputated.
Major McCardell, in command of the medical unit, made a report to them. He was an elderly man with a long
