'You do not like me,' she said. 'Why? Have I done something to offend you?'
'Of course not. And what makes you think I don't like you?'
'It has been quite obvious. The little sergeant does not like me, either. Sometimes I catch him looking at me as though he would like to bite off my head.
'Some men are shy around women,' he said.
The girl smiled. 'Not you,' she said.
They were silent for a moment. Then he said, 'Would you mind helping me again? I am terribly awkward at this.'
Corrie thought, He is a gentleman, after all.
Again she bound the feathers fast while he held them in place. And their hands touched. Chagrined, Jerry found himself moving his so that they would touch oftener.
Chapter 6
MUCH time was devoted to archery even on the march. Corrie shamed the men. She was very quick and very accurate, and she drew a strong bow—the full length of a two foot, eight inch arrow until the feathers touched her right ear.
Clayton complimented her. Shrimp told Bubonovitch that it was a sissy sport anyway. Jerry secretly admired her prowess and was ashamed of himself for admiring it. He tried to concentrate on the girl in Oklahoma City and the Republican 4-F.
Corrie explained that she had belonged to an archery club for two years in Holland while there at school, and that she had kept up the practice after she returned to her father's plantation. 'If I were not good at it by this time, I should think myself very stupid.'
Eventually, even Shrimp commenced to brag about his marksmanship. They were all pretty good, and woe betide any game bird or animal that crossed their path. They had found a couple of dry caves in a limestone cliff, and Clayton had decided that they should remain there until some new clothing and footwear could be fashioned, for their shoes were practically gone and their clothing in shreds.
The Englishman had roughly cured a deer skin, and had fashioned an awl and needles from bamboo. With the same tough fiber used for their bows and arrows, Corrie was making crude sandals for them with these materials and tools.
She worked alone one morning while the men went out to hunt. Her thoughts ranged over the two years that had passed—years of sorrow, hardship, and danger. Years of pain and unshed tears and hate. She thought of her present situation—alone in the vastness of a mountain wilderness with four strange men, four foreigners. And she realized that she had never felt safer and that for the first time in two years she was happy.
She smiled when she thought of how terrified she had been when that almost naked brown man had carried her off into the forest. And how surprised she had been when she learned that he was a Royal Air Force colonel. She had liked him and Sergeant Bubonovitch from the very beginning. Her heart had warmed to the sergeant from the moment that he had shown her the pictures of his wife and baby. She had not liked 'the little sergeant' nor Captain Lucas. They are both boors, she had thought; but the captain is the worse because he is an educated man and should know better than to behave toward me as he has.
That was what she had thought until lately, but since the day that she had helped him fletch his arrows he had been different. He still did not seek her company, but he did not avoid her as he had in the past. Bubonovitch had told her what a fine pilot he was and how his crew worshiped him. He cited several examples of Lucas' courage, and they lost nothing in the telling. Crew members are that way if they like an officer.
So Corrie concluded that Lucas was a man's man and possibly a woman hater. And she found the latter idea intriguing. It was also amusing. She smiled as she thought of how a woman hater must feel in such a situation— forced into close companionship with a woman day after day. And a young and pretty woman, she added mentally. For Corrie was eighteen, and she knew that she was even more than pretty—even in rags and with that horrid head of hair, mostly a rusty black, but blonde at the roots. She had no mirror, but she had seen her reflection in still pools of water. That always made her laugh. She laughed easily and often these days, for she was strangely happy.
She wondered if Captain Lucas would have disliked her if they had met under normal conditions—she with lovely gowns and her beautiful, golden hair becomingly arranged. Had she been given to self analysis, she would probably have wondered also why he was so much in her thoughts. Of course he was goodlooking in an extremely masculine way.
She thought of him as old, and would have been surprised to have learned that he was only twenty-three. Responsibility and many hours of intense nervous strain had matured him rapidly. To hurl thirty tons of aluminum and steel and high explosives into the air and into battle, to feel that upon you alone depends the safety of a beautiful, half million dollars worth of plane and the lives of nine of your best friends is sufficient responsibility to bring lines of maturity to any face. They had left their mark on Jerry Lucas's. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices. At first she assumed that the hunters were returning. Then, as the sounds came nearer, she recognized the intonation of native speech; and a moment later several Sumatrans appeared in the mouth of the cave. They were duty, vicious looking men. There were ten of them. They took her away with them. From their conversation she soon learned why: The Japs had offered a reward for the capture of her and Sing Tai.
The sun was setting when the hunters returned to the cave. The brief equatorial twilight would soon be followed by darkness. The men missed the girl immediately and commenced to speculate on the explanation.
'She probably run out on us,' said Shrimp. 'You can't trust no dame.'
'Don't be a damn fool,' snapped Lucas. Shrimp's jaw dropped in surprise. He had been sure that the captain would agree with him. 'Why should she run out on us?' demanded Lucas. 'We offer her the only chance she has to escape the Japs. She probably went hunting.'
'What makes you think she has run away from us, Roset-ti?' asked Clayton, who was examining the ground just outside of the cave entrance.
'I know skoits,' said Shrimp.
'I'd want better evidence than that,' said the Englishman.
'Well, she didn't go hunting,' said Bubonovitch from the back of the cave.
'How do you know?' asked Lucas.
'Her bow and arrows are here.'
'No, she didn't go hunting and she didn't run away,' said Clayton. 'She was taken away by force by a band of natives. There were about ten men in the band. They went that way.' He pointed.
'You got a crystal ball, Colonel?' asked Bubonovitch skeptically.
'I have something more dependable—two eyes and a nose. So have you men, but yours are no good. They have been dulled by generations of soft living, of having laws and police and soldiers to surround you with safeguards.'
'And how about you, Colonel?' asked Lucas banteringly.
'I have survived simply because my senses are as acute as those of my enemies—usually far more acute— and are combined with experience and intelligence to safeguard me where there are no laws, no police, no soldiers.'
'Like in London ,' observed Bubonovitch. Clayton only smiled.
'What makes you sure she didn't go with the natives willingly?' asked Jerry Lucas. 'She might have had some good reason that we, of course, can't know anything about. But I certainly don't believe that she deserted us.'
'She was taken by force after a very brief struggle. The signs are plain on the ground. You can see here where she held back and was dragged along a few feet. Then her tracks disappear. They picked her up and carried her. The stink of natives clings to the grasses.'
'Well, what are we waiting for then?' demanded Lucas. 'Let's get going.'
'Sure,' said Shrimp. 'Let's get after the dirty so-and-sos. They can't take—' He stopped suddenly, surprised by the strange reaction the abduction of the hated 'dame' had wrought.
It had started to rain—a sudden tropical deluge. Clayton stepped into the shelter of the cave. 'There is no use in starting now,' he said. 'This rain will obliterate the scent spoor, and we couldn't follow the visible spoor in
