Bill Barnes Air Adventurer, July 1935 — page 73: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AIR ADVENTURER same grim purposefulness Bill Barnes was using in the Scarlet Stormer. He had not said much about the disappear- ance of Shorty. But his silence was eloquent. He and Shorty had been pals since those grim, gray days of War, real pals. For once in his life he was not singing as he studied the map spread out before him and checked his bearings. Bill’s voice came over the radiophone again talking to Cy Hawkins in the transport. “You follow the guide’s directions, Cy,” he said. “Tl stay a little back, about three thousand feet above you, and follow your course. Can the guide make out the country below him from the air?” “He’s a wiz, Bill,” Cy drawled. “We ought to take him on as an observer. He’s picking out landmarks as though he had flown all his life. He says he has a very good idea of just where we'll locate Heiiner’s headquarters. “He tells me he has heard rumors and whisperings about armed nattves preparing for a revolt. He knows more than he’s telling me, too.” “Pump him if you can. Can he un- derstand what you’re saying to me?” “He’s out of hearing now. What do we do when we locate the placer Dive in and let ’em have it?” “Hold everything until I give the word,” Bill said, sharply. “T’ll be able to locate their fort before you can see it. Ill give you the sign when I’ve looked it over.” THE three planes swept above plains over which moved enormous herds of humpbacked cattle guarded by half-wild herdsmen and shaggy, savage dogs. Le- murs, civets and occasional wild cattle skulked in the bushes along the Tanana- rivo-Ankazobe road. The natives they saw from the air were more primitive than the ones around the capital. Most of them carried formidable-looking 71 spears and wore only a lamba wrapped around their waists. A funeral proces- ston wound along the streets of a native village built on stilts and entirely sur- rounded by giant mimosa bushes. The natives were well filled with touka. At- tired in their long, flowing lambas they danced the corpse to its last resting place. A few minutes after they altered their course to; the west, the first rim of jun- gle appeared. As the jungle grew denser and thicker the trail the Betsileo told Cy to follow became more narrow, winding steadily upward until the dense tropical foliage gave way to a short, stubby growth of bush, and then, near the edge of a plateau, became a mountain of giant boulders. Bill Barnes spiraled downward as he saw antlike forms that were men milling about in an inclosure close to the edge of the plateau. He took a position in front of the carrier-transport and spoke to Cy over the radiophone. “Follow me,’ he said, sweeping lower and lower. Suddenly, the whole plan of the fortifications and guns and planes took form below him. He realized that he was gazing down on a citadel that was armed to the teeth. Off to the right he saw a road that had been cut through the jungle to within a few yards of the edge of the flat land along the Tanana- rivo-Ankazobe road. That explained how the three Germans had got the guns he saw in the fort up through the jun- gle. They had breught huge cases, so the French officials had told him, of ma- chinery to Majunga on the west coast, and up the Betsiboka River as far as Maevatanana. There it had _ been loaded onto trucks and taken to the foot of the jungle road he saw below him. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head incredulously as he gazed down on the rows of mountain howitzers, anti- aircraft guns and long-range guns. The inside walls of the fort, literally, bris- oO Corll clo@olx< CO