“Have you been flying it?” Ted questioned. “Perhaps that was you flying it today! Well, if it was, I think I got your pal.” “You’re not serious?” said Jack. “Sure, I am. At least about that fellow falling out of the thing,” Ted grinned. “I got in a burst of fire back there in a cloud. Then when they came down to shoot me on the water, this Jerry tumbled out. I sort of figured he’d been hit and had gone crazy, or something.” “That’s good news!” Stew exclaimed. “There were two Germans and three Japs. Now there’s only one German. We should be able to handle them. They—” “Jap—Jappie!” a grizzled giant among the boatmen broke in excitedly. “You think Jappie on our island?” “Sure, there are!” Stew insisted. “Three Japs.” “What you think, Mary Brown?” The old man turned to the girl. “Jappie on our island? Maybe this boy he lie. What you think?” “He isn’t lying,” Mary said in a steady voice. “Three Japs came on that plane last time.” “Why you not tell me? I go kill them!” There was an angry and puzzled look on the aged native’s face. “That’s just it.” Mary smiled soothingly at the old man. “You would have tried to kill them. They would have killed you. They have machine guns. You must not die, for you are my father.” “By-um-by I kill ’em.” The old man settled back in his place. “They not kill me. You see.” By this time Ted was looking from one speaker to another and then back at Jack. “What’s all this?” he asked in a low tone. “Well, first of all,” Jack put a hand on Mary’s shoulder, “let me introduce Nurse Mary Brown. She’s a native of the South Sea Islands from Ohio.” “Kentucky,” the girl corrected. That called for a lot of explaining. Jack was only half through when Mary exclaimed: “Those beasts must have winged you!” She pointed to a splotch of blood on Ted’s sleeve. “Only a flesh wound, really nothing.” He tried to toss it off. “I didn’t even feel it at the time. I’ve sort of got it fixed up.” “That may be,” said Mary, moving toward him. “But where I come from wounds don’t stay ‘sort of fixed up.’ That’s too dangerous.” Producing a small first-aid kit from beneath her native dress, she went to work. “I’m going to get this war paint off as soon as I can,” she confided to Ted as she worked. From the tone of her voice Jack guessed that Ted had made a hit. “You look swell just as you are,” Ted joked. “I doubt if I could stand seeing you all whitened up and dressed in a nurse’s uniform.” “You’ll see me that way all right,” was her reply. “I’ve got my uniform safely hidden away beneath a palm.” “Huh!” Jack thought. “One more perfectly good mystery all shot to pieces!” For all this, he realized that life at the battle front had not lost its interest. Mystery and adventure still lay before him.