30 August, 1943

Somewhere over Japanese Occupied Indochina

Victoria’s stomach did a somersault as the small transport plane suddenly veered wildly to one side. She might have complained about the pilot’s poor job of things, if she hadn’t seen the stream of tracer rounds which shot past them, lighting up the dark, moonless night. But for that wild evasion, those fiery dots and the invisible but equally deadly machine gun bullets between them would have turned their small trimotor into so much perforated scrap metal. The Japanese night fighter zoomed past, the scream of its engines seeming to sound frustrated, as if it shared its pilot’s frustration at failing to shoot down his prey. The noise faded as the plane vanished into the darkness, but Victoria knew it was only gaining distance to make another pass.

The 19-year old bit her lip to hide her nervousness from the other passengers back in the old Tri-Motor’s compartment. Back home in Blighty, signing up with the Special Operations Executive had seemed a lark, a chance to see the world and do her part for the war effort. An amateur radio hobbyist, her ability to jury-rig homemade receivers from whatever junk was at hand had gotten her attention. She’d been selected to serve as radio operator for this covert mission. The weeks of training that had followed; learning everything from pistol marksmanship and hand to hand combat, to setting boobytraps and sabotaging enemy vehicles, hadn’t seemed real, more a kids game; instead of cowboys and indians it was commandos and japs. Now, it didn’t feel like much of a game. 

The rest of the team seemed to have come to a similar conclusion and were doing about as good a job hiding their nervousness from each other as Victoria was. In the darkness, they all looked alive: five figures dressed in flight jackets and goggles, clutching the packs with their mission gear tightly as the plane bobbed and lurched, but Victoria had gotten to know them well enough to recognize anyway. 

Beside her, two other members of the team were British. Alice Brown was the only one not in back. The former WAAF pilot was upfront, doing her best to keep the battered old crate in the air. Dorothy Parker, sitting beside Victoria, was an army nurse and, after their training, a competent field medic as well. 

The other three were originally from the team’s destination. Jeanne Michel was the daughter of a French Colonial Official. She’d made it out of Indochina ahead of the Japanese occupation. Her father hadn’t. Kim and Lan were a pair of sisters who’d likewise escaped. There had been some tension between the Trinh sisters, ardent nationalists and Jeanne, daughter of one of their colonial oppressors as they saw it, but they would be key to making contact with the resistance group the team was being sent to aid, known as Trieu’s Tigresses. 

Assuming they got there in one piece, of course… The Japanese night fighter dove out of the darkness once more. Alice rolled the transport as much as its worn out airframe would allow, but this time it wasn’t enough. The Jap pilot knew this wouldn’t be an easy kill and was serious now. There was an awful clatter of metal on metal as the burst of machinegun rounds slammed into the front of the Trimotor. Its leftmost engine came apart, a flash of burning fuel lighting up the night before Alice cut the feed to that engine. The center one clanged ominously, belching black smoke, but stayed intact for the moment. 

Fortunately, that was the last attack. Maybe the pilot had expended all his ammunition. Or maybe he’d taken the fireball to mean he’d killed them and was in too much of a hurry to return home and brag about his kill to double back and make certain of it. 

He might have been right in his estimation, though. The trimotor kept flying for another quarter of an hour, but it was obvious they were not going to reach their destination. Alice did her best, wrestling with the controls, but she was forced to concede they were steadily losing altitude. She hoped to find a clear spot they could land or make an emergency parachute drop with some degree of safety, but when their second damaged engine gave a sputter and finally died, she gave up the game.  

“It’s now or never girls.” She called back. “If we don’t jump for it, we won’t have the altitude for it. Get ready…I’m gonna see if I can nurse us far enough to reach those fields up ahead…” 

Grimly, Victoria and the rest of the team got ready, checking their parachutes were in order and their gear strapped tight to their bodies. The young woman clutched her back with the previous radio inside. They might need it to call for help soon. Ahead, Jeane swung open the plane’s side door, letting in a terrific gust of wind. 

“Go! Go! Go!” Alice called before she leapt from her seat, scrambling for her own parachute. With the rest, Victoria stumbled forward, trying not to think about what she was doing and so hesitate, until she was out of the plane and in free fall. Maneuvering into the right position, she counted to three, then pulled the parachute's ripcord. The top opened, white nylon billowing out, filling in the breeze. It inflated into a large, round dome, arresting Victoria’s freefall with a jerk. 

Clutching the nylon cords which tied her to the lifesaving canopy, Victoria looked around. Off in the distance, the doomed plane arced its way down towards the dark jungle below. Behind it, a half dozen white nylon parachutes bobbed in the air, slowly drifting towards the ground. Victoria nodded, counting the chutes. Everyone had made it off the plane alive, at least. Unfortunately, from the look of things, the wind was busy scattering them all over the countryside. Victoria tried to follow the descent of her comrades as best she could, but pretty soon she had to turn her attention to the ground below her. The young woman did her best to steer towards an open clearing, praying the tall grass didn’t conceal any rocks which would make coming down problematic. 

At the last moment though, the wind suddenly changed. To her horror, Victoria saw herself swinging with frightening speed towards a stand of trees. At the last moment, she pulled at the nylon cords. She dropped suddenly, plunging to the ground just short of the trees. Her feet met dirt with a jarring force. Victoria let them go limp, to keep from breaking her legs and rolled, the nylon awning tangling up behind her. Then, without warning, her head met a rock or branch or something and she went out like a light. 

***  

“Ugh…” Victoria groaned, as consciousness returned. The back of her head was still pounding from the blow it had received. She must have been out for a while, the sky overhead was bright with the early morning sun. As she came back to full consciousness, the young woman became aware of a rough prodding in her chest and the sound of someone standing over her talking. 

“Wake up, you western dog!” A man sneered, in accented English. “I want you awake when I kill you!” Turning her head, Victoria saw a man in the uniform of a Japanese army officer, prodding her with the tip of a sheathed sword. Nearby stood a squad of soldiers, carrying rifles tipped with bayonets which glinted in the early morning sun. 

Victoria jumped with a start, realizing the danger she was in. She fumbled for the pistol at her side, but the holster was empty. She also realized her pack, with the radio and gear was likewise missing. Whether the Japanese had taken them while she was unconscious, or if they’d been lost during her rough landing, she didn’t know. Before she could try and think of another plan, two burly soldiers seized her by the arms. As they hauled her up, roughly, their officers drew his sword. Overcome with fright, Victoria screamed.

That saved her life. Hearing an unmistakably feminine cry from their captive gave the soldier’s pause. The officer said something in Japanese to the men holding Victoria. One of them reached up and pulled her flight helmet off. The soldiers stared in amazement as long, blonde tresses spilled free of the leather cap. 

“The western dog is really a western bitch!” The officer exclaimed. He gave his captive a leering grin. “But we must be sure.” As his men held the struggling girl, the officer sheathed his sword and came forward. 

“Hey! What are do-No!” Victoria cried out indignantly as the officer unzipped her flight suit and tore open her blouse. The chest, with its perky, round breasts standing out prominently, was undoubtedly female. 

“We’ll take this spy back to base.” The officer said, adding an order in Japanese which doubtless meant something to the effect of ‘Tie her up!’ an order which the soldiers complied to with a will. Victoria’s parachute was still nearby, tangled in a shrug and the soldiers grabbed it, cutting the nylon ropes with their bayonets and tearing the nylon fabric of the parachute into strips. One of the soldiers found a sturdy, slightly bent stick and brought it over with the binding material. The hapless captive had the branch placed across the back of her neck, like a yoke and the nylon cords were used to lash her to it by the neck and wrists. One strip of the nylon cloth was stuffed in her mouth, silencing her outage protests. Another, rolled into a thick band, was tied across her mouth to secure the gag. A third went over her eyes as a blindfold. 

“March, western bitch!” The officer barked, giving Victoria a shove. Grunting sharply through her gag, the captive stumbled forward. For the next hour, Victoria marched blindly forward, guided by the shoves of her captors. At times, she felt the hot sun beat down on her; other times she felt the shade of trees overhead, but apart from that, she had little idea where she was being taken. 

Eventually, they must have come to the soldier’s camp. Victoria could hear more soldiers about, which was more than a little embarrassing, as her shirt was still open at the front and with her hands lashed to the branch there was no chance to cover herself. Finally, the young woman was brought to a halt. She heard her captors unlock some sort of door, then the young woman was pushed inside. 

“Wait here, western bitch!” The officer said in a mocking tone, as Victoria was made to sit against a corrugated metal wall. “Then you will be asked some questions. Tell us what we want to know and we’ll let you live. Otherwise, you will die like a dog!” As he said this, one of his soldiers used some more of the nylon rope to lash the girl’s feet together. When he had finished, the soldiers left, shutting and locking the shed door behind them. 

“Mmpphh!?!” As soon as her captors had departed, Victoria heard the muffled sound of another woman, grunting. She was obviously gagged and, presumably, bound just like her. Though she couldn’t be sure, the grunts sounded like Alice, their pilot. The sounds of other gagged women moaning told Victoria Dorothy and Lam were nearby as well. The SOE agent moaned miserably. Her first mission and already two thirds of the team had been captured. Their only hope was Jeane and Kim could contact the local partisans and effect some sort of rescue. 

“This is a hell of a start to our mission…”