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Sinking barges drifted aimlessly, filled with dead men. Some of the soldiers jumped overboard, only to die in the water. Curly Levitt with his side-gun mowed down the one bargeful that made the beach. After that run, Barry did not turn his ship until well beyond the range of Jap shell fire. At ten thousand feet he swun...
“Hap and I will do what we can to help you,” Barry answered, “at ten thousand feet. We have those last two ships in the bag. There’s no need to risk _Rosy O’Grady_ at point-blank range.” Chick’s first attempt was a near miss—the Jap helmsman was too good at dodging. On his run over the second transport he scored a hit....
“Tail gunner from pilot:” Barry spoke into the phone. “Are you all right?” “That flak missed the turret, sir,” Tony Romani answered. “But I can see daylight through the fuselage just behind me.” “The rudder and elevators still work,” Barry told his crew. “That’s as near a hit as I want, though. Let’s get this job done....
The one ship left afloat was burning fiercely from stem to stern. No boats or barges had been lowered. Those Japs who had survived the flames were now swimming in the shark-infested water. “Here come three of our forts from Mau River!” Hap Newton cried, pointing to the east. “Boy! Will they be sore when they see what w...
“You might possibly find a force of Jap warships farther up the coast, sir,” he told the commanding officer, Major Browne. “My guess is that they were landing troops for a night attack on our airport. In that case they’d be expecting some naval units to come after dark and ‘soften up’ the field for them with shell fire...
“They’d planned to have all their troops ashore a little after sunrise,” Curly Levitt put in. “If we hadn’t come along, they would have left a force here strong enough to take over our airfield and perhaps two or three more.” Five minutes after landing, Barry Blake and his crew were making their report to the officer i...
Colonel Bullock’s gaze shifted to the slice of blue sky framed in the tent door. “No, not yet,” he replied, frowning. “But the enemy is massing his strength for another big land, sea, and air attack. Our steady gains in the South Pacific have cost him too much. He is due to strike back, hard.” There was a brief silence...
The colonel rose to his feet, smiling. “That spirit will win this war for us, son,” he said. “It’s won every war we Americans have fought. But here at Mau River we’re still short of planes and men. I shall see to it personally that _Sweet Rosy O’Grady’s_ repairs are rushed through. In a day or two we may need her—badly...
DOGFIGHTING FORTRESS Three days passed without news of any Jap naval maneuvers. That was not surprising, for the weather was frightful. The regular bombing runs from Henderson Field to Rabaul and Gasmata had been called off because of it. Two reconnaissance planes were missing—probably wrecked by those unspeakably fier...
“_Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ is ready to take off the minute you give permission, sir,” Barry responded. “We’ll gladly take the chance of running into a squall. All of us would rather be upstairs fighting the weather than stewing in our own juice down here.” The colonel met Barry’s eyes, and grinned. “You mean you’d risk anyt...
The fog had lifted a little when they finished their pre-dawn breakfast and headed for the runway. _Rosy’s_ four engines were whooping it up as the greaseballs warmed them. “That’s real music!” Fred Marmon shouted to Barry. “If they run as sweetly as that today, no storm’s going to worry us.” “She’s bombed up. I saw to...
His voice faded out beneath the thunder of five thousand horses, as _Rosy O’Grady_ strained at her braked wheels. The engine roar died down suddenly, a moment later, and the mechanics slid out of the hatch. The sergeant in charge made a circle with his thumb and finger, indicating “Okay!” Barry Blake nodded, and plunge...
“Fellows,” he said in a voice of wonder. “That’s a sight worth any flier’s life. It’s Heaven’s art work, fresh from the hand of God!” Nobody else spoke. Chick Enders had expressed the feeling of every man in the plane who had a view of the colors below. Soon, however, the cloud painting changed, the gold growing whiter...
“I’m going down, Hap,” Barry Blake announced. “We won’t be able to see as far as we’d like to, but we’re doing no good up here above the ceiling. Besides, I have a hunch....” “Play it, then,” Hap Newton advised. “In this game a bit of a hunch is sometimes worth a barrel of reasoning. Chick, be ready with that bombsight...
“The Jap convoy!” Hap cried. “No doubt about it—they’re heading southwest toward New Guinea. Let’s give ’em all we’ve got—” CRANG! The blast of a small-caliber shell inside _Rosy’s_ fuselage shocked her crew into grim alertness. Two seconds later her top turret guns chattered. Empty shell cases tumbled smoking to the f...
“Right on the other side of this cloud, last I saw of him,” replied the radioman-gunner. “He’s a big Jap twin-float bomber ... looks like an _Aichi_ T98.” “Two 20-mm. cannon and four fixed wing guns,” stated Barry, recalling what he had learned of the T98’s armament. “Unless he gets in some lucky shots our .50-calibers...
_Rosy O’Grady_ was taking punishment. Her fin and rudder looked like a slice of Swiss cheese. Shell holes gaped in her fuselage. Shell fragments were whizzing about her interior—thin, jagged bits of steel with cutting edges. Every gunner was nicked and bleeding, yet all stuck by their guns. The Jap was catching plenty ...
“Ball turret from pilot,” he said into the interphone. “Watch out for a trick. That Jap might try to dive below us and rip at our belly.... _There he goes now!_.” [Illustration: _Shell Fragments Whizzed About the Plane’s Interior_] “I see him, sir!” said Cracker Jackson, as his bottom guns opened up. Barry shoved the w...
Chick lost balance as Barry pulled out of the dive, barely two hundred feet above the water. The little bombardier shook his numbed fingers, grabbed the right-hand machine gun and swung it broadside. Again the two planes were flying side by side, but the Jap was licked. Flame burst from his crippled engine. A front pan...
Chick Enders was not satisfied with mere escape. He turned to his pilot with a pleading expression. “Give me one crack at that warship, Barry,” he begged. “What’s the use of coming out with a full bomb load if we’ve got to take it all back?” Barry banked his plane, and climbed again. The clouds enfolded the battle-torn...
Circling at reduced speed within the sheltering cloud blanket, Barry radioed a brief report of the convoy’s location, direction, and probable size. “Shot down twin-float _Aichi_ T98 that attacked us,” he concluded. “We’re going back to leave a few calling cards on the Jap’s decks.” Roaring down through the ceiling, Bar...
They were so near that the Jap gunners had no time to swing their heavier guns. The shots that they aimed flew wild. Already the destroyer’s deck was almost beneath. From stern to bow _Rosy O’Grady’s_ shadow swept over the doomed warship. The thousand-pound bomb went through her deck as through paper, and exploded in h...
“I’ll go over at eight hundred, Chick,” he said quickly. “They’re shooting too close.” Before he had finished speaking, Chick’s fingers were busy at the bombsight’s knobs, compensating for the intended drop. The Fortress dipped abruptly. The freighter’s deck flashed beneath. Two hundred feet above, the cruiser’s shells...
Hap Newton turned and waved mockingly astern. “Don’t worry, Tojo—we’ll be back, with plenty of company,” he said. “You’re going to be honorable shark-meat about twenty-four hours from now!” _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ plunged into the clouds and leveled off for Mau River, three hundred miles away. The wet mist whipped through...
“I’ll do it, Fred, if you’ll tie up my right shoulder,” Curly Levitt responded. “I’ve got the first-aid kit here.... Anybody else need patching up?” “My ear feels like something the cat brought in,” came Tony Romani’s voice from the tail turret. “I think there’s some shrapnel sticking in my ribs, too, but that can wait...
The plan was unanimously approved, but it was doomed to failure. _Rosy O’Grady_ made a three-point landing, like the perfect lady she was, but as she rolled to a stop, Chick Enders groaned. “There’s Colonel Bullock coming out to us in the jeep!” he exclaimed. “He’ll never let us take off without a real inspection. And ...
SLAUGHTER FROM THE AIR Chick Enders’ prediction was only partly right. Colonel Bullock did order _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ and her fighting crew grounded for temporary repairs. But it was only for the rest of that day and night. To smash the Jap task force utterly, every bomber that could fly would be needed. “Get those wou...
“I was just playing a hunch, sir,” he murmured. “Chick—I mean, Lieutenant Enders—did the real job. He sank a big destroyer and blew the stern off a cargo vessel before we had to clear out. And the other boys knocked that _Aichi_ T98 out of the sky—simply chewed her to junk!” “My congratulations were meant for all of yo...
Much the same thing was passing through the minds of all the crew, but they were suddenly too tired to talk about it. The tension of battle had broken. Now they were conscious chiefly of stiffening wounds and the deep, physical craving for food and sleep. The night passed in dreamless oblivion. It seemed to Barry that ...
“Come on!” urged their young pilot. “Snap out of it or I’ll report the whole crew on the sick list. We’ll miss our crack at the Japs, but—” He saw a boot come sailing from Hap’s side of the tent, and ducked just in time. “All right, all right!” he laughed. “I’ll see you lazy birds on the runway, if you’re too late for ...
“Setting up drill at this time of the morning, Lieutenant?” said Colonel Bullock’s voice behind him. “No, sir—_getting_-up drill is more like it,” Barry replied. “My crew slept too hard last night, and they’re still in a fog.” “Harrumph! I envy them!” grunted the colonel. “Couldn’t sleep at all myself, last night.... B...
“Yes. Extreme right wing position,” Colonel Bullock told him. “The take-off is in thirty minutes.” Barry saluted and watched the officer’s tall, still youthful figure stride away in the twilight. Behind him the crew were piling out of the tent. “Just time to eat and run, fellows,” he said, turning toward the mess shack...
Clear sunlight gleamed through the bottle-green crests of the big combers that tossed and battered the Jap task force. Gone was the protecting blanket of clouds. Gone, too, was any hope in the mind of the Jap admiral that he could sneak up on the Allied bases without a costly attack from the air. Yet his words were con...
“We shall destroy them utterly,” he repeated. “Banzai!” Green water crashed on the forecastle as the flagship buried her bow under a giant comber. The cruiser shuddered, heaved, and shook herself free. The bow rose higher, higher, until the steel warship seemed to those on deck as if she were going to stand upright on ...
Suddenly the flotilla’s antiaircraft opened fire with a concerted roar. The transports’ long range guns joined it. Their barking reports made the thin steel hulls quiver. Then came the bombs. One struck an 8,000-ton troopship aft of the bridge. A thousand Jap soldiers died in the flaming inferno it made. Live steam fro...
Soapy Babbitt in the top turret and Tony Romani in the tail were not ignoring the hornet-like Jap Zeros. While Barry, Hap and Chick were concentrating on their first bombing run, they knocked down a plane apiece. The Flying Fortress squadron had dispersed, and its members were making individual runs over the flotilla. ...
The Jap “cover” of fighting planes certainly looked as if a tornado had struck it. The deadly but unarmored little fighters were torching down all over the sky. Others were fleeing back toward their New Guinea bases, glad of an excuse to return for gas. The reason was simple: plane for plane and pilot for pilot, our fo...
“We’ll go back for another load,” he said, turning the Fortress’s nose homeward. “How’s Cracker Jackson?” “Coming out of it,” was Curly Levitt’s reply. “His right arm’s broken above the elbow, and his nose is banged up. The ball turret took an awful wallop from that ack-ack shell.” “Better our ball turret than our bomb...
“Have a heart, Lieutenant!” he begged Barry. “This bum wing feels fine in a sling, and I could shoot my left gun with my left hand. Please let me go along this trip.” Barry shook his head. “That’s a compound fracture, man!” he replied. “If you don’t get proper treatment now, it may gangrene. Besides, your nose is swoll...
“As a matter of fact,” Curly Levitt said when they were out of hearing, “Jackson’s turret is so banged up that it’s useless. It won’t turn, and only one gun will fire. I didn’t tell him, because he would worry about our going back without belly protection.” No more than six Jap vessels were still in the fight when _Ros...
“Roger!” answered the little man in _Rosy’s_ nose. “It’s risky but it will give me a swell target. You never learned this stunt out of a rule book, Barry!” In the co-pilot’s seat, Hap Newton sat nursing the throttles, changing the bomber’s air speed from moment to moment. Barry worked the wheel to keep her constantly s...
Barry put his Fortress into a steep, climbing turn that strained her to the limit. Zigzagging, banking, spiralling, he made the big bomber climb like a cat in a fit. Far beneath, a sheet of flame was rising from the enemy cruiser. Chick Enders’ bomb had opened her oil tanks. Some of her antiaircraft were still firing, ...
As they headed for their new target at ten thousand feet, more bomb bursts tossed up white fountains of sea water around the farther warships. Seven or eight Fortresses were now on the scene. The flotilla’s fleeing remnants were doomed. It had been a ghastly slaughter, Barry reflected. Nearly twenty thousand enemy troo...
Five miles beyond, a number of tiny waterbugs were leaving zigzag wakes in the water. They were probably Jap landing barges, Barry thought, crammed with armed soldiers from one of the troop transports that had gone down. Now he saw the cause of their erratic dodging—a flight of Mitchell B-25’s diving at them, with trac...
“Looks like some sort of a weather front, over toward the coast,” Hap Newton remarked. “I hope our base isn’t shut in by it. We’d have to find another field or bail out....” “Tony can’t bail out, Lieutenant,” Fred Marmon’s voice interrupted. “He’s bleeding to death fast, from a leg wound. I’ve just found him unconsciou...
Leaving his position in the top turret, Sergeant Babbitt sat down at his radio. In a few minutes he had the field’s weather report. “Closed in,” it said briefly, “and so are all near-by airfields. Better try Buna—or Port Moresby if you have enough gas.” “That’s the tough part of it,” said Hap bitterly. “We used up our ...
“There’s _got_ to be some place for us to set her down, Skipper,” Fred Marmon declared. “You’ve always been able to figure a way out. We can’t let Tony down.” “Curly!” exclaimed Barry Blake. “Get out your charts and see if there aren’t some atolls or small islands somewhere this side of that weather front. If one of th...
“Don’t get your hopes too high,” their levelheaded navigator warned them. “None of these islands may have a beach big enough to land a fighter plane. If that’s so, we’ll lose _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ anyway.” “And if we can land,” Barry added, “the place may be swarming with Japs. Personally I’m for taking the risk, but if...
In twenty minutes to the dot they sighted the first white-and-green bump on the ocean’s surface. The islet rose to a central peak about three hundred feet high, covered completely with jungle. As the Fortress swept over it at two thousand feet, her crew voiced their disappointment. Such beaches as the place possessed w...
Climbing to a safe height, he turned and came in for his landing. In order to make the most of the beach’s length, he brought _Rosy’s_ wheels down just at the farther edge of the brook. The Fortress bucked a trifle in the wave-packed sand, and rolled to a smooth stop. Within her, six men cheered like maniacs. “Hold it ...
Straightening up, he pointed to the windows in the nose and overhead. “Open up and give him some fresh air,” he directed. “The minute Tony comes to, we’ll make him swallow some salt tablets and sulfadiazine, with all the water he can drink. That’s all we can do.... Chick, you and Soapy will stay with him now, while the...
A five hour search of the island revealed no human inhabitant. On the farther side from their plane the Fortress men found the burned remnants of a native village and a few unburied corpses. The Jap butchers had evidently come and gone a few weeks before. Barry and Hap downed a half-wild pig with their pistols. On thei...
“All I want is a juicy beefsteak,” he told them. “And mashed spuds and apple pie and—” “You’ll have to be satisfied with pork chops,” Barry interrupted. “Beef won’t be on the menu until we’re back at Mau River. The same goes for potatoes. Dinner tonight will be roast wild pig, palm cabbage, and cocoanut milk—with a vit...
“The next thing,” Barry announced, “is to camouflage _Rosy_ so that she’ll be invisible from the air. As soon as the moon rises, we’ll begin cutting vines and leafy bushes. With only four pocket knives, it may take us most of the night, but that just can’t be helped.” [Illustration: _Ravenous Appetites Made the Dinner ...
Three days later _Rosy O’Grady’s_ sunburned crew had lost ten or fifteen pounds apiece, but the roadway of perforated steel was completed. One end of it was under water, owing to the curve of the beach. An incoming wave might cause the huge bomber to ground-loop at the moment of her take-off, but that was a chance that...
Almost on the “step” she reached the wet end of the strip. Spray flew from her right hand wheel. The water tugged at the tire like a many-tentacled octopus. Despite both the pilots’ weight on the controls, it pulled her down. The right wing dipped into a wave. Every man on board held his breath, bracing himself for the...
CHAPTER SIXTEEN SECRET MISSION The safe return of Barry Blake and his crew to Mau River was celebrated the following night at supper. The meal was the nearest thing to a banquet that the army cooks could turn out. There was a sort of program, too, mostly humorous. It recalled the never-to-be-forgotten days at Randolph ...
“The Big Dog is coming in to land.... The Big Dog is rolling down his flaps.... The Big Dog has landed.... The Big Dog is waiting to be serviced!” Between each announcement, the second lieutenants softly chorused: “Woof, woof! Woof, woof!” When Barry lifted a large baked potato from the serving dish it was announced th...
After the celebration, Colonel Bullock asked Lieutenant Blake and three other pilots to report to his tent for a brief conference. Arriving a moment after the rest, Barry noted that he was the only Fortress skipper present. The others were twin-engine pilots, who had made fine bombing records during the recent slaughte...
“I think we all feel alike about it, sir,” he said quietly. “It’s a big honor to be chosen by you under these circumstances. But as Fortress men, my crew and I might not measure up to the best B-26 performance. Those Martin bombers are sweet little ships, but they handle differently from a Boeing. We wouldn’t want to l...
_Rosy O’Grady’s_ crew, all except Tony and Cracker Jackson, were overjoyed at their new assignment. They lay awake talking it over until Barry curtly ordered them to “drive it into the hangar and get some sleep.” “_Rosy_ will be laid up for a couple of weeks’ repairs anyway,” Chick added in a loud whisper, “and so will...
The four Martin bombers took off by moonlight and promptly headed southwest. Barry found _The Colonel’s Lady_ as Hap had named their new craft, strangely quick and light on the controls, compared with her big sister _Rosy_. Flying in formation with the other three Marauders soon cured his tendency to over-control, howe...
The bomber formation was climbing steadily, to top the 16,000-foot range ahead. A bitter chill seeped into the plane. The crew found themselves breathing faster to get enough air. Automatically they reached for their oxygen masks. Those things were lifesavers when you got up above 20,000. Even at somewhat lower altitud...
The four planes loafed along at about 200 m.p.h., to conserve gas. They dodged a thunder storm just north of the Gulf of Carpenteria and swung back to the southwest. At noon they were over Port Darwin, Australia, with a heavy overcast obscuring sea and land. Barry took over the controls in preparation for landing. “Cei...
Though his B-26 was still a bit unfamiliar to the young Fortress pilot, he set her down without a bounce. The field was hard and smooth, with only a few patches showing where Jap bombs had recently dropped. The lowering clouds, Barry remarked, would probably keep enemy raiders at a distance for the next few days. Repor...
“Hold it down, Hap!” Barry whispered. “No use in stirring up more hard feelings. The whole room heard you. After all, Crayle’s a fellow officer.” “He’s just as much of a sorehead as he ever was,” muttered Chick Enders. “I’d hate to fly in formation with him, for fear he’d pull some spite trick and crash both of us.” “Y...
The briefing room filled quickly, until the space between the long table and the walls was filled with the officers of four bomber squadrons. Facing them stood the general and a rear admiral of the Navy. As the former raised his hand, absolute silence fell on the group. “Gentlemen,” the general said quietly, “this talk...
“Are there any questions, up to this point?” Captain Bartlett was the first pilot to speak. “You mentioned that we should carry about one fourth of our usual gas supply, sir,” he said in a puzzled tone. “But the B-26’s greatest range with a one-ton load is only twenty-four hundred miles. To fly six hundred thirty miles...
“You are quite correct, Captain,” he answered. “However, I didn’t say that you were to fly from here to Amboina. That is the little surprise we are preparing for our enemies. Your three squadrons of Martin bombers are already loaded on an aircraft carrier which you will board tonight. Under cover of the weather front t...
The target assigned to Barry’s crew was the radio station at the extreme tip of Nusanive Point. Captain Bartlett, Lieutenant Haskins, and Thurman Smith were given the heavy coastal fortifications just beyond. Other crews received the airfields across the bay at Hatu and Lata and the antiaircraft batteries mounted in th...
There lay the carrier, a long, dim shape that grew rapidly huger until the speedboat paused close to her towering side. Ship’s ladders had been lowered already. Each boatload of airmen climbed hurriedly to the dark port that opened into the ship’s bowels. Behind them the PT boats roared away into the surrounding blackn...
Barry’s team took four bunks in a corner of the large room assigned to the Army group. For the first time in many hours they had a chance to talk quietly together about the mission on which they had embarked. “It’s a smarter stunt than any of the Japs have pulled off,” Hap Newton declared. “B-25’s and 26’s are usually ...
“The weather,” agreed Curly Levitt, “is the big risk. There has to be enough fog or low-hanging cloud ceiling to hide the carrier from Jap patrol planes, right up to the last minute. But over the island itself our forts and Liberators will need visibility unlimited. If the meteorologists have guessed wrong, it will be ...
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN OUT OF THE FOG Flanked by two cruisers and four destroyers, the big flat-top plowed through rain and fog across the Arafura Sea. Her speed was low, since the weather front was moving slowly. She must stay behind its dark curtain until the moment came for her planes to take the air. Since the B-26 bomb...
Just thirty-two hours from the time he had boarded the carrier, Barry Blake sat at the controls of the first “flying bomb” to be launched at Amboina. Hidden in mist, the carrier had approached within forty miles of the island. The B-26 was already in the catapult; her Double Wasp radial motors were roaring at full thro...
Barry glanced at his climbing altimeter. When it showed a thousand feet he leveled off, heading due north. An instant later the surrounding fog fell away like torn gauze. The carrier had been keeping just within its edge until the moment her warhawks were released. Amboina Island rose like a deep purple cloud on the no...
“Yeah, but how about us?” Chick Enders asked. “We’ll get to our target before the others are even in range.” “So what?” retorted Hap Newton. “The Japs will still be blinking the sleep out of their eyes when we slam ’em. And once we’re rid of this bomb load, Barry’s going to make us mighty hard to hit. That right, Skipp...
The shore batteries had spotted her now, but she was flying too low and too fast for them. The ack-ack was bursting far above and behind her. Some of it was aimed at her sister bombers who were now scattering over Amboina Bay. “Listen, Chick!” cried Barry. “I’m going in low—just clearing the roof of that radio station....
The plane jumped—like a baseball struck by a giant’s bat. Her nose went down. With all his might, Barry pulled back the control post. At three hundred feet he leveled off, turning sharp right, to skirt the steep slope of Mt. Kapal. “Tail gunner from pilot,” he called. “What happened to that radio station?” “Everything,...
“You’ve got the best seat in the whole show, Rourke,” put in Fred Marmon. “Babbitt and I are missing all the fun, with our heads stuck into this two-gun top turret. If we were flying _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ now, we could see something of the countryside.” “The countryside,” said Chick Enders from his perch in the nose, “i...
The explosion of a Jap shell just above the hedgehopping Marauder was answered by a two-second burst of Chick’s gun. “That crew is out of action,” he said grimly as the gun emplacement swept beneath him. “They came a little too near to spotting us. Better keep below the treetops where you can, Barry.” Entering the litt...
“Burn ’em up, Chick,” Barry Blake ordered curtly. “Between you and Rourke we ought to account for plenty of these babies.” The chatter of Chick’s machine gun answered him. Barry swept over five of the huge _Kawanishis_, while Chick Enders and Mickey Rourke ripped at their engine cowlings, floats and keels. He swung ove...
WHANG! A rending explosion in the empty bomb bay punctuated the little tail gunner’s warning. Barry banked so sharply that his right wing nearly touched the water. He hopped over a _Kawanishi_ and kept the big flying boat between him and the _Aichi’s_ shells. “If nobody objects,” he remarked drily, “we’re getting out o...
“Are you telling me, Fred?” the radioman returned. “I won’t be able to sit down in the presence of my betters for a couple of weeks, anyway. I feel as if I’d squatted on a red hot stove. When this plane quits jumping like a bee with St. Vitus’ dance, you’ll have to look and see what happened to my south end.” Reassured...
“We’ll make it to the mainland, I think,” the young skipper said, after a glance at the fuel gauge. “We haven’t a lot to spare, though, after fooling around the harbor with those seaplanes. I’ll go upstairs and cut the engines down to bare flying speed, Curly. That ought to save enough gas to bring us home safely.” The...
“Say, Lieutenant,” came Fred Marmon’s reply, “did you ever try to bandage a man’s seat with a roll of one-inch gauze? I might do it if Soapy would hold still, but he’s wiggling like a worm on a fishhook.... Stand still, you jitterbug!” “Aw, don’t try to be funny!” Soapy’s aggrieved voice answered. “That iodine you slos...
“Hold her steady, Lieutenant,” the little Irishman warned. “That crackpot pilot is intendin’ to give us a scare if he can. I wish he wuz a bloody Jap and I could let him have it—_yeow_!” The oncoming bomber had dived at the last moment under Barry’s ship. Her vertical fin had actually ticked Mickey’s tail position, sen...
“Cut the engines, Hap!” he ordered. “I’ll try to hold our nose up till that fool is clear. If only we had a trifle more airspeed....” Hap was muttering savagely under his breath. Chick Enders was gripping his gun, obviously yearning to pour bullets into Crayle’s back. Abruptly, however, the little bombardier relaxed. C...
Four thousand feet above sea level he pulled out and leveled off on the compass course. “Okay—take over, will you, Hap,” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “I’m tired out.” His big co-pilot was gazing upward through the plastic window. Hap’s face was a deep red. “Wait till that cockeyed ape gets out of sight,...
Though his face was still damp with perspiration, Barry smiled. “All right, Hap,” he said quietly. “I’ll give you a chance to cool off. But you’ve really no reason to lose your head because Glenn Crayle is a nut. You’re playing his game when you let him burn you up. He’s already punished himself, and incidentally his c...
“He’s reduced speed!” Chick Enders cried. “It’s too late, though. We’ve still enough to get home, and he hasn’t. Let’s fly past and give him the merry _ha-ha_, Barry.” “I’ll take over now, Skipper,” Hap chimed in cheerfully. “It’ll be swell fun pulling up close to his wing tip and giving him the old ‘thumbs down’ signa...
“Wish we were going back with them!” Chick Enders exclaimed. “Dropping one egg and skedaddling like a scared sparrow isn’t my idea of fun. If we’d come out in _Rosy_, we could have hung around Amboina picking our targets and making a real party of it.” “That’s the trouble, Chick,” spoke up Curly Levitt. “_Sweet Rosy O’...
For the next hour Barry watched his fuel gauge as a mother watches her sick infant. From time to time he asked Curly to check their position by dead reckoning. Finally he asked his navigator to shoot the sun and make an accurate check. “Either there’s a difference between our compass and the one on that other plane,” h...
“He’s going down!” yelped Hap Newton. “Shall we follow him, Skipper? There may be a low ceiling under these clouds.” “I’ll take over,” Barry answered. “No telling what we’ll run into below!” He shoved the bomber’s nose down into the cloud scuff. Eyes fixed on the altimeter, he held her in a power dive, past five thousa...
Barry dropped his plane quickly toward the water. If no Japs on Tanimbar had already spotted the two bombers, the little island’s mass would hide them from the larger one. There might still be a chance to rescue Crayle’s crew. Yes! There was a smooth, straight beach, now exposed at low tide. Circling just offshore, Bar...
“Keep your shirt on, Hap—and everybody!” Barry replied. “We may have to abandon one plane, but there’s nothing to stop us from picking up Crayle and his team and taking them home with us in ours. I have an idea they’ll jump at the chance, too!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CH...
The moment that Barry’s wheels touched the wave-packed sand, he knew he had made no mistake. The beach was hard and smooth enough for a take-off. Best of all, its length at low tide made a runway as perfect as could be wished. A hundred feet from Crayle’s bomber, Barry stopped his plane. “Everybody out and swing her ar...
“Couldn’t you find a beach of your own to set down on?” he snarled. “Or did you just want to be chummy? If you came to bum gas, you’re out of luck, Blake. Our tanks are dry.” Barry ignored him. With a pleasant nod of greeting he spoke to the other crew’s navigator, a blond, worried-looking chap. “We came down to ask if...
“What can we say, except ‘Thanks?’” he answered heartily. “It’s pretty swell of you to risk a landing on this beach just to pick us up.” “That’s right!” the co-pilot agreed. “This island is enemy territory. You could have just gone on and reported us forced down here. Why you didn’t do that, after what happened an hour...
There was no answering such a crack-brained statement. Crayle’s proposition hadn’t one chance in ten thousand of accomplishment, even with a full crew to help him. Barry turned away with a shrug. Crayle’s crew followed him. The combined teams lifted the tail of Barry’s plane and walked it around. Now the bomber was fac...