In less than fifteen minutes it would be directly beneath, Jap flak
would be bursting; tracer shells and bullets would be criss-crossing
the air. Already the Jap defenses must be seething like hornet nests.
Their plane detectors had probably caught the first hum of Barry’s
engines—now multiplied by ten or twelve as the catapult launchings
proceeded.
“Pilot from tail gunner,” Mickey Rourke’s voice sounded on the
interphone. “I can see four of our planes jist comin’ out of the fog.”
“They’ll scatter when they reach the harbor,” Barry remarked. “That
will keep the Jap guns from concentrating on any group of them.”
“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,
Skipper?”
“I’m not going to wait for that,” Barry told him. “Do you see that fog
layer hanging close to the water? It reaches almost to the tip of
Nusanive Point. We’ll duck into it and fool any gunners that might spot
us too soon in clear air.”
A long, shallow dive took them into the fog layer two hundred feet
above the water. And there, for the next thirty miles, they stayed.
When at last the mist thinned to a few wispy streamers the swift little
B-26 fairly hugged the water. Her target, the Nusanive radio tower,
loomed just ahead.
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.”
“Can’t miss it, Skipper!” the little bombardier replied. “I’ll lay this
two-ton egg right on their breakfast table. Boy! Look at that gun crew
duck for cover.... _Bombs away!_”
Barry reefed back sharply, gaining altitude in the few precious seconds
before the delayed action blast arrived. Without it he might find
himself knocked out of the air by the concussion.
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, sir,” Mickey Rourke’s answer came back. “The last I saw of
the tower, it was headin’ for the moon, with a few bits of the station
roof taggin’ along behind. Your bomb must have landed in the cellar.”
“Keep your eyes peeled for Zero fighters when we start shooting up the
seaplane anchorage,” Barry warned him. “We’re moving too fast for them
now.”
“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, “is
going by too fast for me to see much of it. Oh-oh! That ack-ack battery
just ahead has spotted us—”
WHAMMM!
BRRRRRRRRRR!
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 little valley behind Hauisa Point, the B-26 fairly skimmed
the bushes. At the base of Mt. Horiel she turned north, dodged behind
Mt. Sirimau and cut across the broad base of Latimore Peninsula. Behind
her now lay the Amboina docks and naval station, the target of bombers
that were still on the way. To the left appeared the tiny villages of
Halong and Lateri, Barry’s landmarks.
He hopped over the little rise between them and found himself above his
next objective—between forty and fifty Jap seaplanes. Nearly half of
these were big three- and four-motored flying boats, _Kawanishis_ and
_Mitsubishis_. A few _Aichi_ T98’s and a number of single engined
_Nakajimas_ made up the rest.
“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 over a line of
little _Nakajimas_, climbed swiftly, and came back to strafe a string
of _Mitsubishi_ boats.
Suddenly a tracer shell streaked past the bomber’s nose.
“Look out!” yelped Mickey Rourke. “One of them bloody _Aichi_ float
planes has opened up on us....”
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 of here
while we’re still in one piece.... Anybody hurt back there?”
“I’ve got some shrapnel bites in my legs,” Fred Marmon replied. “How
about you, Soapy? That shell burst right behind us.”
“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 that neither of his two sergeants was seriously hurt, Barry
cut straight across the Hitu Peninsula, dodging between the hills. From
far behind came the muffled WHUMP, WHUMP, of block busters falling on
Amboina and the Lata airfield. There were no Zeros over the hills as
yet. Those which had managed to take off had more trouble than they
could handle in the harbor itself.
Suddenly a line of white surf stretched across the Marauder’s course.
Skimming low above the waves she headed for the low fog bank that lay
three miles out from shore. A single shore battery opened fire, but the
shells burst well behind her. Seconds later she was safe inside the
wall of vapor.
“How’s the gas, Barry?” Curly Levitt asked. “If we have to set down
before we reach Darwin, I want to have my island picked out. We might
not happen on a perfect beach like Tana Luva’s, but any land is better
than a rubber raft.”
“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 Marauder climbed easily now, with no bomb load and nearly empty
fuel tanks. At ten thousand feet she looked down on a world of rolling
clouds still dyed with sunrise colors. The air at that altitude was
clear and almost windless.
“Course is southwest by south,” Curly Levitt’s voice came over the
phone. “As long as we stay above the ceiling, I can make corrections by
shooting the sun.”
“Good!” Barry answered. “I’m cutting speed to one hundred fifty m.p.h.
We’ll try to hold her there for the rest of the trip. How are your
shell-torn heroes doing back there in the waist?”
“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 sloshed on me burns like fire. Just wait till I start
operating on your legs, wise guy!”
A chorus of chuckles bubbled over the intercommunication system.
Everyone began ribbing Soapy and Fred, until the two sergeants were
forced to join in the laughter at their expense.
As the merriment died down, Mickey Rourke reported another B-26 bomber
overtaking them. It was flying at top speed, heading for Barry’s plane
as straight as a bullet.
“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, sending a
slight shock through the whole plane. An instant later she was nosing
ahead, still perilously close to the belly of the slower flying craft.
“Look out, Barry!” Chick Enders yelled. “The crazy galoot is going to
zoom right under our nose ... and I’m a dodo if it isn’t _Glenn
Crayle_!”
Barry gritted his teeth as Crayle’s fuselage rose up just ahead of his
greenhouse.
“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. Crayle’s tail
assembly was pulling clear—and Chick had just caught a glimpse of the
rear gunner’s scared face.
“Slap on the coal, Hap!” Barry cried, as his plane’s nose tilted
sharply upward. “We’re going into a spin.”
The twin engines bellowed. Hap “revved” them up to the limit, but the
spin continued. Instantly there flashed through Barry’s mind all his
instructor at Randolph had told him to do in such a situation. His
hands and feet now moved automatically, applying just the right control
at the right moment.
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, can you, Barry?” he
asked in a choked voice. “He’s stunting now—and waggling his wings at
us. If I took over nothing could keep me from giving him a dose of his
own medicine. I’d probably crash us both.”
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 crew, by using up his gas with
that monkey business. If they get home at all it will be on a raft.”
“Say!” exclaimed Hap, his face brightening. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Apparently Crayle, or someone aboard his plane, thought of it now for
the first time. The stunting ship straightened out abruptly and headed
for home. Her distance from Barry’s craft, however, remained unchanged.
“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’ signal.”
“You’re taking the controls but you’re keeping the interval exactly as
it is, fella,” Barry Blake declared. “Those are my orders. We’re
following Glenn Crayle as far as he goes; and when he sets down, on
land or water, we’ll at least be able to report his position.”
An unhappy silence fell upon the Marauder’s crew. They knew that their
skipper was wholly in the right and they loved him for it. But their
anger at Crayle was not easily bottled up. The appearance of a Flying
Fortress squadron high overhead furnished a welcome change of thought.
“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’Grady_ had been attending too many such parties. She’s all shot to
junk. I don’t imagine that squadron of forts will hang around after
they’ve reached their target area. They’ll drop their loads where
they’ll do the most good, and head for home.”
“Here comes a bunch of Liberators!” cried Hap Newton. “Oh, boy, are
those Japs due for a royal pasting! They’ll probably send in a few
squadrons of Australian Havocs and North American Mitchells with
regular bomb loads to mop up the shipping in the main harbor. That
place will be a shambles.”
Hap’s guess was correct. Half an hour later three large formations of
Australian attack bombers and B-25’s swept over, headed for the Jap
base. The soldiers of Hirohito were going to get their teeth knocked
loose before this day was over!
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,” he said, “or Crayle is away off course. He could be
heading for one of the Jap-held islands to make his forced landing. In
any case, I want to know exactly where we are.”
Curly Levitt stepped up to the top gun turret with his octant and took
his shot. For a few minutes he figured rapidly.
“You’re right, Skipper,” he said in a shocked tone. “We’re heading
straight toward the Tanimbar group of islands. If it weren’t for the
cloud rug below us we could probably see them from here. There’s a
good-sized Jap base on the biggest island, and probably a holding force
of soldiers on most of the little ones. Any Allied plane that lands in
this area is sure to be bombed or captured....”
“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 thousand, four
thousand, three thousand....
At two thousand feet they broke through the ceiling into a thin drizzle
of rain. Visibility was fair. Crayle’s ship was about the same distance
ahead as before, flying low toward a small land mass three miles away.
Beyond the small island loomed the dim bulk of Tanimbar.
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, Barry watched the other plane land. The
tricycle gear touched the hard packed sand lightly and rolled to a
smooth stop.
“Neat work!” Barry applauded. “I hope I do as well. Of course a nearly
empty B-26 wouldn’t plow up wet beach sand like a fortress....”
“Hey! What’s the idea, Skipper?” Hap blurted in alarm. “You’re not
going to maroon us too on that beach? Isn’t losing one perfectly good
plane enough to suit you?”
“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!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ADRIFT
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 around!” he cried, unfastening his safety
belt. “Maybe we won’t have to take off in a hurry, but we’re going to
be prepared.”
Glenn Crayle and his six team mates were standing rather gloomily
beside their ship. Evidently they had been laying full blame for their
predicament on the pilot. Crayle’s sulky, handsome face was flushed
with anger as he glared at the newly arrived crew.
“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 you fellows wanted a ride home,” he said. “Of
course, if you had any gas left it would help, but I think we still
have enough left to take both crews back to base. What do you say?”
The other’s worried frown vanished.
“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 ago, I can’t understand.”
“Forget it!” smiled Barry Blake. “Help us turn our plane around, and
pile in. We don’t want to hang around here till some Jap patrol plane
finds us.... Coming, Crayle?”
“No!” blurted the other pilot furiously. “Tonight there’ll be a chance
to find a Jap boat or plane along shore and transfer its gas. If none
of my crew has the nerve to take that chance with me, I’ll do it alone.”
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 facing in the
direction from which she had come. As Barry Blake stooped to crawl
through the belly hatch, Crayle’s co-pilot, Ted Landis, halted him.
“Wait a minute, Skipper,” he said. “Crayle was lying when he told you
our tanks were dry. We have nowhere near enough gas to reach Port
Darwin, thanks to his stunting, but if we put it with yours, we’d all
be sure of getting home. Shall we get it now?”
Barry hesitated. What Ted Landis proposed was common sense. On the
other hand, Crayle would certainly prefer charges of mutiny, assault
and everything else he could contrive if they drained the tank of his
plane against his orders.
“All right, Landis,” the young Fortress skipper decided. “We’ll do
that. And we’ll take Crayle along whether he wants to come or not. We
can all testify that he is not behaving like a sane man. Drain off that
gas, Mister, and let’s get away from here the minute it’s transferred
to our tanks.”
The crew of the stranded bomber hurried back to it at Landis’ heels.
Ignoring Crayle, the co-pilot and his engineer dived into the open
hatch. The others stood beside it, blocking their furious skipper’s way.
“I’ll have you all court-martialed!” Crayle shouted, completely beside
himself. “Stand away from that hatch—”
[Illustration: “_Crayle Lied When He Said Our Tanks Were Dry!_”]
“Look out!” yelled a member of his crew. “Here come the Japs—they’re
on to us!”
The droning of airplane engines swelled to a snarling roar. Over the
treetops came a twin-engined _Mitsubishi_ bomber, but she was not
heading toward the two B-26’s. Evidently she had just taken off from
Tanimbar on patrol, with no idea that enemy planes were so near. Her
Jap crewmen were probably more surprised than the Americans. Swerving,
she opened fire with her bow and belly weapons as she started her climb.
“Man those guns!” yelped Crayle. “That Jap will be back for us. Inside
with you!”
Without a second’s hesitation the team obeyed. A moment before they had
defied his orders, but this was different. In a fight they’d stand by
their skipper, crazy or not.
Barry’s team was already inside. His Marauder’s engines bellowed. Like
a startled seagull she swept down the long, straight beach. As Barry
lifted her into the air he saw the Mitsubishi coming back.
“Good grief!” he gasped. “She’s going over Crayle’s plane at a thousand
feet.... She’s going to _bomb_ as well as strafe it!”
Climbing as he turned, he was still too far from the Jap for his
.50-calibers to take effect. In a matter of seconds the _Mitsubishi_
would drop her bomb at point blank range. The stranded Marauder’s crew
wouldn’t have a chance!
Evidently one member of Crayle’s team had realized this and decided to
save his own skin. He was running for dear life toward the jungle. As
tracer bullets began streaking past him he flung himself flat.
Leaning hard on the controls, Barry fairly whipped his plane around.
Already Chick Enders was firing his bow gun. The two weapons in the top
turret were raving.
“Riddle the Jap!” Barry shouted. “Don’t let him drop that egg—Oh-h-h!”
The slender, deadly shape of a falling bomb had caught his eye. To the
agonized nerves of the watchers its descent seemed as slow as a falling
leaf’s. Deliberately its pointed end dipped downward, aiming straight
at Crayle’s doomed plane.
Barry did not wait for the explosion. With his jaw set like a rock, he
headed his B-26 for the enemy. The bomb’s blast barely jolted the air
about him.
“Catch the Nip before he loses himself in the clouds!” Chick Enders
muttered, reaching for a new belt of ammunition. “He’s trying to run
from us, and that’s his only chance.”
“He won’t make it, Chick,” Barry replied through clenched teeth. “We’re
more than a hundred miles faster.... You boys in the turret—start
ripping that _Mitsu’s_ belly. _Now!_”
The turret guns chattered. A second later, Chick’s bow gun joined them.
The Marauder was overtaking her enemy as if he were anchored.
Smoke burst from the Jap’s fuselage. Flame licked at his left engine.
He staggered like a wing-shot goose under the slashing American fire.
His guns were still talking back, but their aim was nervous and poor.
All at once a great ball of flame appeared just behind the Jap’s wings,
and his nose dropped seaward. Swathed in fire, he plummeted into the
water.
Barry banked sharply, turning back toward the island. The bombed B-26
was blazing on the beach. At the jungle’s edge a lone figure lay
motionless.
“They’re all dead, Skipper,” Hap Newton muttered. “Let’s go home before
the Nips send out a flock of Zeros to shoot us up....”
“Wait!” Barry Blake exclaimed sharply. “That bird on the beach isn’t
dead yet. I saw him move.”
Barry swung away in a big circle and came in toward the end of the
beach. The others of his team realized what he intended; he was going
to land, regardless of risk, to save the neck of a coward who had
deserted his fighting crew-mates. At best it meant that they all would
fail to reach Port Darwin on the gas that would be left. At worst, the
Zeros from Tanimbar would catch and strafe them on the beach.
Yet not a man questioned their skipper’s decision. Each one was ready
to back up Barry’s judgment with his life. The crew of _Sweet Rosy
O’Grady_ would remain a smoothly functioning unit as long as it existed.
Barry’s second landing was as careful as his first. Rolling as near to
the burning bomber as he dared, he set the brakes, and followed Hap
Newton through the hatch. The man they had come to rescue was sitting
up about fifty yards away.
“It’s Crayle, the yellow pup!” Hap grated.
“It _would_ be!” Chick bitterly exclaimed. “I always knew a hot pilot
of his stripe would be a quitter when the real test came.”
Barry Blake said nothing as he helped his crew turn the plane around
for a quick take-off. He was wondering whether Crayle’s dazed manner
was real or faked. A trickle of blood from the pilot’s forehead
suggested a head wound. The man was mumbling unintelligibly when they
reached him.
Barry’s fingers quickly explored the gash in the injured man’s scalp.
Crayle winced but voiced no protest. The wound, Barry found, was no
more than a shallow cut. Nowhere else on Crayle’s clothing did he see
any sign of blood.
“Shell-shocked,” was the young skipper’s verdict. “His mind has
snapped, fellows. Maybe he’ll get over it shortly, but just now we’ll
have to treat him like a baby. Help me carry him back to the plane,
Hap.”