feeling useless ever since that _Mitsubishi_ torched down.”
Despite their awkward burden, they broke into a run, conscious that any
second might bring the snarling of Zero engines overhead, and a hail of
tracer bullets. Barry, first into the belly hatch, turned to lift
Crayle’s shoulders through the low door. Mickey Rourke, the last man,
glanced up before ducking inside.
“Here they come, sir!” he cried, as he dived through the opening. “Five
Zeros, flying low from Tanimbar.”
The bomber’s engine pulled her down the runway like a scared shadow.
Her guns were spitting before she was in the air. One Jap exploded
above her, and the others scattered briefly. As the B-26 climbed, they
came in from all angles, stabbing at her with their tracers.
Again and again Barry’s plane was needled by bullets. Twice she
received shell hits as she roared up toward the sheltering cloud
ceiling. A second Zero fell away with his engine smoking. Then a shell
hit Mickey Rourke’s tail gun.
Barry heard the little Irishman’s yell over the intercom, and guessed
its meaning. He zoomed sharply—the last thing that the pursuing Jap
expected. Fred Marmon’s gun blasted the Nip plane an instant before the
B-26 plunged into the clouds.
“We’ll just stay here for a while,” Barry declared. “The Jap bullets
missed my instrument panel. We can fly in any direction we choose as
long as our gas lasts. What’s your suggestion, Curly?”
“Wait till I glance at my chart,” replied the navigator. “There’s a
mass of little islands at the southwest of us—part of the Babar group.
We might set down there unobserved, especially if the ceiling is low.
Of course, we’ll take big chances on finding a place to land.”
A moment later he gave the compass course. Barry, who was flying due
southwest, made the necessary correction.
“How far is the island we’re aiming at?” he asked.
“About a hundred miles,” Curly told him. “It’s not one island, but a
nest of little ones. The Japs are less likely to have them guarded.”
“Good reasoning,” Barry commented. “I’m flying at a steady two hundred
m.p.h. Figure out just when we’ll be six or eight miles from the
nearest island, and let me know. I’m setting down on the water. If this
crate fills and sinks too quickly, we’ll drown with her, but it’s worth
the risk. We’ll probably be able to reach our rubber boats. In that
case we can keep out of sight of Jap shore patrols until dark, and then
paddle to land.”
“Skipper,” said Hap Newton solemnly, “I wish I had half of your brains.
In your place, I’d probably have tried to land. Of course, the Japs
would spot the plane sooner or later, and the hunt would be on. This
way we’ll have a swell chance of foxing them.”
“We’ll still be three hundred miles from Port Darwin,” Chick Enders
spoke up. “Maybe we can swipe a Jap motor launch some night—”
“Don’t be so modest,” Hap broke in. “Why not a plane while we’re about
it? I’d rather take a chance of getting shot down by our own fighters
than be potted like a sitting duck on the water by Jap Zeros.”
“Hold it down, fellows!” Barry Blake ordered brusquely. “We’re hitting
the pond in a very few minutes. Get out of your parachute harness, and
grab a brace. Fred, you and Soapy Babbitt loosen the topside hatch so
it won’t jam when we come down. Mickey Rourke will come forward so he
won’t be trapped in the tail if things go wrong. Hap, stand by those
levers that spring the rubber rafts. Curly, the minute you give the
signal, we’ll cut the engines and nose down.”
There were no more wisecracks. Barry’s crew obeyed orders without
wasting a motion, and waited quietly for the next development. Only Hap
Newton spoke during those last minutes of flight.
“I’ll take care of Crayle, Skipper,” he said. “He’ll be easy to handle,
dazed as he is. I’ll inflate his lifejacket and boost him through the
hatch.”
“Ready, Skipper,” Curly’s warning came a few moments later. “Time to go
downstairs.”
Hap Newton cut the throttles. As the engines’ roar died out the plane’s
nose dipped seaward. When they broke through the low ceiling the water
rolled barely a thousand feet beneath.
The ocean, Barry noted with thankfulness, was calm, except for a long,
smooth ground swell. He must time his landing so as to set his ship
down in the middle of a watery valley. Thus he could kill her forward
motion against the waning slope of the swell ahead, and the shell-torn
bomber might float for a good many seconds. If he should miscalculate
and strike a crest, his plane would dive like a fish.
One glance only he spared for the island that lay nearest, a full six
miles away. It was tiny—little larger than a city park. The Japs might
have posted a guard or two on it, but at this distance they could
easily fail to notice a bomber landing on the water with a dead stick.
The long, oily swells now swept along barely a hundred feet below him.
Barry picked the valley where he must try to set down.
“This is it, fellows!” he warned.
Every man in the plane except Crayle held his breath. The next seconds
seemed age-long. Then came the shock.
Fixtures flew from the bulkhead above the radio panel. Green water
poured in through the shell holes in the bomb bay. It roused the
half-stunned men to desperate action.
Hap Newton had already sprung the rubber life rafts. These were now
floating on either side of the plane, attached to it by light lines.
Soapy Babbitt and Fred Marmon were first through the topside hatch, by
Barry’s orders. Next came Mickey Rourke, the little tail gunner. Before
climbing out, Mickey tossed a queer-looking bundle to the men outside.
It was a long, oilskin covered parcel wrapped in a Mae West lifejacket.
“Don’t let it get away from yez,” he grunted, as he pulled himself up.
“That bundle may be worth the lives of all of us before we’re through.”
Chick Enders was the fourth man out, Curly Levitt the fifth. They
crouched on the slippery, rolling fuselage, and reached down to take
Crayle’s limp weight from Hap Newton and Barry.
“Hurry, you two!” Chick shouted. “This crate’s sinking fast.”
Salt water was already three feet deep in the cockpit, as Barry turned
sharply on his co-pilot.
“Up with you, Mister!” he snapped. “I’m last!”
For the first and only time, Hap Newton was guilty of an act of mutiny.
He seized Barry in a gorilla-like grip and literally hurled him through
the opening overhead.
“You’re worth three of me, Skipper,” he panted, “in everything but
pounds!”
On top of the waterlogged plane, Barry twisted himself around like a
cat, to face the hatch. Hap’s head and shoulders were over the edge as
the bomber’s nose dipped suddenly.
“Quick, you idiot!” the young skipper cried. “She’s going under! What’s
holding you, Hap!”
“My feet!” the co-pilot gasped. “They’re tangled in a parachute harness
or something. Don’t wait for me, Skipper!”
Barry grabbed the bigger man beneath the arms. His feet found a
purchase on the hatch combing. With every muscle of his body straining,
he added his strength to Hap Newton’s.
“Now,” the thought wrenched at his brain, “something’s _got_ to give
way!”
It did. Like a cork from a bottle Hap’s big body popped out of the
hatch. Both men went under water. Breathless, stroking for dear life,
they fought to reach the surface. The water seemed like a living enemy,
clutching them, pulling them down. Their lungs were on fire.
They broke surface together, gasping, not far from one of the rafts.
Fred Marmon’s whoop of joy blended with the splash of paddles.
“The plane—where’d it go?” Hap Newton gulped.
“To Davy Jones’s locker!” Fred answered as he reached past Crayle to
grasp the co-pilot’s hand. “We thought it had sucked you and the
Skipper down with it.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE CATAMARAN
Chick Enders and Curly Levitt pulled Barry onto their raft.
“Great guns, Skipper!” the little bombardier exclaimed. “I never was so
glad to see anything as I was to spot your headgear poking up out of
that swell!”
“Chick cut our line just in time,” Curly remarked, “or the ship’s
plunge would have spilled us into the pond, too. And, speaking of
water, I hope we find a spring on that island when we reach it tonight.
Nobody ever thought to bring along anything to drink, unless Mickey
Rourke has a canteen in that bundle of his.”
“I have not!” the little gunner retorted. “Many a flier has been set
adrift without water and lived to tell the tale. The small matter of a
drink did not worry me. But the night before we took off from the
flat-top I had a dream of floatin’ helpless on a rubber doughnut while
the bloody Japs strafed me from the air. So I brought along a
waterproofed tommy-gun, just in case me dream came true! Ye can laugh
at me if yez feel like it, gintlemen.”
“Who wants to laugh?” Curly Levitt cried. “After this I’ll trade all my
day dreams for one of your nightmares, Mickey.”
“We’re the nitwits not to think of something like that!” Barry Blake
confessed. “Did you by any chance remember to put some oil and cotton
waste in the same package? Our pistols could stand a cleaning now,
before the salt water makes them useless.”
Rourke pulled the little oilskin-wrapped container from his bundle and
handed it to Barry.
“Here it is, sir,” he said with a grin. “I’m sorry I’m not a real
sleight-of-hand artist, so I could produce a glass of ice water just as
easy.”
Barry’s left eyelid flickered in a mysterious wink. Pulling out his
water-soaked automatic, he handed it, butt first, to the little
sergeant.
“You clean my gun for me, Mickey, and I’ll produce your glass of
drinking water—though it may be minus the ice. I’m afraid neither a
silk hat nor a rabbit was included in this raft’s equipment, but we
have something just as good.”
While the others watched, open mouthed, Barry turned to a small,
waterproofed case attached to the side of the raft. Opening it he drew
out an object that looked like a small alcohol stove built on
futuristic lines.
“Here’s our water supply,” he said, holding it up. “You put seawater in
_there_ and a little can of fuel in _here_ and set the thing going with
a match. In an hour we’ll have a quart and a pint of pure, distilled
water. Hap Newton has a gadget just like this on his raft.... What do
you think of it, Hap?”
“It’s the only respectable still I ever saw,” the irrepressible
co-pilot answered. “How much ‘Adam’s Ale’ will it turn out before all
the fuel’s used up?”
“About fifteen pounds,” Barry stated. “One of the officers on the
carrier told me each plane’s rafts were equipped with it. I just forgot
to pass on the news. This still is a piece of regular Navy equipment,
and so is the fishing tackle that goes with it.... Look!”
Reaching into the case again he brought out a sealed, three-pound can.
Under the amazed eyes of his three companions, he opened it to show a
complete fishing outfit of hooks, lines and dried bait. There was even
a small steel spearhead for gaffing large fish.
“We’ll use this right away,” the young skipper declared. “Since we’re
so near to land we can afford to use some of our still’s fuel to broil
a tasty fish dinner. Here are three hook-and-line rigs, so it shouldn’t
take us long to catch a meal.”
The castaways discovered all at once that they were ravenously hungry.
With the tension of immediate danger gone, they went at the fishing
with the zest of youngsters. The fish were hungry, too. Within half an
hour fifteen pounds of finny food lay on the bottom of the two rafts.
The difficult job was preparing and cooking them. Barry solved the
problem by cutting the fish into fillets and broiling these on the
blade of one of the raft’s aluminum oars. Two cans of fuel were used
for that one meal.
“We couldn’t be so wasteful, out of sight of land,” Curly Levitt
observed. “We’d have to learn to eat our fish raw and like it.”
“Which might not be so hard, after all, sir,” Mickey Rourke responded.
“A sailor once told me he’d drifted for three weeks on a big raft with
six other lads, and eaten raw fish three times a day. They cut it thin
and dried it in the sun, like herring. The sea water had salted it
already. Me friend said it tasted fine.”
“Your sailor friend was spinning you a salty yarn, if you ask me,” said
Chick. “What did he do when the water rations gave out?”
“Sure, that was easy!” Mickey Rourke replied. “He drank fish with his
meals and was never thirsty except when it stormed for three days and
the fish wouldn’t bite—”
“Haw, haw, haw!” howled Hap Newton, whose raft had drifted closer. “You
bit, all right, Chick. You ought to know better than to match wits with
an Irishman. So they _drank_ more fish when they got thirsty, huh!
That’s the best joke I’ve heard since I was a dodo. How about it,
Barry?”
Barry Blake’s smile was not sympathetic.
“The joke’s on you, Hap!” he chuckled. “Mickey, hand me that fish we
didn’t cook, and I’ll show Lieutenant Newton just what sort of a sucker
he is to doubt your word.”
From the bottom of the bait can Barry took a folded square of muslin
and the sharp edged spearhead. After making criss-cross cuts through
each side of the five pound fish, he pulled the diced flesh from the
bones and placed them in the cloth.
“Now hold the can under this muslin while we wring out a fresh fish
cocktail, Mickey,” he directed.
From the cloth, strongly twisted by Barry and the little sergeant, a
stream of watery liquid dribbled into the bait can. When no more would
come, Barry threw out the squeezed fish meat and put in more diced
pieces. The final result was half a cupful of fish juice.
“It’s drinkable,” the young skipper declared after the first taste,
“just as that naval officer on the flat-top told me it would be.
There’s practically no salt taste, and it’s not as strong of fish as
you’d imagine. Who wants to hint that Sergeant Mickey Rourke is a liar,
now?”
Hap Newton shook his head solemnly.
“I take it all back, gentlemen,” he said. “I’ll never doubt your word
again, Mickey, unless I see you wink behind my back. But please don’t
ask me to guzzle your fish cocktail while I have a perfectly good still
to make my own moonshine water. Pass me a match, Fred, and let’s get
the thing started. I want to wet my whistle before Crayle, here, wakes
up and demands a fresh water bath.”
[Illustration: “_Now We’ll Wring out a Fresh Fish Cocktail._”]
While their water stills boiled, the two raft crews began paddling
toward the island. Their progress was less than a mile an hour, but
that did not bother them. With darkness still several hours away, they
dared not approach too near.
“The moon rises early tonight,” Curly Levitt informed his friends. “If
we’re within two miles of land then, we should be able to see the shore
line. The cloud ceiling isn’t so thick that it will shut out all the
light.”
As a matter of fact, the clouds thinned as evening approached. A stiff
breeze sprang up, drifting the rafts so rapidly toward land that the
paddles were no longer needed. As the last daylight faded a faint glow
above the eastern horizon told that the moon was up.
The rafts had been tied together all afternoon, to avoid drifting too
far apart. Now, with paddles plying steadily, they were making good
headway toward the dark line of jungle that marked the island. Barry
Blake, in the leading “doughnut,” strained his ears for any sound of
breakers that would indicate a dangerous landing place. There was
none—only the rhythmical roaring of the surf on the smooth beach, and
the slap-slap-slap of water against the rafts’ flat bottoms.
They were a hundred yards from the head of a little cove when the
clouds thinned enough to show the moon. For five short seconds the
light was fairly clear. A scudding cloud mass dimmed it, but not before
Barry had glimpsed a long, black shape moving out from shore.
“Stop paddling!” the young skipper whispered. “Pass the word to Hap’s
raft.... There’s a boat putting out from the beach—due to pass us
within a few yards. Have your guns ready if it spots us, and keep your
heads down.”
“Sure, I knew me little tommy-gun would come in handy, Lieutenant,”
Mickey Rourke muttered. “I’ll take the oilskin bag off and be ready
when yez say, ‘Open fire!’”
Tense moments passed. A patch of darkness blacker than the surrounding
water moved into Barry’s range of vision. Mickey had seen it, too. He
snuggled lower in the raft, the stock of his weapon tight against his
shoulder.
Abruptly a high-pitched, chattering voice broke out in the oncoming
boat. Barry felt Sergeant Rourke stiffen beside him, waiting the word
to fire. But that word was never given. A girl’s voice spoke from the
darkness in clear American.
“Quiet, Nanu!” it said. “That’s not a Jap boat, unless it’s upside
down. Paddle closer and we’ll look the thing over.”
Gusty sighs of relief went up from the bomber’s crew.
“A girl! From the States!” they chorused.
“So they want to look us over,” remarked Fred Marmon’s voice
sententiously. “Well, _I’m a monkey’s uncle_!”
Feminine laughter pealed in the darkness. There were two women in the
strange boat and at least one white man, to judge by the voices. Barry
thought, however, that he could distinguish other figures.
“We’re the crew of an American bomber, forced down by lack of fuel this
afternoon,” he explained. “We nearly turned a sub-machine gun on you
people a minute ago, thinking you were Japs. If we hadn’t heard one of
the ladies speak—”
“That was Dora Wilcox,” another girl broke in. “She and her father had
a mission station here; and I’d just come out to join my father at his
cocoanut plantation when the Japs came. We’ve been hiding from them
ever since. The little brutes caught and killed Reverend Wilcox only
last week. I’m Claire Barrows, and my father is here beside me.”
“We had a hard time persuading Miss Wilcox to come with us,” a man’s
voice added. “She wanted to stay with the native converts until they
themselves urged her to leave. The Japs are due to occupy this island
in force at any time.”
“Nanu and Kari Luva and their wives decided to escape with us in their
catamaran,” Dora Wilcox chimed in. “Why don’t you people join us? This
craft is really too heavy for three men and four women to paddle, and
we’re well stocked with water and food. I’m sure that Providence
brought us together—and kept you from shooting us in the dark.”
There was no resisting the girl’s logic. Barry Blake quickly introduced
his crew by name as they lifted Crayle into the native boat. He himself
came aboard last, carrying his precious still and fishing tackle. The
two rubber rafts were left to float ashore and mystify any Jap patrol
that might find them.
Dora Wilcox, he soon discovered, was the real leader of the refugees.
The four natives showed a childlike devotion to her. Even Clarke
Barrows, the middle-aged plantation owner, deferred to the girl’s
opinion. Barry Blake found himself consumed with curiosity to see the
face of this young person who planned like a general and thought of
everybody else before herself.
Dora Wilcox’s hope was to sail the entire three hundred miles to
Australia. She had brought palm fiber mats to cover the catamaran
during the day and make it appear abandoned. The mats would serve the
double purpose of camouflage and shade. At night the sail would be
raised. With a favorable wind, she told Barry, the double-dugout craft
could travel as much as eighty miles between dusk and dawn.
The young Fortress skipper glanced up at the scudding clouds. Weather,
he realized, would have a great deal to do with the success or failure
of their escape. Without a keel the catamaran would make a lot of
leeway. If the wind held from the northeast, it could easily blow them
ashore on a Jap occupied island. The wisest plan would be to get as far
to windward as they could before dawn.
“Let us take the paddles, Miss Wilcox,” he said. “My crew will relieve
your native boys until it’s time to hoist sail. Then perhaps we can
figure out a way to beat the leeward drift.”
“We’re at your orders from now on, Lieutenant,” the girl replied. “None
of us is a navigator. If an American bomber crew can’t take us through,
no human power could do it.”
The seven airmen fell to work with a will and a weight of muscle that
sent the thirty-foot boat lightly over the swells. At midnight, when
the sky cleared, they were well out of sight of land. Now for the first
time the bomber team had a chance to see their companions’ faces.
In the moonlight neither of the white girls looked more than eighteen
or twenty years old. Claire Barrows had her father’s wide mouth and
turned-up nose, and a smile that was decidedly attractive. Dora smiled
less often, and her features were more finely chiseled. She wore her
long hair in braids wound about her head. Her calm, efficient,
thoughtful personality could be read at a glance. Somehow she made
Barry’s pulse beat faster than any girl had done before.
The two native couples were quite young, in their ’teens or early
twenties. As they sat relaxed, balancing with the boat’s dip and sway,
their shapely black bodies would have thrilled any sculptor. Barry
could imagine what capture by the Japs would mean to these children of
nature—slavery, degradation, living death!
The thought made him fiercely determined to outwit the enemy, to bring
all these people through the gantlet of Jap boats, planes, and shore
patrols. Thirteen persons now depended largely on him as their skipper.
He must find some means of covering those three hundred miles to
Australia in a shorter time.
“I have it!” he exclaimed aloud. “We’ll use the paddles in place of a
centerboard. Is there any rope handy, Dora?”
“Plenty,” replied the girl. “But what do you mean by using paddles for
a centerboard, Lieutenant?”
“I’ll show you,” the young skipper smiled, looking straight into her
eyes. “But please leave off the handle and call me Barry, won’t you?”
“All right,” Dora Wilcox answered, with a twinkle in her eyes. “It’s
easier to say.... Oh, Nanu! Hand me that coil of rope you’re sitting
on.”
With the help of his crew, Barry tied four of the native paddles at
intervals between the catamaran’s twin floats. The broad wooden blades,
thrust deep in the water, acted like a keel. Now the wind pushing on
the sail would not drift the craft sidewise. Already equipped with a
steering oar, the awkward-looking boat was now as manageable as a
catboat.
As the single, lanteen-type sail went up, water boiled white under the
double bow. The catamaran was gathering speed.
“Splendid!” cried Claire Barrows. “All we need now is a chart and a
compass to set the course. Which way is Port Darwin, anyway, Lieutenant
Newton?”
“I’ll be just plain ‘Hap’ to you, if you want me to live up to my
nickname,” the big co-pilot retorted. “When it comes to finding
directions, Curly Levitt is the lad to consult. He carries a compass in
his head, I think!”
“I have one in my pocket, which is a lot better,” Curly spoke up. “And
I stuffed a chart of these islands under my shirt when the plane was
forced down. With that equipment I can keep track of our course by dead
reckoning. It will be pretty crude, without a log to check the knots
we’re making, but at least we won’t miss the broadside of Australia!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER TWENTY
FLOATING WRECKAGE
For the rest of the night, most of the catamaran’s company dozed or
slept. The craft was amazingly steady for its size. Although low to the
water, she was not particularly “wet.” The raised central platform on
which her crew sat or sprawled caught only a feather of spray from time
to time. The four natives slept as soundly as if they were on shore.
At dawn the breeze freshened. For three hours the catamaran skipped
southward over the long rollers, while everyone kept a sharp lookout
for planes. Fiber mats were lashed in place to afford the greatest
possible shade. Barry noticed with amazement how cleverly Dora Wilcox
had painted their top surfaces to look like wreckage to a passing
plane. Only the sail and the greenish wake behind could tell a Jap
pilot that there was life on the crazy-looking craft. At first sight of
a plane, Barry planned to drop the sail, and trust that the fading wake
would not be noticed.