unnecessary hour we spend in enemy waters increases it. I think it’s
worth the risk to keep moving—especially in perfect sailing weather
like this.”
His companions agreed. There was risk, whichever way they turned, and
to know that every hour cut their distance from the continent by eight
or nine more miles was a great boost to their morale.
At noon the wind had slackened. The catamaran was making barely five
knots, Curly judged. The sky was like a vast, blue furnace, without a
speck of cloud. Had it not been for the straw mats, the white members
of the company would have been painfully sunburned. The four natives
were elected to keep watch for planes, as their eyes and their skins
were better able to stand intense sunlight.
The watchers may not have been to blame for failing to see the Jap
seaplane in time. He had probably come gliding out of the sun,
invisible and silent. The roar of his motor and the snarling of his
machine guns, as he suddenly power-dived, were the Americans’ first
warning.
Thirty-caliber bullets peppered the catamaran. A few pierced the
camouflage matting. Three or four, by some freak, chewed the mast half
through at a point four feet above the decking. One struck the leg of
Nanu, the steersman. The rest of the little slugs struck the log hulls
or missed entirely.
Glenn Crayle, who had remained until now in a shell-shocked stupor,
came to life with a howl. A bullet had grazed his shin. He moaned for
help, but nobody paid any attention. Barry Blake’s quick, sharp orders
averted the panic that otherwise might have cost them all their lives.
“Lie low, everybody. Whatever happens, don’t disturb the mats. Mickey
Rourke, crawl outside with your tommy-gun and pretend to be wounded.
Send the native women in under cover. That Jap will be back in two
shakes to look us over. If he flies low enough to make sure of your
hitting him, let him have it.... Otherwise hold your fire.”
Claire Barrows began weeping hysterically.
“We’ll all be k-killed,” she sobbed. “Like rats in a c-cage. I’m
g-going to jump overboard and—”
SMACK!
Dora Wilcox slapped her friend hard across the mouth.
“Stop it, Claire, this instant!” she commanded. “A fine example you’re
setting Alua and Lehu. For shame!”
As Claire’s sobs quieted, Mickey’s voice reached the others from
outside the shelter of mats.
“The Jap is comin’ in low to see what he did to us,” the little
sergeant reported. “I’ll play dead till the last second, and then pour
it into him. He’s a _Nakajima_ single-engine job, equipped with floats.”
The hum of the Jap’s motor grew louder. Once more his machine guns
opened up, but this time his burst was high enough to miss the
catamaran’s crew. It finished the mast which fell across the matting,
scaring the women but doing no damage.
As the plane roared low overhead, Mickey Rourke’s gun opened up. Its
harsh, deadly chatter held the hopes of fourteen souls. It ceased, and
the Jap’s engine song rose sharply.
“I hit him!” came Mickey’s whoop. “He’s zoomin’.... He’s goin’ into a
stall.... His engine’s smokin’ and he’s goin’ to crash!”
Without waiting for more, the catamaran’s company threw aside the
concealing mats. They were just in time to see the _Nakajima_ end her
tail-spin in a great splash and a burst of flame, less than two hundred
yards away.
The fight was over. Except for a patch of burning oil on the water, and
the three wounded persons on the sailing craft, it would have been hard
to realize that the thing had not been a nightmare.
“’Twas just as I saw it in me dream,” Mickey Rourke was saying. “The
only part I didn’t see was Nanu and Miss Wilcox bein’ wounded—”
“What’s that?” Barry cut in. “You wounded, Dora? Let me see what’s
under that cloth!”
The girl shook her head. Her face was pale, but the hand with which she
pressed a folded towel to her left arm was perfectly steady.
“See to Nanu first,” she replied. “Hurry—or I’ll do it myself. He’s
lost too much blood already. You’ll find clean cloths here in my little
chest.”
Barry flung open the cover of the teakwood box she indicated. Inside,
packed neatly with a few feminine belongings, were a number of old,
clean cloths. Barry snatched out a threadbare pillowcase and a man’s
ragged white shirtsleeve. With these, he made his way to Nanu who sat
in the stern with his hands clasped around his thigh.
The native boy’s wound was a clean puncture. The small-caliber,
steel-jacketed bullet had passed through his thigh muscles just above
the knee. Fortunately it had missed the larger artery and the blood had
already begun to clot. Barry applied a cloth pad to each bullet hole,
binding them tightly in place with strips of the old pillowcase.
Throughout the operation, Nanu lay quiet. When Barry slapped him on the
shoulder and told him, “Everything’s okay!” the boy’s eyes had lost all
trace of fright.
Meanwhile, Claire and Hap were dressing Dora’s hurt. A bullet had
gouged her forearm, making a painful but not a crippling wound. Claire
showed considerable skill in the bandaging. She had brought her nerves
fully under control, and was giving sharp orders to Hap.
Barry glanced at the splintered mast and fallen sail. Before much
progress could be made, it was evident that the catamaran would have to
land for repairs. At present it looked so thoroughly wrecked that the
most suspicious Jap patrol pilot would hardly waste bullets on it.
The same thoughts were evidently in Curly Levitt’s mind. Standing up
beside his skipper, he pointed to a fairly large island, seven or eight
miles to leeward.
“We can go ashore there tonight, Barry,” he said. “With the sail
hanging on the stump of the mast as it is now, we’ll drift toward that
island at the rate of about one knot per hour. Everybody can keep out
of sight under the mats and wreckage. We’ll tie the steering oar in
place and let the wind do the rest....”
“No!” Glenn Crayle’s shout interrupted him. “You’re foolish to go any
nearer to land. The Japs will bomb us. They’ll shoot us down like dogs.
You’ve got paddles, haven’t you? Start using them, then, if you’re not
too lazy! I forbid you to head for shore, Blake!”
“He’s crazy as a loon,” Curly muttered. “How are we going to shut him
up, Barry?”
The young skipper made his way forward to where Crayle sat binding a
handkerchief around his grazed shin. He took a firm grip on the
shell-shocked pilot’s shoulder.
“Look there, Crayle,” he said, pointing to a black triangular fin that
showed above the oncoming wave. “That shark is hungry. He smells blood.
He’ll probably trail this boat till it lands—unless one of us falls
overboard. Be quiet and behave yourself, or _you’ll be that one_!”
Crayle’s mouth fell open. In sudden terror he gazed at the approaching
shark.
“No! No!” he moaned, clutching Barry’s arm.
The young skipper freed himself with a grimace of disgust.
“Everybody under the mats!” he ordered. “There’s no telling when the
next Jap plane will show up. Once we’re out of sight we can relax and
eat a bit of lunch, if the ladies care to break into their supplies
now.”
Cocoanuts, bananas, smoked chicken and taro bread had been stored in
the catamaran’s hollow hulls—enough to last the entire company for a
week. Since it was the first meal the bomber’s crew had tasted for a
whole day, they were given extra rations.
Crayle wolfed down his share and reached for more. A sharp word from
Barry stopped him, but the young skipper caught a look of animal
cunning that replaced the greed in the other’s eyes. From now on, Barry
decided, the shock-crazed lieutenant would need to be watched like a
wild beast. There was no predicting what mad impulse might seize his
twisted brain.
They were finishing their meal when another Jap plane roared overhead.
This was a twin-engined _Mitsubishi_ bomber, a land-based type, that
appeared to have taken off from the island to leeward. It swooped low
to investigate the drifting catamaran.
For a tense thirty seconds Barry’s party waited, and wondered if more
bullets would come slashing through their thin fiber mats. Then the
engines’ snarl faded to a distant droning. Their camouflage had worked!
Not so pleasant was the thought that they would have to land on a beach
patrolled by the enemy. If this island were the site of a Jap air base
it would be well guarded. Even the darkness might not be camouflage
enough to fool the Nip patrols.
As the afternoon waned, the island’s shore line grew more and more
distinct. A second bomber rose from behind the wall of dark green
jungle, and three more returned from some patrol or bombing mission.
There could be no doubt of the existence of an air base somewhere
inland from the beach.
The one encouraging fact was that none of the planes paid any
particular attention to the drifting catamaran. Undoubtedly they had
all looked it over. If the wreck looked so harmless to the Jap pilots,
shore patrols were not likely to bother their heads about it. The real
danger would come after Barry’s crew went ashore to cut a new mast.
The sun was low in the west when two squadrons of heavy bombers
approached at 20,000 feet. Even before the Jap ack-ack on the island
cut loose, Barry’s party recognized them—_American Flying Fortresses
and Liberators_!
Peering up through the cracks in the camouflage, everyone aboard the
catamaran raised a wild cheer. For a moment, Barry had all he could do
to keep his crew from tossing the fiber mats aside and standing up to
wave. His orders were drowned out by the thunder of exploding bombs.
[Illustration: _Peering Through the Camouflage They All Cheered_]
The noise, even at a distance of three miles, was ear-shattering. The
very ocean shuddered. More than eighty tons of block-busters, Barry
later calculated, must have been dropped within the space of a few
minutes on the Jap air base.
When the two squadrons re-formed and wheeled majestically away into the
evening sky, not a single shellburst followed them. The Jap
antiaircraft was wiped out. Instead of ack-ack a vast pillar of smoke
and flame mushroomed up from the smitten jungle.
For some moments afterward no word was spoken aboard the drifting boat.
That swift, devastating raid had left the watchers awed, and a little
dazed. Chick Enders was the first to break silence.
“So,” he exclaimed hoarsely, “that’s the way a real air-blitz sounds
and looks from below! The next time I’m laying big eggs on Hirohito’s
little boys, I’ll know better what I’m dishing out to them!”
Most of the crew wanted to paddle ashore immediately, but Barry
restrained them. Unless the Jap beach patrols had received orders to
leave their posts, they would still be there. No single bombing raid,
however terrible, could demoralize those tough, stupid little beasts.
Their meager mental life was shaped and ruled by discipline. Only their
higher officers were trained to think their way out of a difficulty.
The night came swiftly, with no clouds to reflect the sun’s afterglow.
This night there would be a brief interval between sunset and
moonrise—just enough to let the catamaran paddle ashore unseen. The
strong arms of Barry and his teammates made the most of it. Just as the
moon’s silver rim peeped over the eastern horizon, they grounded their
craft at the jungle’s edge, in the shelter of a little sandspit.
Since the tide was high, and already beginning to ebb, there was no
need to tie the catamaran. Pulling it just out of reach of the waves,
the whole party left it, and followed Barry into the bush.
“Dora,” the young skipper said, low-voiced, “you and your people will
stay here, within sight of Nanu and the catamaran. You can stretch your
legs, but don’t move about too much or make a noise. I’ll leave Mickey
Rourke on guard with his tommy-gun. He’ll watch for Japs and keep an
eye on Crayle. The rest of the boys will go with me to look for a mast.
If we should run into trouble we have our pistols.”
“I’d rather we all went with you, Barry,” the girl responded. “We could
carry Nanu into the bush where he wouldn’t be found. Where there’s
danger, we shouldn’t be separated.”
“If we were all fighting men, I’d agree with you, Dora,” he said. “As
it is, you have no right to risk the lives of your people in order to
stand by me and my crew. If a Jap patrol spots the catamaran while
we’re gone, your job, and Mickey Rourke’s, is to fight clear of the
beach and push out to sea. Never mind the rest of us. Naturally I hope
neither you nor we are going to be discovered; but if we should
be—well, so long and take care of yourself!”
He turned away quickly, beckoning his team after him, and headed up the
beach. By keeping to the shadows at the jungle’s edge, they remained
under cover and at the same time had light enough to see where they
were going. Each man scanned the jungle growth nearest him for any
slim, straight young tree that might serve to support the catamaran’s
sail. Bamboo, of course, would be the best, but that could only be
found in the interior.
They had gone no more than five hundred yards when Barry halted, with a
sharp hiss of warning.
“I heard voices,” he whispered, “ahead of us and to the left.... There!
Did you hear that, Chick?”
“Jap talk!” muttered the little bombardier. “Look! Isn’t that the mouth
of a creek just beyond us? I think that’s where they are.”
“You’re right, old Eagle-eye!” the skipper exclaimed. “Follow me, and
don’t make a sound. I want to see what’s going on.”
The voices grew louder as they advanced. The Japs, it appeared, were
some little distance up the creek. From the sounds, Barry judged that
they were loading something into a boat. He found a little trail
bordering the creek bank, and followed it.
Where the trail bent sharply to the left, he saw the flicker of
flashlights. Less than a hundred feet away, two Jap motor launches were
drawn up to the bank. Both were partly filled with soldiers. One of
them was still half covered with the camouflage net that had concealed
it during the day. Into the other launch someone, probably an officer,
was being loaded on a stretcher. The Japs, Barry knew, lost interest in
an ordinary soldier the moment he fell sick or wounded, and abandoned
him promptly.
This looked like a general exodus from the island. If that were the
case it could mean only one thing: The bombing raid had smashed every
installation of value at the air base, including the radio. It must
have killed most of the personnel, too. These thirty or forty men could
be only a small part of the air field’s ground forces.
As the last soldier jumped in, the motors of both launches sputtered
into life. In wondering silence the American fliers watched their
enemies disappear around the bend, heading out to sea.
“Do you really think that’s the last of ’em?” Hap Newton asked. “It
doesn’t seem possible that we’re the only ones alive on the island. And
yet, why would _two_ boatloads of Japs clear out if they just wanted to
send for help?”
“There’s just one way to make sure what has happened,” Barry Blake
responded. “We’ll follow this trail to the airfield and see for
ourselves. If the Japs have abandoned the island it won’t be for long,
but I should enjoy a chance to look the place over.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PATCHED WINGS IN THE DAWN
The trail was easy to follow in the moonlight. It followed the creek
for about a mile, and ended at the edge of a huge open space. This had
been, a few hours before, the Jap airfield. Now, in the dim light, the
place looked more like the cratered landscape of the moon than anything
on earth.
“There,” said Soapy Babbitt, pointing to a heap of coral blocks and
rubble, “must be what’s left of the operations building. Probably the
radio was there, too.”
“What happened to the planes?” queried Chick Enders. “There must have
been a lot of ’em caught on the ground, but I can’t see more than two
or three wrecks from here.”
“I guess our bombs pulverized them,” Fred Marmon said. “Boy! That blitz
certainly was thorough. It’s hard to see how any Japs lived through it.”
“Some of the barrack buildings around the edge of the field escaped the
worst of the bombing, no doubt,” Barry Blake observed. “We’ll circle
the place now and see if anything is left. Keep your pistols ready,
fellows. If there should be any wounded Japs left, they’ll open fire on
us.”
Blasted, leafless trees that rimmed the field bore ghastly witness to
the size of the bombs. Moonlight made the scene of destruction more
horrible, with shadows that both concealed and exaggerated. Several
times the searchers stumbled on fragments of bomb-torn corpses.
One end of the field showed fewer bomb craters. It was here that a
number of _Mitsubishi_ bombers had been lined up when the blitz opened.
Either they had been left there for servicing, or the Japs had felt so
secure that they didn’t bother to scatter their planes around the field
at dispersal points.
At first glance most of the bombers seemed to be intact. If that were
the case, a guard might have been left with them. So as not to walk
into a trap, Barry led his men into the jungle and approached the
line-up from the rear.
Two hundred feet back in the bush he came upon a frame building that
sagged drunkenly as if a giant hand had given it a push. The tin roof
had been blown off, and now lay upside down on a group of flattened
tents. The building had evidently quartered Jap officers, while the
tents served as shelters for the enlisted personnel. There was no sign
of life in any of them—only half a dozen Japs killed by shrapnel.
The planes, too, were unguarded. On closer inspection they proved to be
hopeless wrecks. Fragmentation bombs had riddled the bombers with
shrapnel holes, torn off wings, ripped the thin-skinned fuselages.
Strangely enough, only two ships at one end of the line had burned.
“No wonder the Nip survivors cleared out!” Curly Levitt remarked.
“There aren’t enough usable parts in the whole line-up to build half a
plane, so far as I can see. Let’s cut a mast for the catamaran, and get
back to the beach, skipper.”
Barry Blake did not move. Deep in thought, he stood staring at the
nearest bomber, which leaned crazily on one wheel and one wing tip.
The plane’s left aileron dangled loosely. Its tail fin was smashed, and
one of the elevators was gone completely. Great holes showed in the
fuselage. The greenhouse was broken in. Yet something about the wreck
appeared to fascinate the young pilot.
“Curly,” he said soberly, “you’ve given me an idea. We _can_ build a
plane with these parts, if the Japs will give us time. A few shell
holes are nothing if the crate will fly. You fellows beat it back to
the beach and bring the others here. We’ll rig up sleeping quarters for
tonight and begin work at crack of dawn.... Fred, you stay here with
me. We’ll start looking these planes over now, by moonlight. It will
save time.”
If the others had doubts that Barry’s scheme would work, they failed to
mention them. The idea of flying home appealed so powerfully to their
minds that they would have backed a one-in-twenty chance of success.
They headed for the creek trail in high spirits.
When they returned, an hour later, Barry had good news to tell the
whole company. He and Fred had found two _Mitsubishi_ bombers with
engines apparently unhurt and wings not too badly damaged, though the
tail assemblies, fuselages and undercarriages were in sad shape. A
greater surprise was a two-place _Kawasaki_ fighter. Its greenhouse and
rear fuselage were full of holes, but its working parts were undamaged.
“Hap, you can take off first in that _Kawasaki_ with the two ladies,”
Barry told his co-pilot. “The rest of us can rebuild one of the bombers
and follow you in a day or two. Finding that fighter plane is a better
break than anything we’ve had yet.”
“Humph!” snorted the bigger man. “It might be—if you could find
somebody else to fly it. But even then I have a hunch the girls would
make trouble. Claire wouldn’t leave without her father, and Dora
wouldn’t leave without Claire. Of course neither Chick nor Curly nor I
would leave without you, and nobody else except Crayle knows enough to
handle a plane; and so—”
“Oh, drive it in the hangar, will you, Hap!” Barry said with a wry
grin. “I know when I’m licked. We’ll all have to wait till one of the
_Mitsus_ is fixed, I suppose—and just hope that the Japs won’t be back
before we get off. Come on—let’s see what sort of chow and sleeping
equipment the Japs have left us.”
In the Jap officers’ wrecked quarters they discovered a flashlight, and
with its help located other things. There were enough iron cot beds and
fairly clean bedding to supply all the white members of the party. Best
of all, there was plenty of mosquito netting.
The islanders found all they needed in the flattened tents. A quantity
of canned beef and vegetables was also located, but everyone was too
weary to think of preparing food. As soon as three of the tents could
be set up the whole crowd turned in to sleep.
The next four days and nights were one long, frantic battle against
time, heat, and mechanical difficulties that only desperate men could
have solved. The men snatched an hour or two of sleep when they could
no longer keep awake. Even Crayle worked at filling in shell holes to
make a runway—not willingly, but in fear of punishment.
The man’s reason was so warped that he regarded everyone with a sullen
hatred. If he could have laid hands on a gun, anything might have
happened. His companions realized this and took special precautions.
Nanu, the wounded native, was made custodian of the tommy-gun while
Mickey Rourke was working. His instructions were to shoot Crayle rather
than let him come near the weapon. The shell-shocked pilot was sane
enough to realize that Nanu would obey orders to the letter. He made no
open break, but his eyes never lost their cunning look.
The repairs to the least-damaged _Mitsubishi_ were completed by Fred,
Soapy, and the two Fortress pilots within three days. As the work
neared completion, the four men erected a camouflage of wreckage above
their plane, supporting the junk on a framework of poles. To a Jap
pilot flying overhead the restored _Mitsu_ would be visible only as
another hopeless ruin.
At last the repair job was finished—even the radio which they dared
not test. The weary mechanics filled the big bomber’s gas tanks with
fuel from other wrecks. They tested her engines and that of the
_Kawasaki_ fighter.
It was planned that Hap Newton should fly alone in the latter. Reaching
Darwin a little ahead of the _Mitsubishi_, he would take the risky job
of identifying himself. Once landed, he would prepare the airport’s
defenders for his friends’ arrival in a Jap bombing plane.
One more day was needed to smooth a runway long enough for the bomber’s
take-off. The thirteen able-bodied members of the party worked
feverishly, with shovels improvised from pieces of wreckage, to fill in
the last gaping bomb craters. The knowledge that at any time the Japs
might return in force was a spur to their bone-tired bodies. Only Glenn
Crayle stalled, when he thought he was not observed.
By mid-afternoon one unfilled crater stood between them and freedom,
and the workers, except Crayle, were all at the point of exhaustion.
“We’ll lay off for an hour, friends,” Barry Blake croaked, as he wiped
a dirty hand across his forehead. “Can’t afford to break down with
success almost in sight. A cool drink and a rest will help us to finish
the job by night....”
He broke off as a distant hum of engines grew on the air.
“Planes coming!” he yelled. “Take cover!”
Dropping their tools, the little crowd staggered into the sheltering
bush. As they flung themselves down, a squadron of _Mitsubishis_ sailed
into view. At twenty-thousand feet, they looked like small silver
flying fish.
Probably, Barry thought, they were scanning the island for signs of
enemy activity. He wondered if they would notice the smooth strip at
the edge of the bomb-pocked field.
He was not left long in doubt. Three of the bombers peeled off and
circled down in wide, slow spirals. They were wary, those Jap pilots,
of another Guadalcanal-style occupation. The newly smoothed runway
strip must have looked to them exceedingly suspicious.
A shout from Nanu at the other end of the runway rang above the droning
of enemy engines. There was alarm in it, and pain. A cry from Dora
Wilcox echoed it.