of the planes. Behind him he could hear his crew panting.
Their progress was maddeningly slow, yet they dared not leave the bush.
Once the enemy planes guessed their identity bullets would fly, and
bombs would fall.
“Crayle’s grabbed the tommy-gun, I’ll bet,” Chick Enders gasped as he
fought to keep up with Barry. “The idiot _would_ pick a time like this.
Oh-oh! There he is—in the—uh—_Kawasaki_!”
The bomber’s team halted as Crayle saw them and swung his sub-machine
gun to cover them.
“Stay back!” he warned hysterically. “You can’t keep me here on the
ground while they’re dropping bombs on us. I’ll kill you if you come
another step.... You, Nanu—walk that propeller around once again, or
I’ll kill you, too. _Turn it, you fool!_”
Nanu, sweating with the pain of his injured leg, grasped the
_Kawasaki’s_ propeller and leaned his weight on it. Off balance, he
slipped to his knees. The fall probably saved his life, for at that
moment the engine coughed into life.
Crayle did not wait for the engine to warm up.... Scarcely had Nanu
dragged himself out of the way of the wheels when they rolled forward.
The _Kawasaki_ rushed down the runway trailing a cloud of dust. Her
tail came up. Then, just as she reached the end of the strip something
went wrong.
Either the plane had not gathered sufficient speed, or Crayle failed to
ease back on the stick soon enough. Instead of rising, the wheels
struck the far edge of the unfilled bomb crater. The _Kawasaki_ went
end over end, with a rending crash.
Fire burst from the center section. The whole plane exploded in a giant
bloom of flame. Above it the Jap bombers zoomed, and spiralled upward
to join their formation. The Kawasaki’s futile attempt to take off had
at least convinced them that the field was not in enemy hands.
Barry turned around to find Dora and Claire Barrows bandaging Nanu’s
re-opened wound. They appeared far more concerned over the suffering
native boy than about Glenn Crayle’s flaming death.
“How soon do you think we can get Nanu to a hospital, Barry?” the girl
missionary queried anxiously. “This new loss of blood is likely to
bring on a fever, and we haven’t a thing to treat it with.”
The young skipper looked toward the _Kawasaki’s_ wreckage, blazing on
the other side of the last bomb crater.
“We’ll have that hole filled before midnight, Dora,” he said wearily.
“It will have to be Glenn Crayle’s grave. When the earth is smoothed
down and the burned plane is hauled aside, there should be enough
runway for the bomber. We’ll take off at dawn, and be over Port Darwin
in two hours—if we’re not intercepted.”
At breakfast time the next morning an excited radio officer telephoned
the O.C. at Port Darwin airfield.
“Message just received for you, sir,” he reported. “It purports to be
sent by Lieutenant Barry Blake of the United States Army Air Forces,
who’s been missing since the raid on Amboina. He says he is flying a
_Mitsubishi_ bomber with his B-26 crew and seven refugees aboard and
asks permission to come in.”
“Barry Blake!” exclaimed the Australian colonel. “I should know that
name. There’s a Yankee captain having breakfast with me, who’s been
talking of little else. He came here with a fantastic notion that Blake
would pop up sooner or later. We’ll jog down to the radio room and let
Captain Tex O’Grady identify your mysterious pilot.”
Not a trace of fog obscured the Australian coast as Barry Blake picked
out the rugged mass of Melville Island. The _Mitsu’s_ patched wings
glinted like silver in the early sunlight. Landing should be easy, but
before giving permission, the O.C. had insisted on identifying the
bomber’s crew by their voices. The Jap radio was tuned on the port’s
wave length.
Without warning Tex O’Grady’s voice rang in the crew’s earphones.
“Dawg-gone you, Barry,” it said. “Where did you Fortress men get the
idea that you could desert _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ and go gallivanting off
with a silly little B-26? No wonder you-all had to come home in a Jap
crate! What happened, anyway?”
“_Skipper!_” Barry shouted joyfully. “Where are you—at Port Darwin?
What brought you here—”
“It’s the Old Man himself!” gasped Curly Levitt.
“Captain!” yelped Fred Marmon. “How are you, sir? And what’s the good
news?”
“Reef back, boys!” Tex O’Grady’s humorous drawl answered them. “I’m not
answering questions until you come in and we have a chance to talk. But
the news is this: Your part in finding and helping to smash the big Jap
flotilla off New Guinea has won Barry a captain’s bars and the rest
some decorations. And here’s the best little item of all, I reckon....”
He paused briefly, as if trying to control a new huskiness in his
speech.
“You boys,” he continued, “have drawn a thirty-day furlough, and we’re
all going—going home to the States in _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_, as soon as
she’s patched up enough to make the trip. Here’s Colonel Raymond with a
word you’ve been waiting for.”
Barry’s head felt queerly light, and the mention of “home” had brought
a lump to his throat that would not go down. As if from a great
distance he heard a strange voice speaking.
“Permission to land is herewith granted,” the Australian O.C. said.
“And may all your future landings be as happy as this one, _Captain_
Barry Blake of the Flying Fortress!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHITMAN
AUTHORIZED EDITIONS
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BLONDIE and Dagwood’s Adventure in Magic
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JOHN PAYNE and the Menace at Hawk’s Nest
BETTY GRABLE and the House With the Iron Shutters
BOOTS (of “Boots and Her Buddies”) and the Mystery of the
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Transcriber’s note:
Some punctuation errors and minor spelling errors have been
corrected without mention.
A table of illustrations has been added immediately after
the table of contents.
page 11 - changed "goodnatured" to "good-natured" and page 22 - changed
"good natured" to "good-natured" - other books in this series use
"good-natured" consistently
page 35 - changed “one hundred and eight-five” to “one hundred and
eighty-five”
page 159 - changed “Fortresses were now on the seene” to “Fortresses
were now on the scene”
page 225 - changed “Dora Wilcox had pointed their top surfaces” to
“Dora Wilcox had painted their top surfaces”
page 232 - changed “island were the sight of” to “island were the site
of”