he smiled slowly.
"Even if I didn't know of some of the tough nuts you two have cracked in
the past," he said, "I think I would still be inclined to agree to your
plan. Very well, then. I'll arrange for you to fly to Pearl in plenty of
time to meet the carrier force when it arrives. And I'll make the other
arrangements you spoke of, too. Meantime I'll get out of here, and let
you rest up some more. You're a couple of very lucky men. You both had a
mighty close call. And in view of the fact that neither of you has eaten
since yesterday noon, I guess you could do with a little food as well as
rest."
A crack about how Freddy must certainly feel about that last rose to
Dawson's lips, but he suddenly realized that he was plenty hungry
himself, so he let the remark slide.
"Thank you, sir, for giving us the chance to help," he said instead.
"After all, we were both very dumb to let that Japrat put one over on
us."
"Quite!" Freddy Farmer said with a grim nod.
"No, I wouldn't say that," the vice-admiral corrected them. "The best of
us meet up with that sort of thing, sooner or later. It's not that we're
dumb as much as it is that the Japs are sure clever devils. We may call
them monkey men, but it's going to take a lot of brains, and a lot of
hard, tough fighting, before we sink their rising sun. Well, I must be
getting along. Naturally I'll see you both again before you leave. And
in case it should skip my mind, I'll say it now. Good luck, and good
hunting, to both of you!"
CHAPTER FIVE
_Westward Ho!_
"Pretty, pretty, hey, kid?" Dawson grunted, and made a sweeping gesture
with one hand.
"What is?" Freddy Farmer murmured absently. "Oh, you mean this
California scenery? Yes, it's very nice, but stop talking about it so
much, will you? You'll have me believing that you are a native of this
state."
"No, dope!" Dave snapped. "I don't mean the scenery, though it really is
something. I mean those Flying Fortresses and Liberators, lined up over
there. Remember? This is the Los Angeles Air Forces base. We flew up
here last night from Dago. We're ferrying one of those jobs out to
Pearl. Or don't you remember? Oh, I get it. You're in _that_ kind of a
daze, huh?"
"What do you mean, that kind of a daze?" young Farmer demanded. "I was
just wondering if ..."
"Sure!" Dawson broke in with a chuckle. "Just what I mean. You're
wondering if there's time to slip out to Hollywood so maybe you can get
Dorothy Lamour's autograph, and Hedy Lamarr's, and ..."
"Rot! That's kid stuff!" Freddy snorted as his cheeks went a beet red.
"Of course ... well, I mean, they are both very lovely ladies, and ..."
"Okay, we'll skip it!" Dave laughed as Freddy started to stammer in his
confusion. "We'll pretend you were wondering something else, which your
face says you weren't. What was it?"
"Definitely something else, and please go walk into one of those revving
propellers, will you!" Freddy said hotly. "Frankly, I was wondering why
the vice-admiral sent us up here to fly an Air Forces plane out instead
of sending us over by a Navy plane. A Catalina, or a Coronada, for
instance."
"I wondered about that myself, for a while," Dave replied, as the smile
faded from his lips. "But I think I figured it out."
"All right, master mind!" young Farmer said with a patient sigh when
Dawson didn't continue. "I'll be nice and polite, and ask. What did you
figure out?"
"That Jap, who hasn't been caught yet, and probably won't be," Dave
replied. "He knows very well he didn't kill us, so it's a cinch he
figured that we would tell what we knew, which we did. And it's just
possible that he was in a position to keep an eye on us. So if he saw us
take off in a Navy plane bound for Pearl he would know very well that we
heard about his Nazi boy friend heading that way on one of our carriers.
I mean, it stands to reason that he doesn't know how much we heard. If
he saw us head for Pearl he'd know for sure that we heard plenty, and
maybe there is some way he can contact that Nazi. Or even better,
contact that rat in Honolulu and have him clear out before the Nazi
shows up. In case he's spotted and trailed. See what I mean?"
"Well, you make it just about as clear as mud, but I think I follow
you," young Farmer said. "So to throw off the Jap, in case he was
watching us, the vice-admiral sent us up here, as though we had been
transferred to the Air Forces, eh?"
"Go to the head of the class," Dave said with a nod. "That's just how I
figure Vice-Admiral Carter reasoned. To ship us both north to an Air
Forces base may give that Jap, if he was watching us, the idea that we
hadn't learned a thing."
"Well, we're here, anyway," Freddy Farmer said with a shrug. "A thought
comes to me, though."
"Grab it and hang onto it hard, kid," Dawson laughed. "Those things are
rare as far as you're concerned, you know."
But Freddy didn't rise to that remark. He stared fixedly at the twenty
or more Flying Fortresses and Liberators lined up on the far side of the
huge Los Angeles field.
"I wonder if that Nazi fighter pilot _is_ aboard one of those carriers?"
he suddenly said in a low voice, as though asking himself the question.
Dawson gulped as he suddenly realized that possibility.
"Sweet tripe!" he gasped. "That _is_ a thought! Maybe, knowing that we
were listening, they decided to take the chance of his going aboard.
Maybe they ... But nuts! That's crazy!"
"How so?" Freddy questioned.
"Well, look at it," Dave argued, and gestured with one hand. "That Nazi
was all set as a fighter pilot aboard a Yank carrier. For him to jump
ship, and not sail, would make him a marked man for sure. You don't miss
your ship, and just walk into the Naval District commandant, and laugh
it off. You catch plenty. And in his case, if _he_ jumped ship _he_
certainly wouldn't report to the Naval commandant. He'd make tracks in
the opposite direction. And his place as a spy in our forces would be
gone forever. No, I think he took the chance and sailed with her."
"There's one way we could find out," Freddy said. "Let's phone
Vice-Admiral Carter. He can certainly find out in a minute if either of
the carriers sailed with a fighter pilot missing. Or if one took a
replacement aboard at the last minute."
"Hey, nix!" Dawson cried in alarm. "Call him and find out that a carrier
_did_ sail with one fighter pilot less? And that there was no sense for
us to fly to Pearl? And get recalled to Dago to go on instructing Navy
pilots? Are you nuts, Freddy? It may only be Pearl Harbor, but that's
twenty-four hundred miles nearer the war than we are right now! Do you
want to go back and...?"
"No, certainly not, Dave," young Farmer interrupted quietly. "But it
doesn't happen to be a matter of where we _want_ to go. It's what we can
_do_ to help. If that Nazi didn't sail, then perhaps the vice-admiral
would want us to stick around to maybe identify a suspect that was
picked up later. After all ..."
"Okay, okay, you win!" Dawson groaned. "We better put it up to the
vice-admiral, and find out what he has to say about it. We can phone
from the Administration Building over there. But if he didn't sail, and
we hoof it back to Dago, just don't bother speaking to me for the next
twenty years, will you?"
"And will you listen to the chap who just a couple of days ago was quite
content to wait patiently for his next good break in this war!" Freddy
Farmer jeered as he dropped into step.
"Yeah, but that was a couple of days ago!" Dave growled. "I'm just
hoping that the chance hasn't come _and_ gone on account of your bright
little suggestion."
"Well, I still think we should call him," Freddy said doggedly. "And so
do you, and you know it!"
"Oh, go walk a wing!" Dave mumbled. "Sure I do. And that's what burns me
up!"
Forty-five minutes later Dawson and Freddy Farmer were back on the
flying field, grinning from ear to ear, and walking over toward the
Operations Office.
"Boy! Do I feel like a new man!" Dave said, and let out a happy sigh. "I
sure was worried while that call was being put through. Not that I
don't like Dago, you understand. It's a swell town, but right now I
could do with some of the war."
"Me, too," Freddy said with a chuckle. "To tell the truth I was on pins
and needles, too. But everything is all right now. The carrier force
sailed with every fighter pilot aboard, so we're to carry on according
to plan."
"Check, and double check," Dave echoed, and started up the steps of the
Operations Office. "Pearl Harbor, here we come! I hope they give us a
good crate to fly. What do you want, Freddy, a Fortress or a Liberator?"
"Either one will suit me," the English-born air ace replied. "Both are
pukka airplanes. I ..."
Young Farmer stopped short as a field orderly came running up.
"Captains Dawson and Farmer?" he panted when he reached them.
"I'm Dawson," Dave said with a nod. "What's the matter, Sergeant?"
"The Naval Air Base at San Diego just called back," the non-com said.
"Vice Admiral Carter wants to speak with either one of you officers."
Dave scowled, and then looked wide-eyed at Freddy.
"What do you suppose now?" he murmured.
Young Farmer shrugged, but a worried look stole into his eyes.
"I haven't the faintest," he said. Then, looking at the non-com, he
asked, "Can we take that call in here, or do we have to go over to
Administration?"
"I can have it transferred over here, sir," the sergeant said, and
pushed open the door of the Operations Office. "Follow me, please."
A few minutes later Dave and Freddy were listening at a single receiver
to Vice-Admiral Carter's voice at the other end of the wire.
"I want you two to take off just as soon as you possibly can," the Naval
base commandant told them. "Don't delay a minute longer than you have
to. I've already spoken to the field commandant there, and he has
assured me that you don't have to wait and go with the group that's
flying over. So as soon as you hang up get busy, and get on your way.
You will be met by a responsible officer when you reach your
destination. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Dawson spoke for the two of them. And then after a split
second's hesitation, he added, "May I ask why, sir? I mean, has
something unexpected happened?"
"Not exactly," the voice at the other end of the wire said. "It's
simply that I don't want anything unexpected _to_ happen. The other one
we were hunting down here has turned up. At least it would seem that he
has. It was reported to me just ten minutes ago that one of our planes
was stolen shortly after you two took off last night."
"A plane swiped?" Dawson blurted out before he could check himself.
"What do you mean, sir? Who stole it?"
"Positive identification was not made," the vice-admiral replied. "But
the guard, who was wounded, gives a description that might be our man.
He was shot through the neck by a man in civilian clothes. The light was
bad, of course, and the guard didn't have the chance to get a good look
at his assailant, but he says he could be either Mexican, or Jap. And of
course he was Jap. _The_ Jap!"
"And you mean, sir, you think he's shadowed us up here?" Dawson asked.
"Quite probable," was the instant reply. "He could land his stolen plane
any number of places up there, and not be seen, and make his way to your
field on foot. Of course, it may not be that way at all, but we can't
take any chances that it isn't. So get going, you two. Get your plane
away from there at once, and good luck."
"Yes, sir, and thank you, sir," Dave murmured, and hung up the receiver.
He turned his head and looked at Freddy Farmer's wide eyes, and tried to
smile, but it wasn't very much of an effort.
"Well, what do you know?" he breathed. "If it is that rat, then he's a
pilot, and he's catching our smoke. Gives you a funny kind of feeling,
doesn't it?"
"Quite!" Freddy Farmer grunted, and ran a tongue across his lips. "Makes
a chap feel like the witness of a murder, and the murderer still at
large, and hunting you down so's you'll never be able to tell."
"Yeah, something like that," Dawson nodded with a shaky little laugh.
"But I wonder, though. I mean, we've been here quite a spell, and we
haven't bothered looking behind us. _If_ he's here, and has his gun,
he's certainly had a lot of chances to let us both have it in the back.
I wonder why not?"
"Well, stop wondering!" Freddy Farmer muttered, and got to his feet.
"Let's do as the vice-admiral orders, and get away from this place."
"But fast!" Dave echoed with a grim nod. "Suddenly I've had all I want
of California for a spell, anyway!"
CHAPTER SIX
_Invisible Killer_
With its four engines singing a song of power that would be sweet music
to the ears of any pilot the Flying Fortress thundered its way
southwestward through the night-darkened Pacific sky. The aircraft was
on the automatic pilot, and both Dawson and Freddy Farmer sat outwardly
relaxed at the controls, but inwardly on the alert for the slightest
miss in any of the engines, or for anything that would indicate that all
was not as it should be. The Los Angeles Air Forces base was six hours
behind them. Another six and they should be over Hickam Field, on Oahu
Island, waiting for the permission signal to land.
Suddenly, with a little chuckle, Dawson broke the silence that had
existed for some minutes between them. Freddy Farmer glanced across at
him with a questioning frown.
"What now, Dave?" he asked.
"Us," Dawson replied, and chuckled again. "I guess we're getting old,
Freddy. I mean, we seem to scare pretty easy these days. And I'll admit
that I was as jittery as a hen on a hot stove until we got this Fortress
off the ground, and into the air. I actually had little chills running
up and down my back, as though I expected to feel a nice white-hot
bullet cut into it at most any second. But heck! Not a thing happened. I
didn't see a thing that looked Jap, did you?"
"No, I didn't," Freddy Farmer replied. "But my imagination certainly
gave me a lot of trouble. Every time one of those mechanics put a bag of
mail aboard, or a case of those medical supplies we're taking over, I
had a brief moment of feeling positive that he was a Japrat, buck teeth,
and all. But, as you say, nothing happened."
"Yeah," Dawson murmured, and peered out at the wall of night darkness
that completely circled the aircraft. "Just another airplane ride for
us. And that doesn't make me mad at all. I wonder if the field radioed
Dago when we got off? Vice-Admiral Carter sure sounded plenty worried on
that phone."
"Yes, he ..." Freddy Farmer said, and then cut himself off short.
"What's the matter, Freddy?" Dawson asked, as a sudden clammy sensation
rippled through his chest.
"Down there," young Farmer replied, and pointed off and down to the
left. "Is that a light blinking, or am I seeing things?"
Dawson leaned forward slightly and stared in the direction of Freddy's
pointing finger. A couple of seconds later he saw the unmistakable
flashing of a light. Because of the Flying Fortress's altitude it was no
more than a pin-prick of light. But it was very real just the same.
"Yes, I catch," he finally grunted. "Probably one of our ships
requesting us to flash our identification signal. The heck with them.
They should know that no Jap plane could possibly be in this neck of the
woods."
"But what if they open fire, if they have flak guns aboard?" Freddy
murmured as they both continued to watch the blinking light far below.
"There's such a thing as a lucky hit, even at our altitude."
"Okay, if you insist, pal," Dave grunted, and started to reach out his
hand. "But ... Hey! Did you catch that, Freddy? That looked like the old
SOS to me."
"It was!" young Farmer replied with a nod, and hunched forward a bit
more on his co-pilot seat. "Wait a minute! He's trying to send
something else. K ... D ... J? K, D, J? Wonder what that means?"
"Take a look in that signal book in the pocket beside you," Dawson said.
"I think those things have surface ship signals as well as aircraft
signals. Take a look anyway."
It didn't take young Farmer more than a few seconds to find what he was
hunting for. Excitement rang in his voice as he spoke to Dawson.
"Here it is, Dave!", he cried. "K, D, J. Attacked by enemy force! Please
give assistance."
"Attacked by enemy force?" Dawson echoed sharply, and squinted hard down
at the still blinking pin-point of light. "Must be some ship nailed by a
Jap submarine. Maybe we'd better slide down for a look. At least that
should scare the Jap sub away, if there's one still lurking around. A
Jap submarine east of Pearl Harbor? Well, what do you know? Get back at
the port gun slot, Freddy, just in case we get the chance to take a
crack at something. And I think I'll drop a flare so's we can get a good
look."
"No, don't, Dave!" young Farmer said sharply, and gripped his arm as
though to restrain him.
"No?" Dawson echoed. "Why not? We won't be able to see much in this
dark. And certainly not a Jap submarine, if there's one on the
surface."
"I know," Freddy said with a shrug. "But I've got a funny feeling. A
flare would light us up nicely, too, you see? Let's play it cautious,
what say?"
"Okay, okay," Dave said with a grin. "Maybe you have got something
there. Anyway, get back to the port gun slot, and I'll slide us down a
bit."
"Right you are," Freddy said, and slid out of the co-pilot's seat and
made his way aft.
Dawson had already throttled the four engines, and was sending the
Flying Fortress sliding down through the Pacific night sky in a series
of ever widening circles. He circled to port so that he could
continually keep his eye on the blinking light that grew bigger and
bigger as the Fortress lost altitude. And the light kept on sending two
sets of letters. The standard SOS and KDJ. A couple of times Dawson was
tempted to signal back that they had caught the signals and were coming
down to find out what they could do to help. Each time, though,
something seemed to stop him from showing the bomber's signal light. He
had even switched off the cockpit light, and he was not allowing the
engines to show any exhaust plumes that might reveal the Fortress' exact
position.
"Guess I must be as jumpy as Freddy!" he grunted to himself. "But maybe
it is best to play it safe, even if it must be one of our surface ships
down there. There's no telling what can happen next in this cockeyed
world. And, boy, Freddy and I should sure know that by now. Yeah! So
we'll sneak down and only let them know where we are by what sounds of
our engines they can catch."
With a nod for emphasis, he flipped up the switch of the Fortress'
inter-com system, and put his lips to the mike.
"Have you hooked this thing up at your end, Freddy?" he asked into what
he guessed was a dead wire.
But he was wrong. Young Farmer's voice was in his earphones instantly.
"Yes, Dave. Can you see anything yet, besides the signal flashes?"
"Nope," Dave replied. "But we're only at eight thousand now. Whoever's
signalling is sure a persistent guy, isn't he? Is he so deaf he can't
hear us coming down, do you suppose? You haven't caught any different
signals, have you?"
"The same two groups of signals over and over again," young Farmer
replied. "I fancy they'd stop, though, if we acknowledged. But I
wouldn't, Dave, if I were you. I still have a funny feeling about this
business. It just doesn't seem quite right to me, but blessed if I know
why. I ..."
Freddy never finished the rest. He never did for the reason that at that
exact moment a stab of orange red flame showed down by the blinking
light. Dawson saw it and had only time to stiffen slightly in the seat
before the night darkness all about the Fortress was lighted up as
brilliantly as high noon by a bursting star shell. And hardly had the
white light virtually exploded in front of Dawson's face before the air
all about was filled with the roaring thunder of bursting flak shells.
For the infinitesimal part of a split second Dawson sat as a man struck
dead. Then with a wild yell he shook himself out of his trance, rammed
all four throttles wide open and threw the Flying Fortress up and around
in a steep climbing turn. The first star shell had died out by then, but
a second and a third one had taken its place, and the silvery brilliance
that seemed to flood everything was punched red and orange here and
there by flak shells seeking out the Fortress.
"A trap, a trap, and I all but flew right down into it!" Dawson yelled
angrily. Then as he looked down over the side of the plane, cold rage
shook him from head to toe. "Freddy!" he shouted into his inter-com
mike. "Do you see what I see, Freddy? It's a submarine. A Jap submarine.
The dirty rats! They pulled us almost down to the muzzles of their
cocked anti-aircraft guns. The stinkers. If they'd waited just a minute
longer they couldn't possibly have missed. Hey, Freddy! You okay, kid?
Did we get hit by anything?"
"Not that I can see from here!" young Farmer called back. "But I guess
my feeling meant something, what? The dirty beggars! I wonder how often
they've pulled this killer's trick on lone planes flying out to the
Islands? Praise be they're rotten shots. Look! They see that they can't
get us now, so they're preparing to dive. They're ... I say, Dave! What
the devil's wrong? Is the plane out of control?"
"Out of control, nothing!" Dawson roared as he sent the huge bomber over
on wing, and down. "I mean it to go this way. Show me some of that sweet
shooting of yours, Freddy! I'll take you right down on top of them, and
nuts to their flak fire. Boy! If we only had a depth charge or two, or a
bomb. But give them what you can, Freddy!"
"Right you are!" young Farmer's voice echoed in Dawson's earphones.
"Just get me a little lower, and level us off. I'll make the dirty
blighters dance."
The Jap submarine's fire was still pretty heavy, but Dawson sent the
Fortress thundering right down through it as though it didn't even
exist. The submarine was getting under way, and one by one the deck guns
ceased fire as the gun crew quit them and scampered along the wet decks
to the conning tower. Two or three of them reached the ladder leading up
to the bridge, but that's as far as they got. Freddy Farmer's port-slot
fifty-caliber guns started to speak their piece, and the running Japs
were knocked flat as though invisible hands had jerked their feet out
from under them. Those behind the ones that fell kept on coming like men
crazed by fear who didn't know any better. Anyway, they ran straight
into the withering fire that had cut down the others, and their rotten
lives were promptly snuffed out in exactly the same way.
Not a gun fired back at the Fortress, now, as Dawson kept circling the
target so that Freddy could work his slot guns continuously. The
undersea craft was driving hard through the water with its diving planes
undoubtedly all set to be run out for a crash dive the instant those
who survived the death that sprinkled the deck were inside and the
conning tower hatch closed tight. But Freddy Farmer was seeing to it
that none of those scampering Japs on deck survived his withering fire.
He relentlessly cut them down one after another like tenpins. And then
as Dawson veered the Fortress even closer to the trapped submarine,
young Farmer sent a hail of explosive bullets practically straight down
the still partly opened conning tower hatch.
"Have some of those, you filthy beggars!" Dave heard Freddy's voice
screaming over the inter-com. "Pull a trick like that on us, what? Well,
how do you like some of the same? How do you like it, what?"
"They don't like it even a little bit, pal!" Dawson shouted impulsively
into his own flap mike. "Not even a ... Hey! Ye gods! You've hit
something, Freddy!"
Hit something was right! A column of livid red flame suddenly belched up
out of the conning tower hatch. The silver light from the floating
exploded star shells had just about died away, but now the sky and the
sea were bathed in a blood red glow as the column of flame mounted
higher and higher, and then fountained outward in all directions. It
came so close to the circling Fortress that Dawson gasped out a
strangled cry of alarm and quickly banked off in the opposite direction.
As soon as he was clear of the area of falling fire he banked the
Fortress again so that he could look back at the doomed Jap submarine.