his vision was as clear as crystal. Directly in front of him, so close
that he could almost reach out his hand and touch it, was the smoking
wreckage of two Grumman Hell Cats entwined about each other. He clearly
saw the markings F Dash Fourteen on one of them. But he could not see
the cockpit as a section of wing covered it like a steel band. He
thought he saw something start to fall slowly away from the hovering
mess of wreckage, but a red film slid across his eyes and the falling
object was blotted out.
Yet even as the red blurred his vision his whirling brain functioned at
lightning speed. He knew that he had been thrown clear of his Hell Cat,
and that he had seen the two crashed ships as his body went tumbling
seaward in a free fall. Fall? He was falling? Then he had to yank the
rip cord ring of his parachute. Where was it? He couldn't find it. Or
was that because he couldn't move his right arm? Couldn't, because there
was no right arm there now? Had he lost his right arm?
But what did it matter? Why bother to pull his rip cord ring anyway? The
opportunity to float down to his death, rather than hurtle down and get
it over with quickly? Death was death, no matter how it came to you.
Certainly it was. You only died once. And this was it, for him. Well,
weren't a lot of others doing the same thing in this war? Sure!
Thousands of them. Millions of them. Wonder what Freddy Farmer will say?
Wonder where Freddy is, now? Good old Freddy Farmer. No fellow ever had
a pal like Freddy. God created only one Freddy Farmer. Good old
Freddy....
What was that noise? It would be nice to see once more. Blind as a bat,
now, though. Everything red, and growing redder. A deep, deep red. A
funny noise, that. Like a plane. The planes of other pilots who had
died? Did a pilot go on flying after he was dead? As dying people hear
voices of those who have gone before them, did a dying pilot hear the
planes of pilots who had already gone? A funny sound, but a nice sound.
Just like an aircraft engine. No sound in all the world so deeply
thrilling as the sweet song of an aircraft engine, and the hymn sung by
wings in the wind. You had to be a pilot to know that.
So this was it? Well, that was okay. No pain at all. A sort of
comforting silence. Like slipping off to sleep in a nice soft bed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
_The Dead Return_
A nice warm comfy bed. And a soothing silence all about. Rest, beautiful
rest in a world of fluffy white silence. It ...
Like a half drowned man groping his way up through fathoms of silent
waters to the surface, Dave Dawson rose up from the depths of
unconsciousness. And as a man saved from drowning remembers things that
passed through his mind while down in the depths, so were Dawson's first
conscious thoughts a continuance of what he had been thinking in another
world. A nice, warm comfy bed, and ...
And though it was still dark all about, the sense of touch returned to
him, and his finger tips telegraphed to his brain the fact that he was
actually in a warm, comfy bed. He could feel smooth sheets, and a soft
mattress underneath him. And then little by little he became conscious
of sound. Not individual sounds, but a merging of all different kinds
of sound into a sort of faintly pulsating murmur. And with that faintly
pulsating murmur there came to him a sense of motion, too. A gentle
vibration that traveled throughout his entire body.
It had all the effect of lulling him into deep and untroubled slumber.
But in that it did not quite succeed. It didn't because at that moment
his eyes opened slowly and there was the image of Freddy Farmer's face
centered in a vast expanse of white. But it was more than an image of
Freddy, for the lips moved back in a smile, the eyes glistened with joy,
and then came the spoken words.
"That's better, my lad. How do you feel, Dave?"
Dawson stared for a moment, and then closed his eyes tight, but when he
opened them again Freddy Farmer's smiling face was still there.
"You dead, too, Freddy?" he heard his own voice speak. "How did it
happen, fellow?"
The smiling lips broke into a chuckle, and Freddy Farmer shook his head
in positive negation.
"Not a bit of it, old thing," he said. "I'm not dead, and neither are
you. Though by rights you should be. How do the arm and leg feel?"
"Not dead?" Dawson mumbled, as he strived to get his brain functioning
faster. "And what arm, and what leg?"
"Yours," Freddy Farmer said. "The left one. Your arm you broke, and your
leg you wrenched pretty badly. And you smashed up your face a bit. But,
as usual, you'll pull through. You must have protected the rest of your
body with your head when you crashed into that blighter. If you'd only
waited, though. I wouldn't have let the beggar get away. Your guns went
out, eh?"
Dawson didn't say anything for a moment. Instead he used that moment to
take stock of himself as best he could. It was rather difficult, because
the lower half of his face was bandaged, and the bandages prevented him
from looking down his body. It was easy enough to tell, though, that
something was wrong with his left leg and left arm. He couldn't move
either of them, and to attempt it started little pains shooting around.
"Yeah, my guns went haywire for some unknown reason," he said
eventually. "So I had to down the rat the only way I could. But what do
you mean _you_ wouldn't have let him get away?"
"Well, I don't think so," Freddy Farmer said. "True, I was still quite a
bit away when you barged into him, but I think I would have caught up
with him. I screamed blue murder at you over the radio, but I guess your
set was balmy, too."
"Didn't hook it up," Dave said. "At the start, I mean. Decided to keep
radio silence. I ... Hey! Then you got the same idea as me, huh? You
lost him in that fog, and then decided to light out for the Truk area?"
"Quite," young Farmer said. "I lost you both. My radio was on and I
heard all our planes recalled. I ignored the order, knowing blasted well
that that Nazi beggar wouldn't go back. I didn't think you would,
either. I fancied it would be a three-plane race to the Truk area. And
that's the way it turned out. Not bad flying for any of us, what, to get
there almost at the same time. But, do you know something, Dave? Know
why we didn't spot that blighter sooner?"
"Because we were blind, I guess," Dawson grunted. "Or maybe he spotted
us and hid behind something every time we came along."
"No, it wasn't that at all," Freddy said. "It was because he wasn't
aboard any of the carriers until the middle of the afternoon of the day
we spotted him."
"He what?" Dawson gasped. "But how come...?"
"One of those crazy bits of luck that people have without asking," young
Farmer said. "Or perhaps the beggar did have some kind of a premonition
that we were coming after him. Anyway, when the force was one day out
from Pearl Harbor one of the scouting pilots aboard one of the cruisers
came down sick. Word was sent to the Trenton for a replacement pilot to
be sent over. And our friend was the one sent. The flight officer on the
Trenton handled the business, and Vice-Admiral Macon didn't know a thing
about it. That was natural, because he had bigger things to worry about.
The officers under him took charge of minor details. Anyway, the sick
pilot got fit for duty again, and our friend came back aboard the
Trenton. In the cruiser's motor launch, of course. I sort of half
remember seeing a motor launch pull alongside us that day. But maybe
it's simply my imagination, now that I know there was one. Anyway, his
name on the Trenton was Brown. Yes, Brown. A nice old American name,
with never a Nazi hint about it, the blighter!"
"Well, for cat's sake!" Dawson exploded. "Why didn't somebody tell us
that one fighter pilot had been sent to a cruiser to double for a sick
guy? What were we supposed to be, mind readers, or crystal ball gazers,
or something? If...!"
"Easy, old thing!" Freddy Farmer said in alarm. "You're in bad enough
shape as you are without blowing your top. It was just one of those
things. The press of shipboard duties made them forget about Brown's
transference, and the vice-admiral didn't know. Perhaps the ones who
could have told us didn't take the spy scare very seriously. I'm
thankful enough that he was from the Trenton and not from one of the
other carriers. Otherwise he would have returned to it that day and we'd
never have spotted him. But if I'm getting you all riled up, Dave, I'd
better get out of here and have the surgeon pop in and give you
something to put you back to sleep."
"No, don't go, Freddy, I ..." Dave stopped short, gasped, and stared at
his pal wide-eyed. "Hey! Wait a minute!" he cried. "Where am I, and how
the heck did I get here?"
"You're in the Trenton's sick bay," Freddy Farmer said. "And a cruiser
seaplane brought you back the day before yesterday. Brought us both
back, as a matter of fact."
"_Both?_" Dawson echoed in amazement. "You, too? But ... Oh! You ran out
of gas and dropped into the drink, huh? And a scouting sea plane found
us both? Practically within spitting distance of Truk?"
"Well, it wasn't exactly like that, Dave," Freddy Farmer said, and a
faint flush seeped into his cheeks. "The truth of the matter is that
when I saw you parachute down to the water and float around in your Mae
West ... and you can thank it for keeping your face out of water ... I
decided that it was only fair for me to share what I had with you. So I
landed as close to you as I dared, got out my rubber life raft and
paddled over and pulled you aboard. The next morning the carrier force
planes all came over, and a cruiser seaplane was good enough to land and
carry us both back here. Sturdy planes those seaplanes to carry two
extra passengers. The observer and I had quite a job holding onto you,
but we made it, as you can see."
"Old Freddy, the Dawson lifesaver!" Dave breathed as a warm glow stole
through him. "How many times has it been, Freddy? Twenty-nine or
sixty-nine times that you've cheated death for me?"
"Rot!" young Farmer snorted. "After all, I didn't have the gas to get
back. I had to sit down. I'd have shared my life raft with any poor
devil the same as I did with you. I ... Oh, blast it! I'd feel
frightfully lost without you around, old thing, you know."
"Yeah, I can guess," Dawson grinned. Then the grin faded as he said
soberly, "I wonder if that Nazi rat went down with his plane, or if he
bailed out, too, and maybe got picked up by some Japs."
"No, the Japs didn't pick him up," Freddy Farmer said evenly. "I was
close enough to see that you were the only one who fell clear of that
wreckage, and opened your parachute. And even if he had got clear and
gone down by 'chute, the Japs at Truk were too busy the next day to
bother picking him up."
"So I did pull my rip cord ring," Dawson breathed, as memory of those
weird crazy moments between life and death came back to him. "Yanked the
ring, and didn't even realize I was doing it. It sure is funny how ...
Hey! What did you say, Freddy? The Japs at Truk were too busy next day?"
"Certainly," Freddy Farmer said. "This carrier force. Remember? They hit
against Truk that next day, and the next. That's how a scouting seaplane
happened to spot us and take us aboard. Why, I understand that one pilot
was shot down right inside the Truk coral reef and picked up by a
cruiser seaplane. Stout fellows, those cruiser seaplane pilots and
observers. A lot of the dirty work, and no credit to speak of. But the
Truk show was wonderful, Dave. I got in one flight there, myself, as a
gunner on a torpedo plane. Think I even got me a Jap plane, but I'm not
sure. But it was a marvelous victory. We sank nineteen of their ships,
is the report. And the number of Jap planes shot down has been placed,
at two hundred and one for the two-day show. Imagine! And all the raid
cost us was seventeen planes. Not one of our ships was damaged. The Navy
chaps certainly gave Hirohito and Tojo a lot to cry about this time!"
"And while all that was going on I've been here out cold and trussed up
like a roasted pig!" Dawson groaned. "Now, I ask you! Is that crummy
luck, or is that crummy luck?"
Freddy Farmer stared at him and shook his head in mock sadness.
"Yes, yes, quite true," he said with a sigh. "A beastly shame. A blasted
dirty trick played on you. As I said to Vice-Admiral Macon, I said, 'See
here, Vice-Admiral! My friend Dawson is slightly under the weather, and
you have no business sending all these ships and planes and men against
the Japs at Truk until Dawson is better. After all, you know,
Vice-Admiral, Dawson is the ...'"
"Okay, okay, don't say it!" Dawson laughed. "I'm a selfish guy. I admit
it. Just the same, I sure hate to miss things."
"No doubt," Freddy Farmer said with a grin. "But don't forget, in the
future, also to concentrate on things missing _you_! And you know what
things I mean!"
"So help me, Daddy, I'll never fly into another plane," Dawson said with
a faint yawn. "But thank you for everything, kind sir, and now go away
and let me sleep."
"Consider me gone, old thing," Freddy Farmer said softly, and smiled
down at his pal's closed eyes.
THE END
* * * * *
_A Page from_
DAVE DAWSON OVER BERLIN
The last came out of his throat in a strangled cry of grief as a point
in the sky ahead suddenly was splashed with flame and white light.
German flak gunners had scored a direct hit on one of the R.A.F.
raiders. Right smack in the bomb compartment from the looks of the
explosion.
"Happy landings, fellows," Dawson said softly with a catch in his voice.
"You went clean, and quick, anyway. The way I hope I go, when it comes
my turn."
"Amen, chaps!" Freddy Farmer whispered, and then fell silent.
The flashes from the exploding bombers seemed to reach out to the four
horizons. Then they diminished into a ball that traced a fiery path
straight down to the earth. Although they had seen death strike
countless times, neither Dawson nor Farmer had ever gotten used to it.
They always experienced the same feeling of horror, the same helpless
rage, and the same emptiness in the stomach that they were experiencing
now. Seven men had just died before their eyes. Seven brave men who but
a short hour ago had lived, and laughed, and felt sure, as all airmen
feel sure, that the Grim Reaper would pass them by this time, too. But
the Grim Reaper had not passed them by. He had snatched up their lives
in one blinding flash of thundering flame. They probably didn't even
know what hit them. They just died, and now their comrades were carrying
on without them. Carrying on because there was a job to be done; a job
that couldn't wait. A job that had to be done tonight, and tomorrow
night, and the next, and the next, and on and on until all Nazis had
been smashed into the dust, and there was peace again. But seven more
would not see that peace, save from their seats of honor in the airmen's
Valhalla.
* * * * *
_Books by R. SIDNEY BOWEN_
DAVE DAWSON AT DUNKIRK
DAVE DAWSON WITH THE R. A. F.
DAVE DAWSON IN LIBYA
DAVE DAWSON ON CONVOY PATROL
DAVE DAWSON FLIGHT LIEUTENANT
DAVE DAWSON AT SINGAPORE
DAVE DAWSON WITH THE PACIFIC FLEET
DAVE DAWSON WITH THE AIR CORPS
DAVE DAWSON WITH THE COMMANDOS
DAVE DAWSON AT THE RUSSIAN FRONT
DAVE DAWSON WITH THE FLYING TIGERS
DAVE DAWSON ON GUADALCANAL
DAVE DAWSON AT CASABLANCA
DAVE DAWSON WITH THE EIGHTH AIR FORCE
DAVE DAWSON AT TRUK
End of Project Gutenberg's Dave Dawson at Truk, by Robert Sydney Bowen