One glance at the black, triangular fin slicing through the water was
enough. It was a shark of the man-eating variety.
“Get out your gun, Red!” barked Don Winslow, reaching for his own
weapon. “Hold it ready, but don’t use it until the last possible moment.
The smell of blood—even shark’s blood—will drive the other sharks
mad!”
Biting his lips, the stocky lieutenant ripped the waterproof silk from
his Navy Colt’s revolver. Though he could have led a landing party in
the face of machine gun fire, without a qualm of fear, the idea of
becoming shark meat while still alive was hard for Red Pennington to get
used to.
“Here’s hopin’ there aren’t any other sharks around!” he gulped. “If I
don’t see any in the next two minutes, I’m gonna shoot this one so full
of holes....”
“Hold it!” Don Winslow rapped out. “I see another fin—no, it’s three
more! And more coming, off there to port. Great guns, Red! We’re right
in the middle of a school of them!”
Calmly, he took a squint at the chambers of his revolver making sure
they were all loaded.
“You see now, Red, why I wouldn’t take automatic pistols,” he said.
“Those things jam up after a little exposure to salt water. These
revolvers can take it.”
“Yeah!” responded Red bitterly. “But what good’s all that goin’ to do us
if they come too fast for us to shoot? HEY! LOOK OUT! HE’S COMING FOR
YOU, DON!”
Twenty feet to starboard, a huge fin was driving straight toward them.
In another second the killer shark would roll over for the bite, Don
knew.
Instead of firing, however, he brought both arms down flat on the water,
with a tremendous splash. At the same time, he yelled like a trapped
hyena.
With a quick swirl, the shark changed his course; but even so, it was a
close call. So close that the killer’s mighty tail slapped against Don’s
legs with numbing force.
“Wha-what’s the big idea?” gurgled Red, twisting his neck to watch the
shark’s departure. “You had time to shoot him, Skipper!”
“But not time to stop him!” replied Don. “Anyhow, we don’t want any
blood in the water as near to us as that. I guess our best bet is to
serve these sharks a breakfast, but keep them as far away as possible.
Like this!”
Snapping up his Colt, Don Winslow fired at a circling fin, about forty
yards distant. There followed the brief flurry of a wounded shark. Then,
without warning, the ocean round about was lashed to a froth. Great
bodies whirled and plunged in a circle of bloodstained water. From all
sides, the sharp, triangular fins of the other sharks came streaking
toward the center of disturbance.
“And _that_,” gritted Don Winslow, “is the way they’d be bearing down on
us, if I’d shot that first would-be man-eater, instead of scaring him!
How’d you like to be in the middle of that ring-around-the-rosie, Red?”
“G-golly, no!” shivered the junior officer. “I’ve heard that sharks were
cannibals; but I never thought they were such fast feeders. Look, Don!
They’ve finished that one already. Eaten him alive!”
“In which case we’d better give them some more breakfast bacon,” agreed
the young commander. “Go ahead and shoot, sailor! It’s your turn.”
“Uh-uh, Don! It’s your turn all the time,” the redhead responded. “As a
marksman, I’ll never be in your class, and we’ve got to save our
bullets. That way, we might keep those sea tigers busy eating themselves
until the plane shows up.”
Carefully Don picked his next target and fired. This time his bullet
merely clipped through the shark’s back fin, but the wound was enough
for its blood maddened fellows. A second savage feast churned the
water’s surface, fifty yards away.
One by one Don’s precious cartridges were expended, until only half a
dozen were left. The dawn light had grown stronger now, and Red,
glancing toward the distant _Gatoon_, detected movement aboard her.
“They’ve spotted us aboard ship!” he cried. “They’re lowering a boat!”
Don Winslow’s revolver cracked again.
“They’ll get here just about in time,” he commented. “That is, provided
I don’t miss any shots. Every shark in ten square miles must have
smelled this party and joined it. A number of them have been looking us
over, too.”
“I’ve noticed that, Skipper, don’t worry!” Red Pennington exclaimed.
“It’s too bad the Scorpion plane didn’t get here sooner, but.... Say! Am
I hearing things, or is that a plane’s motor, over to the east?”
Above the splashing rose the snarl of an airplane motor warming up. The
sound rose in pitch, then faded abruptly.
“That’s Splendor and his pilot taking off!” remarked Don, his eye on the
circling man-eaters. “They’ll climb to ten thousand to start their watch
for the bombers. Right now, I envy them!”
For a long, listening moment, there was no sound but the lapping of
waves and the occasional splash of a feeding shark. Very gradually the
drone of an approaching plane grew louder.
“It’s not Splendor’s motor,” Don decided at last. “Besides, it’s flying
too low and straight to be on patrol. It’s the Scorpion seaplane, all
right, and headed straight for us!”
“It’ll be here before the boat from the _Gatoon_!” cried Red Pennington.
“Probably the pilot thinks the boat is after a couple of spies. If he
does, he’ll beat ’em to it and pick us up! Where is he, though, Don?
That motor’s getting close, but there’s no plane in sight!”
“That’s because he’s flying low, right in the 'eye of the sun,’ as they
say,” replied the other, whipping up his gun for another shot.
The bullet missed, just as the target dived under. Another slug from
Don’s nearly exhausted supply furnished more living “breakfast” for the
ravenous sea tigers. Two sharks swirled dangerously close to the two
officers in the turmoil.
“Better start splashing and keep it up, Red!” Don Winslow advised.
“Those finny devils are getting more curious about us every second. If
we can keep them off just a few more minutes....”