_Eagles Can't Die_
As a sort of signal to confirm the fast approaching end of the
B-Twenty-Five's flight, the starboard engine coughed its rasping note
for the last time, and joined the port engine in silence. Dave had
already eased the nose down a hair or two to prevent a stall, and like
a statue of stone he sat there hunched over the control wheel with his
worried eyes fixed first on the Jap Zeros mounting higher into the sky,
and then on the stretches of ground below.
The gods had at least been a little kind. The B-Twenty-Five had the
necessary height to reach land in a long flat glide. However, there
would be little picking and choosing of a suitable place to land. And
if the Zeros came tearing in, it would be decidedly a one-sided combat.
True, Freddy could work the top turret guns, and he could smack away
with the nose guns. But with so much of the bomber left unguarded, it
wouldn't be long before Jap bullets and air cannon shells would rip
home and pull down the curtain.
"I don't think they've spotted us yet, Dave!" Freddy Farmer suddenly
spoke in a low voice, as though he feared the Jap pilots would overhear
him. "They seem to be going higher up, and swinging westward toward
Bataan."
"I know," Dawson replied in a low voice, too. "Looks that way to me.
And here's hoping we're both right. If those tramps only keep out
of the way, maybe we'll have a chance. But if they spot us and come
a-running, Freddy, it isn't going to be funny."
"Well, if I can get one or two of the beggars," the English youth
muttered, tight-lipped, "it won't be so bad. Think I'll go aft and man
the turret guns right now."
"No, stick around until you have to," Dave stopped him. "If we're going
to crash land, we'd better be up here together. Then one of us can help
the other get out, if one of us is--well, you know what I mean."
"Quite," Freddy murmured. "But we haven't crashed yet, so why talk
about it?"
"Suits me swell," Dawson said with a dry chuckle. "My error, pal. And,
heck, this wouldn't be our first crash. But what we want is for those
little brown rats to keep right on going the way they are."
Freddy Farmer echoed the hope with a grunt, and let it go at that.
Both boys lapsed into silence, and sat very still as the B-Twenty-Five
slid down lower and lower, and the distant flock of Jap Zeros mounted
higher and higher into the Southwest Pacific dawn sky. And then when
it seemed almost certain that the Japs were completely unaware of the
B-Twenty-Five's existence, one of the formation suddenly cut around in
a dime turn and came hurtling back down like a red disc-marked bolt of
lightning. One look at that fighter plane cutting down across the dawn
sky was all that Dawson needed to realize the bitter truth. And all
that Freddy Farmer needed, too. The little game of hide-and-seek was
all over. The B-Twenty-Five had been sighted. And not only one Zero,
but two others, had cut out of formation and were wing screaming down
in a power dive.
"The dirty beggars!" Freddy Farmer grated, and started to push up out
of his seat. "See you later, Dave."
But Dawson flung out a hand, caught the English youth's arm, and
hauled him back down into the seat.
"Waste of bullets, Freddy!" he barked. "We'll be touching ground any
second now. Our only hope is to beat them down to the ground. Stick
right here. The crash might buckle the fuselage and cut that turret in
two. Stick here--and get set, kid!"
As Dave spoke he kept his eyes fixed on the stretch of lush green
ground almost directly below. At the very instant he had sighted
the first Zero breaking away from formation he had dropped the
B-Twenty-Five's nose to increase her glide speed to the limit. And now
it was but the matter of a few seconds as to what would happen first.
Whether Dawson could get the bomber down onto the ground, or whether
the Japs could reach the aircraft with their murderous blasts and send
it to earth a raging ball of flame.
From a point that seemed but a couple of feet from his head, Dawson
heard the snarl of Jap machine gun fire, and the deeper and louder note
of enemy aircraft cannon. But he didn't waste time to jerk up his head
for a look. It wouldn't do any good to _see_ the Japs shooting. His
ears told him that they were; that at almost any instant death might
chop right through to nail him. Just the matter of a few seconds, that
was all. A few seconds in which to fight for his life, and Freddy's,
and win--or lose.
"This is it, Freddy!" he suddenly yelled, and hauled back on the
control wheel column. "Hang on, hard!"
Maybe he yelled the warning aloud, or maybe he simply spoke it in his
brain. But either way, there was no time to repeat. The B-Twenty-Five
was dangerously low now, and taking up the last bit of its gliding
speed to reach a narrow clearing thickly bordered by tropical growth.
Maybe the surface of that corridor-shaped clearing was hard and firm.
Or maybe it was a narrow strip of swamp ground. There was no way to
tell from the air, and no time to do anything about it, anyway. The few
seconds had run their course. Time had run out. The B-Twenty-Five had
won its race with those diving Jap Zeros, but a crash landing on an
unknown strip of Philippine ground was a certainty.
Dawson hung hard to the control wheel to the very last split second. He
saw the nose come up, felt the bomber mush forward and start to falter
in the air, and he saw that strip of clearing come zooming up toward
the belly of the fuselage. And then the B-Twenty-Five touched ground.
_Touched_ ground? The last ounce of its flying and gliding speed spent,
the bomber dropped the rest of the way like ten ton of loose brick.
Braced as he was for the jolting contact with the ground, Dawson had
the crazy sensation that invisible hands grabbed hold of him and
started bouncing him around inside the pilots' compartment like a
human rubber ball. Freddy, the instrument panel, the control wheel
column, and the compartment's windows seemed to parade past his eyes.
And then suddenly the roof fell down on top of him, and the next thing
his spinning brain realized his head was resting on one of the rudder
pedals, and his legs were up in the pilot's seat. And the figure of
Freddy Farmer was sitting astride his stomach like a horseback rider.
For perhaps a full three seconds the two youths blinked stupidly into
each other's eyes. Then Freddy Farmer choked out a gasp, scrambled off
Dawson's middle, and reached down to twist his legs around and his head
up.
"You hurt, Dave?" he managed to gasp.
"Don't know, yet!" Dawson replied hoarsely, and kicked open the
compartment door with his foot. "Tell you later. We've got to get out
of here, kid. This is a swell target for those rats. Here they come
down, now!"
There was no need to inform the English youth of that little truth.
The ungodly scream of Jap wings in the wind, and the blood-chilling
snarl and yammer of their aerial machine gun and aerial cannon fire
was enough to make the very ground shake and tremble. Instinctively
Dawson reached up, hooked an arm about Freddy and hauled him down onto
the floorboards of the compartment. And there they both crouched,
breath locked in their lungs, as the Zeros piled down and raked the
crashed bomber from twin rudder to nose. Bullets cut through into the
compartment, and made a shambles of what was left of the instrument
panel. But it was as though the hand of Lady Luck touched each bullet,
because neither Dawson nor Freddy Farmer was hit.
And then when there came a lull in the shooting, and the only sound was
that of the Zero's engines pounding the planes upward for altitude,
Dawson gave the English youth a push and nodded toward the compartment
door.
"Wiggle out of here fast!" he shouted. "Then snake across to that
jungle growth. Do it fast, kid, before they come down. I'll join you
right after their next attack. _Snap it up!_"
Another and a harder shove closed Freddy's mouth, which was half
opened to ask questions. He quickly nodded and went out through the
compartment door like a shell from the mouth of a gun. Still hugging
the compartment floor, Dave watched his pal streak across the bit of
open ground and practically dive head first into the thick border of
jungle growth. At that instant Dawson was almost tempted to follow
Farmer. But at that instant, also, he heard the change in the sound of
the Jap aircraft engines aloft. A sound that told him the Zeros had
gained their altitude, and were wheeling over and down for a second
strafe on the helpless American bomber.
"Stick around some more, please, Lady Luck!" he breathed, and
practically pushed his face through the floorboards.
For the next few seconds the full wrath of war snapped, and barked,
and howled, and screamed all about him. But once again Lady Luck, or
somebody, guided every one of the Jap bullets and air cannon shells
clear of Dawson's body. And then once again he heard the pounding howl
of the Zeros power-zooming upward. And in that instant he became a
whirlwind of action. He shot his body toward the door opening, and at
the same time flung out one hand and grabbed up a Very-Light pistol and
fired the flare back over his shoulder. He heard the hiss and sputter
as he went out through the door and down into the tall grass. And it
seemed he had no more than regained his feet and was plunging for the
jungle growth when a part of the world in back of him exploded in a
roar of sound.
Hardly realizing what he was doing, he jerked his head around and took
a flash glance back over his shoulder. The nose of the B-Twenty-Five
was spouting livid red flame and smoke high into the air. The back of
the aircraft had broken and buckled right at the gun turret, so that
the whole thing looked like some weird prehistoric bird of gigantic
size flopped down on the ground in mortal agony. One quick look at that
heap of aero-nautical destruction, and then Dawson turned his head
front, gasped out a sob of pity and sorrow, and plunged head first into
the shelter of the jungle growth just as the three Jap Zeros wheeled
off their zoom and started down again.
"Good gosh, Dave!" Freddy Farmer was panting in his ear. "Did they hit
the gas fume-filled tanks that last time? I almost passed out in fear
that you were a goner."
"Not those rotten Jap shots!" Dawson gasped, and rolled off his
stomach. "I smacked a Very-Light flare at one of the split fuel feed
lines. Just enough gas in the line to start a blaze. Hope it'll call
them off, the bums!"
"_Fired_ the plane?" Freddy Farmer echoed with a frown. "But why? The
thing's a total wreck. The Japs could never make any use of it, Dave!"
"And how they can't!" Dawson grated, and stared sad-eyed at the blazing
heap of wreckage. "That wasn't the idea, though. There must be Jap
troops close to here. They'll be coming on the run. It won't hurt any
for them to think that we burned up inside. See what I mean?"
"Of course!" the English youth replied. "And am I stupid. Smart work,
Dave. And by the way, thanks from the bottom of my heart, old thing."
Dawson glanced at him and blinked.
"For what?" he wanted to know.
Before answering, Freddy pointed a finger at the crash landing broken
back of the aircraft.
"For not letting me go aft to the guns and take a crack at those
Zeros," he said. "It was just as you warned. The thing broke right at
the gun turret. But for you, Dave, I'd be in two or more pieces right
now."
"Skip it," Dawson grunted, and got up onto his feet. "The thing for us
to do is to make tracks away from here, before we both get carved up
into small pieces. Now, let's see, which way, I wonder?"
"I suggest south, Dave," Freddy Farmer spoke up quietly. "I think that
Zero field is in that direction. Fact is, while I've been here I think
I've heard air engines toward the south. So?"
Dawson grinned at him, and winked.
"So we think alike, pal," he grunted. "We haven't got anything to fly
now. And it's a long swim, and a long walk, to Chungking from here.
Right, Freddy. The least we can do is take a look to see if the Japs
can help us out any--without knowing it."
"Yes, it's a hope, though a blasted small one, I fancy," the English
youth murmured. "First, though, there's this jungle. Dash it all! I
never saw stuff grow so close together. Looks like it would take us
days to go a mile."
"Then let's get started," Dawson said, and took one last look back at
the burning plane. "Remind me, Freddy, to send Air Forces Command at
Hickam Field a letter of apology for washing out their ship."
"Right you are," the English youth promised. Then, with a half-chuckle,
he added, "And I'll be delighted to deliver it _in person_, if you know
what I mean?"
"Way ahead of you, kid," Dawson replied. "_You_ just remind me to write
it, _I'll_ take care of the delivery angle--I hope!"
With a grin, and a nod for emphasis, Dawson turned toward the south
and started to push and squirm and wiggle his way through the dense,
steaming jungle growth.
Two year-long hours later Dawson stumbled over a hidden root for the
umpty-umteenth millionth time, and let his weary body sink down onto
the soft ground. Freddy Farmer, right behind him, sank down too, and
for a couple of minutes neither said a word. As a matter of fact,
neither had the breath to spare for spoken words. Their uniforms were
ripped and torn in half a hundred different places. And there were just
about as many tiny cuts on their faces and hands. And to top it all
off, they were drenched with jungle swamp water, and plastered with
sticky yellow mud from head to foot.
"How about taking turns carrying each other piggy-back, pal?" Dawson
finally broke the silence. "And you carry me, first."
"Suits me," the English youth came right back at him, "if I don't have
to go more than two or three yards. But, gosh, I am tired. And if you
want to know my opinion, Dave, I've had the tiny little fear this last
half-hour or so that we've been traveling in a circle."
The half-grin on Dawson's dirty face faded, and a grave, somber light
stole into his eyes.
"I know, Freddy," he said quietly. "The sun has touched all four sides
of us at least once in the last half-hour. I don't think we made so
much as a quarter of a mile in a straight line south. In short, Freddy,
you and I are very definitely lost."
"Yes, definitely," the English youth echoed with a faint catch in his
voice. "However, there's no use crying over the fact, I fancy. The
only thing we can do is to rest up a bit, and then keep pushing on
southward. This is the Legaspi area, I'm positive. We're not on one of
the smaller islands. So if we keep at it long enough we're bound to--"
A lightning-like warning gesture of Dawson's hand stopped Freddy Farmer
cold. Both youths froze stiff, and locked eyes as they listened to the
sounds that came to them through the jungle growth to the right--sounds
that neither of them understood. But they didn't have to, because
the sounds were the sing-song rising and falling intonations of Japs
talking with one another.
"Close!" Dave breathed softly into Freddy's ear. "Too darn close for
my liking, pal. Got your gun ready?"
The English youth didn't answer. He simply nodded slightly and fixed
his eyes on the wall of jungle growth that separated them from the
little brown butchers of Nippon somewhere beyond.