_he is in our section_! It means that he is in our section and tried
to make sure that we wouldn't be aloft to keep our eye on what he did.
Don't you see? It _has_ to be that. If he were flying with some other
section, it wouldn't matter to him whether we flew our patrol trick
or not. But we're in the same section. So he lays you out just before
take-off time, figuring that before I can be assigned somebody else to
fly with me our section will be off and on its way. And I'll have to
wait over, or go off with the next section."
"Good grief, yes, of course!" Freddy Farmer breathed fiercely as his
eyes got as big as dinner plates. "For once, you're absolutely right,
Dave. The beggar is in our section. He has to be."
"Doggone right!" Dave echoed, and took hold of Freddy's arm. "Now
you come on aft to the sick bay, and get fixed up. I've got to work
fast and get the Exec to assign me somebody else to take your place.
Perhaps--"
"Somebody to take _my_ place!" Freddy Farmer cried angrily. "Over my
dead body! That's rot. I'm making the patrol with you. I--"
"But, Freddy, you got slammed pretty--"
"You can shut your trap, Dave Dawson!" the English youth snapped
viciously. "After all this waiting, if you think I'm going to go on
waiting while you make this patrol and perhaps get yourself into no end
of trouble, then you're completely balmy. Now, let go of my arm, and
stand aside, or you'll be the one to get bashed. And I mean it, Dave.
I'd still make this patrol even if the blighter had broken both my arms
and both my legs."
Dave hesitated a fraction of a second, then shrugged and sighed.
"You always were a hard-headed cuss," he grunted. "So I guess maybe he
didn't do so much damage as that. Okay, you old war horse. No sense
our breaking up the furniture. Come along. But let's both keep our eyes
skinned as we go topside. Look for a show of surprise on anybody's
face. Do you suppose he's two guys? The pilot and the rear gunner?"
"I don't care if he's a whole blasted squadron!" Freddy Farmer growled
as he pulled his helmet over his wounded head. "All I want is to see
the beggar make a slip, and be able to get at him. Nobody can bash my
head, and least of all some skunk Axis spy. Let's go."
Keeping step, the pair hurried across the hangar deck and went topside.
Six Douglas Devastator torpedo bombers had been rolled into take-off
position, and were waiting with props ticking over. There was a pilot
and gunner in each of five of the planes, and as Dave and Freddy
trotted toward their plane they cast keen glances at the flying members
of their section. But it didn't gain them a thing. As a matter of fact,
not a helmeted and goggled head was turned as they loped across the
flight deck and legged into their Devastator that was parked in number
four take-off position.
Two minutes later they were all set and ready to go. A minute after
that a flight officer came along the line of planes and handed each
pilot a copy of his patrol chart. And five minutes after that the
Flight Operations officer on the flight bridge pointed his finger at
the Number One plane, and nodded. The engine of that Devastator roared
up in full throated song, the deck mechanics stepped back from the
wing tips, and the plane rolled forward, picking up speed with every
revolution of its propeller. In less than nothing flat it was a moving
battle grey streak that finally let go of the deck and went curving
upward over the bow of the Indian toward the blue heavens above.
Hardly had the Number One plane cleared its wheels before the Flight
Operations officer stabbed his finger at the Number Two plane. It
streaked off in a thunderous roar, and the finger was pointed at the
Number Three plane. Then Four, then Five, and then Six, and the patrol
was in the air climbing for altitude before taking up formation for the
flight far out over the reaches of the Pacific.
Flying with the nonchalant ease, yet constant alertness, that comes
with experience, Dave held the Devastator steady and twisted around to
glance back at Freddy Farmer. The English youth was just a wee bit pale
about the gills, but there was a bright look in his eyes, and a tight
grin on his lips. Dave winked and nodded down at the Indian.
"Want to change your mind, pal?" he called out. "I can take you down
with no trouble at all. How do you feel?"
"Never better!" Freddy shouted. "Just take me down, and it'll be the
last landing you'll ever make. I'm up here to stay, my little man!"
Dave laughed, but there was just a little tightness to it.
"And do I hope that's the truth!" he cried. "Didn't see anything as we
went to the plane, did you?"
"Not a sign," Freddy replied. "I don't think any of them even looked at
us. Maybe he figured he'd done the job good on me, and that only five
planes would take the air."
"Well, the rat knows different now!" Dave grated, and turned front. "He
knows there are six ships up here, and that we're in one of them."
As Dave spoke the words he let his gaze wander from plane to plane in
the formation. Oddly enough, a lump formed in his chest, and there
was an empty feeling in his stomach. He had met and talked with every
member of that patrol in the air. Kidded with them, played cards, and
done all of the things one does with one's shipmates. It was hard,
terribly hard to believe that one of them, possibly two, were earning
blood money from Berlin or Tokio. Every one of them had struck him as
being a swell guy. A swell guy, or one of the best actors that ever
stepped on a stage. It didn't seem possible that savage hatred for
the United States, for the whole civilized world, was flying along in
the formation. It just didn't seem possible. Could he be wrong? Could
both Freddy and he be all wet in their deductions? Had Freddy actually
been slugged by accident, perhaps by a blundering mechanic carrying
something heavy? Had he got scared at what he'd done, and dragged
Freddy under that wing and taken to his heels? And had Freddy made a
mistake about his wearing pilot's garb? Could it have been simply that?
Those and countless other questions churned around in Dave's head as he
stared at the other planes in the formation droning northward over the
seemingly endless sky blue waters of the Pacific. Whether the answers
that came to mind were right or wrong, he had no way of telling. Only
time would tell that. In a short while the formation would spread out
so as to cover as great an area as possible. Then would be the time
for the murderer of Commander Jackson and Lieutenant Commander Pollard
to make his move, whatever it was going to be.
However, when the Indian and her destroyer escort disappeared from
view down over the lip of the southern horizon, and the patrol planes
were spread out in wide line formation, nothing happened. Each plane
continued droning along its prescribed course, its pilot and gunner
keeping a constant lookout for telltale shadows under the water below
them that might be Japanese submarines. And as the minutes piled up
on one another, nothing continued to happen. Fresh doubts and fresh
worries tugged at Dave's brain. Then, as a sudden thought came to him,
he turned his head and stared thoughtfully at Freddy Farmer.
The English youth grinned, opened his mouth to say something smart, but
checked himself as he saw the little lines of worry on Dave's forehead.
"What now?" he asked. "Did you forget something back on the ship? Or is
this another hunch? Know what I've been thinking?"
"I think I have an idea what it is," Dave said. "The same thing
I've been thinking, maybe. That he's suddenly called things off.
He realizes that he didn't stop us from making this patrol, so he's
decided not to take a chance yet. That it?"
"Something like that," the English youth replied with a grave nod.
Then with a puzzled twist of his head, he added, "But maybe a little
more than that. I mean that perhaps something else hasn't turned out
as he planned. Perhaps he was sure that we'd sight enemy craft, but we
haven't, so there isn't anything he can do but stay with the formation."
"Yeah, I get what you mean," Dave grunted. "If he should break
formation cold, now, and go tearing off on his own, it might make the
Section Leader go tearing after him to herd him back into place."
"Yes," Freddy said. Then, with a startled look: "Unless _he_ happens to
be the Section Leader!"
"Boy, the things you can think up!" Dave cried. Then, with a curt shake
of his head: "No, that's out, I'm positive. Our Section Leader wears
the Navy Cross and the Navy Medal of Valor. If he won those and then
turned Axis spy and killer, then I give up. That would be too much for
even me to believe. No, Freddy, our Section Leader is the one bird in
this bunch who's okay in my book."
"Quite, and in mine, too," Freddy said. "It was just a sudden thought
that hit me. I spoke it without thinking. No, it has to be somebody
else. But I wish the blighter would tip his hand and do something.
We're getting near the end of the patrol, and we haven't sighted a
thing. We'll soon be turning back, and then it will be too late for him
to try anything. He'll--I say!"
"What's up?" Dave cried as a look of horror flashed over the English
youth's face for an instant.
"Listen!" Freddy cried. "If the beggar has decided to pass it up this
time and try later, it'll be up to _you_ to get your head bashed, see?
I've had my share of it. Next time it's you."
"There's not going to be any next time!" Dave growled. "There just
can't be. Whatever's going to happen has got to happen on this patrol.
Any more of this nerve slicing waiting, and I'll go bats."
"You won't be alone, I fancy," Freddy murmured, and returned to
studying the rolling blue swells of the Pacific below.
Dave turned front and gave his attention to his flying. And for the
next twenty-five minutes the Devastator droned along on its job of
flying, with neither of the two youths saying a word. At the end of
that time the Section Leader fired a brace of very-light signals into
the air to signify that the patrol had reached its farthest point
north. Then he banked around toward the south again. The five other
planes banked around, and as the turn was made Dave glued his eyes on
the other planes and half held his breath in expectation. But he was
doomed to disappointment. No plane refused to turn and went streaking
away on its own. All of them swung about gracefully in formation and
started drilling back toward the south and the Carrier Indian far down
over the edge of the horizon.
"Well, so that's that!" Dave muttered bitterly. "I was either all wet,
or he decided not to take the chance this trip. Or maybe it was because
we didn't sight any--"
He didn't finish the rest. At that moment Freddy Farmer's fist came
down on his shoulder, and the English youth's voice cried out in wild
excitement.
"Look at Number Two plane way over there, Dave! It seems to be having
engine trouble. It's spouting smoke from the exhaust, and is nosing
down!"
"A forced landing!" Dave cried without thinking as he watched the
Number Two plane start to lose altitude. "What a tough break for those
two guys! They'll have to sit down and float until--Hey! What am I
talking about? I must be nuts! Freddy!"
"Absolutely!" the English youth cried, and nodded his head vigorously.
"It's easy to give your engine a bad mixture feed and make the exhaust
smoke. An easy trick when you want to break away from a formation, and
make it look as though you have to. Dave! I'll bet you anything you
want that that engine hasn't got anything more wrong with it than ours
has!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
_Water Rats_
"No bet, no bet!" Dave cried, and clenched and unclenched his free fist
in his excitement. "I think, too, that bird is pulling a trick. He's
going down, and he knows that none of us will follow him down, because
there's nothing we could do to help. We're land planes, not seaplanes.
It would be up to the rest of us to get back to the Indian in a hurry
and report that he had to sit down, and where."
"But I wonder, Dave," Freddy Farmer grunted as a sudden frown creased
his brows. "Look. It stands to reason that he couldn't _know_ he was to
make this exact patrol at this exact time. So it couldn't very well be
that he planned to land in the water and have a waiting Jap submarine
pick him up. That would be silly. He might float for days before a
submarine came along to pick him up. And--well, how in the world could
he plan to meet one at this spot? Maybe it is the real thing, Dave.
Maybe it is a forced landing that couldn't be helped. See what I mean?"
Dave didn't make any reply. He stared hard at the Number Two plane as
it spat smoke from its exhausts, and slowly lost altitude. Freddy was
quite right. It could be that what he was watching was very genuine;
that tough luck had dropped down out of the blue Pacific sky to smack
a couple of Uncle Sam's Navy eagles. Yet he couldn't believe that was
true. Something inside of him--he didn't know what--refused to let him
believe that it was all open and aboveboard.
"Could be, could be," he muttered over and over again to himself as the
patrol started leaving the crippled plane to its rear. "Could be, yes.
But, doggone it, we're going to make sure. We've got plenty of gas,
Freddy. We can find our way back to the Indian alone. I'm turning back
and going down to have a good look at those guys. I have a feeling that
maybe they won't actually land in the water. They may--Hey! They did!
Look at them, Freddy! That pilot is swinging around toward the north
and trying to put as much distance as possible between his plane and
the rest of us."
"Yes, he's doing just that!" Freddy shouted in return. "And if I were
force landing I'd try to glide as long as I could in the direction
of possible help. But he's banking around and gliding away from the
Indian's position."
"Gliding nothing!" Dave howled, and dropped the Devastator's wing and
started swinging it around. "That engine of his is not cooked. He's
using it just enough to keep him almost level. Hang on, Freddy! We're
going to take a look at that bird, and no kidding. A close look, too. I
think it will make him mad. So keep on your toes, pal. 'Most anything
can happen now. And maybe it will!"
Freddy didn't say anything to that. He simply hung on hard and sat
tight as Dave whipped the Devastator around and stuck the nose down.
The other plane was a good ten miles away by now, and fast becoming not
much more than a small smudge of black silhouetted against the blue
water. Holding the plane steady, Dave took time out to twist his head
around and stare back at the rest of the patrol. He wondered if the
Section Leader, seeing two planes dropping out of formation, would get
curious himself. But whether or not the Section Leader was curious, he
made no attempt to quit his other planes and turn back also. The patrol
kept on drilling southward.
Turning front again, Dave instantly picked up the other Devastator.
And as he did so his heart leaped in his chest, and the blood began
to pound through his veins. Smoke had stopped spewing from the engine
exhaust. The plane had even stopped gliding. As a matter of fact, it
was on even keel, and racing northward at full throttle not more than
three or four thousand feet above the surface of the Pacific. That
fact alone told Dave that after eight days and eight nights the gods
of war had decided to give Freddy and him a real break. He knew, just
as though a voice were shouting it in his ears, that the pilot of that
Devastator thundering northward was in the pay of the Axis. And for
some reason he felt equally sure that the Devastator's gunner was of
the same breed.
One thing that had puzzled him ever since Colonel Welsh had told of the
double murder aboard the Aircraft Carrier Indian was whether one man or
two had taken part in that gruesome affair. He had believed it was two
for the reason that if there had been just one man, he would have been
unable to kill both of the Indian's officers before one of them jumped
him, or tried to, at least. And both had been shot right between the
eyes. That fact, and other bits of reasoning, had led him to believe
all along--though he had not spoken of it to Freddy Farmer--that they
were after two Axis spies, not just one.
And as he sent the Devastator rocketing downward and to the north, he
felt more convinced than ever that such was the truth.
"I could be wrong," he grunted softly as he kept his eyes fixed
steadfastly on the other plane, "but I don't think so. Nope, I don't
think so."
"Dave!" Freddy's voice suddenly screamed in his ear again. "Look to
starboard and ahead, on the horizon line. I think I spot smoke from the
funnel of some surface ship. Can you see it, too?"
Dave tore his gaze from the plane ahead and stared hard in the
direction of the English youth's pointed finger. But all he could see
was an endless expanse of blue water across which the shadows of coming
night were beginning to steal. Where the water met the sky was little
more than a blurred line to him. If there was smoke from a surface
ship on that horizon line, he couldn't see it. However, many times had
Freddy Farmer's eagle, X-ray eyes picked up things before he did. And
so his heart began to dance about in his chest with wild excitement.
And for the umpty-umpth millionth time he experienced that familiar
eerie sensation at the back of his neck that seemed always to come to
him when trouble and danger were in the offing.
"You sure, Freddy?" he called out. "I can't see a darn thing. It's all
just horizon line to me."
"I'm not dead sure, but pretty sure," his pal replied. "It looks to
me like--Yes, I _am_ dead sure, Dave. That is smoke, a lot of it,
from some craft that's traveling at top speed. Eastward, I think. And
look at that Devastator, Dave! He's seen it, now. Look! He's banking
northeast to intercept it. Dave! If that's smoke from a Jap warship,
then we'll know we're right!"
"I know it now!" Dave cried. "Doggone well I do. Look at that rat tear!
His engine is hitting top revs. Ten to one he's spotted us and is
trying to give us the shake. Well, he won't. Not while we've got the
altitude and can gain extra speed in a dive. Hold your hat, Freddy.
I'm going to give this power plant all she can take. And be ready with
those rear guns. He may start to get tough."
As Dave shouted the last, he jerked his head around and took a quick
sweeping glance back toward the south. There was nothing there but
darkening blue sky. Not a sign of the rest of the patrol. It had passed
on out of sight on its journey back to the Indian. Dave swallowed
impulsively and turned front again. His heart had stopped bouncing
around. It had become a cold lump that hung suspended in his chest.
Any faint hope that he might have help with whatever was ahead had
passed out of the picture. Just Freddy and he were left. It was up to
them to finish the job they had started so long ago. How long ago,
anyway? A week, a month, or ten years? It seemed even longer than that
since that man reading the book in the room with the pails and mops had
told them to go on into Colonel Welsh's secret offices. But how long
ago it was didn't matter now. Freddy and he had come to the end of the
trail. Luck, blind luck mostly, had brought them to the end of their
manhunt. But blind luck, or very clever brainwork, what difference?
Down there and ahead was a Navy torpedo bomber streaking north and east
to cut across the bow of some surface vessel. An American vessel? Not a
chance. It had to be Jap. And Dave was ready to bet his life that it
was.
He could see the trail of smoke now. And Freddy had been right. It was
coming from a surface ship with engines turning over at top speed.
Perhaps it was a Jap destroyer, or a cruiser, or even possibly one of
Nippon's big battle wagons. He didn't know. The ship was still down
below the horizon line. But she was traveling, and traveling plenty
fast.
"There go his torpedo and bombs!" Freddy Farmer suddenly shouted. "That
means he has spotted us and dumped his load to pick up all the speed
he could. He's our man, Dave. He's our man. And I'll bet you all the
pounds Sterling in England that that's a Jap ship he's trying to reach.
Blast the dirty beggars. We can't let him get away with it, Dave. We
just can't. Not now."
"Shut up and sit tight!" Dave snapped, and jammed the palm of his
free hand against the already wide open throttle, as though in so
doing he might get even more speed out of the thundering engine in
the Devastator's nose. "He won't if we can possibly prevent it. We're
gaining on him, and I think he knows it. Look! See the pilot turning
around and looking back? And, Freddy, that bird in the rear pit is
unlimbering his guns! Get set, but be sure they fire the first shots.
We've got to make sure, Freddy, right up until there's no doubt about
it at all."
Even as Dave shouted the words, he slid his hand up the control
stick and snapped off the safety guard over the little red button
he pressed to fire his guns. The first tingling thrill and heart
chilling excitement was gone now. He felt perfectly cool, and calm,
and collected. No, it wasn't because he was any superman with nerves
of steel that no power on earth could break. It was simply that he
had flown straight into danger too many times to go all haywire and
jittery. This, you might say, was old stuff to Freddy and him. They had
been through it in France, and in England, and in Libya, and over the
broad Atlantic, and out in the Far East. A thousand times they had gone
hurtling into sky battle. And after that many times you get used to
taking it in stride.
And so with measured movements he prepared himself for battle, if
battle was to come. And that battle was to come seemed just as certain
as that night was to come. And soon.... Soon? Just about four split
seconds later he knew definitely that engines were going to whine
under strain of violent aerial combat maneuvers, and that machine
guns were going to crackle and yammer all over that Pacific sky. He
knew it because the plane ahead and still below his altitude suddenly
veered sharply to the left, and pulled its nose up and around in a wing
screaming power zoom. And almost at the same instant Freddy's shouting
voice told Dave that he, too, knew the battle was about to begin.
"The blighter knows he can't shake us off!" the English youth cried.
"Realizes we have the altitude, and can come down for a cold meat shot,
if we want to. And he knows we will if that ship turns out to be Jap.
And it is a cinch it is. Right-o, Dave! As I recall, that chap's a
pukka pilot. Name's Miller, isn't it?"
"That's what we called him!" Dave replied as he tried in vain to
remember the face of the Devastator's pilot. "And his gunner is named
Kaufman, I think. Miller and Kaufman! I wonder how they spell their
real German names. I--Here he comes. And shooting! That tears it,
Freddy! He's opened fire. So it's for keep, now."
"Get after him, Dave!" Freddy screamed. "Get in close and let me at the
beggar. Bash me, will he? I fancy not again he won't!"
Like a battle grey comet gone completely haywire, the other Devastator
came tearing up and around, guns blazing as its pilot tried to cut in
under Dave and drill the belly of his ship. But he didn't even come
close. Dave held his plane in its roaring dive just long enough to let
fly with a single withering blast at the zooming ship; then he flung
over hard on one wing, and went curving around and up himself to hold
the advantage of his altitude. As he swung around, he heard Freddy
Farmer's rear pit guns chatter. He jerked his head and took a quick
look, and laughed out loud. Freddy's burst had obviously been too close
for comfort, for the other pilot was kicking out of his zoom and off to
the other side in a hurry.
"Atta boy, Freddy!" Dave yelled, and hauled his Devastator about in the
opposite direction. "Shoot his pants off, but save the coat and vest
for me. Let him--"
Dave cut the rest off short as he happened to glance back at Freddy.
The English youth had dropped hold of his guns and was staring
wide-eyed toward the north. Dave checked the question on his lips and
shot a quick look in that direction himself. What he saw made his heart
zoom up to bang hard against his back teeth, and stick there!