have a very strong feeling that it is the truth. Look at the facts,
Dave. They had a pretty good idea that we knew where our task force was.
They figured that we would head straight for it if we ever got our hands
on a plane. Fact is, Dave, they knew we'd do just that because they
_heard_ us talking about it!"
"What?" Dawson exploded. "Heard us? What in thunder are you raving
about?"
Freddy Farmer made a little impatient motion with one hand and leaned
farther forward.
"Look, Dave," he said, "right after you went to town on that Sasebo he
said something to that other Jap. The other Jap answered him. Then
Sasebo nodded, and spoke again. And _then_, with not so much as a how do
you do, or why, we were taken back to that empty cabin. There we talked
over our plans of how we might manage an escape. We agreed to give it a
good try, and then what happens? Everything works out as smooth as can
be. We're not stopped, an aircraft is in take-off position practically
waiting for us, and not a shot is fired at us from any of the task force
ships. But now two things we didn't count on pop up. One, neither of us
can raise Admiral Jackson's task force because the speaker units have
been removed from both sets. And, two, three faster Jap Zeros are
trailing us, and making no effort to catch up! Why? Because they hope
for _us to lead them_ to Jackson's force. Then they can send the news
back to Sasebo, and shoot us down. As the saying goes, old thing, dead
men tell no tales. Sasebo will know where Jackson is, but Jackson won't
know where Sasebo is. And knowing _where_ the other chap is, so that you
can sneak up on him in surprise, is half the battle with aircraft
carrier task forces, you see?"
"That much, yes," Dawson replied with a frown. "Yes, you're selling me
a fair load of goods, Freddy. But there's one thing you haven't
explained. How in thunder did they _hear_ us chewing over what we were
going to do? Answer me that?"
"I can't prove it, unless you want to take us back to that Jap carrier!"
the English youth replied in an exasperated tone. "But I'd bet anything
on it. And I'm amazed that you haven't thought of it yet!"
"Okay, wonderful one!" Dawson growled. "Folks call me Dummy Dawson. So
be big-hearted, and tell me the answer."
"A _dictograph_, of course!" Freddy snapped at him. "A dictograph put in
that empty cabin while we were having our little chat-chat with Sasebo.
Or maybe the confounded thing was hidden there all along. But it must
have been a dictograph, and--and the beggars made all the arrangements
_we_ wanted!"
Dawson didn't say anything. He just sat stiff and straight as though he
had been shot. Then he gasped, and clapped his free hand to his
forehead.
"So help me, the guy must be right!" he mumbled. "The guy _must be
right!_ A dictograph as sure as the earth grows little apples. And me
thinking that _we'd_ pulled off something very bright. Holy smoke! We
really are in a jam now, Freddy!"
"Quite!" the English youth replied, and glanced back over his shoulder.
"If we lead those Zero pilots to within sight of Admiral Jackson's
force, it might result in a terrible thing. Just the exact opposite of
what we really want to do. And that's why those devils are hanging back
up there, Dave, instead of coming down to do us in. They are going to
follow us until Jackson's force is sighted. Then the beggars _will_ come
down, no fear!"
"What now, what now?" Dawson mumbled helplessly, and stared back at the
Jap Zeros himself. "If we let them trail us to Jackson's position, who
knows what may come of it? And if we lead them in the wrong direction,
we'll run out of gas eventually, and be forced to sit down in the water.
Then Jackson will not know that Sasebo's force is moving down on
Guadalcanal by a roundabout course. And Jackson will not know that
Sasebo _knows_ about the attempt to take Guadalcanal and Tulagi.
Jeepers! A choice of two things, and both bad!"
[Footnote B: _Dave Dawson With The Flying Tigers._]
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
_Dead Wings_
For another fifteen minutes Dawson stuck to the course he was flying and
battled desperately with the problem of _which_ of the two bad choices
he should make. One moment he was in favor of leading the Zeros as close
to Jackson's approximate position as he dared, and then jumping them and
shooting them down. But in the next moment he would tell himself that
that was like hoping for the moon on a silver platter. And what's more,
it was a completely nutty idea for the very reason that neither Freddy
nor he knew the _exact_ location of Jackson's force. They could only
figure out approximately where it was. For that reason they might well
stumble on it by accident and the Japs sight it just as clearly as they
did. And if that should happen, and he should wheel around to shoot
them down, they could indeed give him the horse laugh. They had only to
bank around and open their throttles wide, and the MK-11 would never
catch them in a hundred years.
And so, with that decided, he would promptly consider the second bad
choice. That of leading the Zeros in a direction that wouldn't even come
close to the Yank aircraft carrier task force, and then sitting down in
the water when the fuel was used up. As a matter of fact, the Zeros
would be out of fuel long before then. So maybe the choice of leading
the Zeros on a crazy wild goose chase out across the vast reaches of the
Southwest Pacific was a good one to make.
"But, doggone it, no!" Dawson argued with himself. "Freddy and I knew
something that can mean plenty to Colonel Welsh and Admiral Jackson. And
to the forces attacking Guadalcanal, too. We've just _got_ to get that
information through, somehow. And that's all there is to it, darn it!"
Yes, that's all there was to it, darn it! Except for the one ever
tantalizing word. The word _how_. How to shake off the trailing Jap
Zeros? How to find Jackson's task force, wherever it was? How to do
this? And how to do that? Dawson groaned in bitter anguish and pressed
one clenched fist against his forehead, as though in so doing he might
force open some little door in his brain, and find out all the correct
answers. It didn't work out that way, however. And then, eventually, he
felt Freddy Farmer tapping him on the shoulder and heard his pal's voice
in his ear.
"I say, Dave, old thing, I just thought of something. Maybe we can go
these beggars one better, in spite of them, and come out on top, you
know."
Dawson twisted around in the seat, and made a little impatient gesture.
"Then for cat's sake spill it!" he cried. "I've thought my brain ragged,
but no soap. Have you really figured up an idea? Shoot it to me quick,
pal."
"It's a wild chance, Dave, but I think we've got to take it," the
English youth began. "First place, we can't lead these Zeros to
Jackson's force. Also, we just can't lead them any old place until we
run out of fuel. That would simply be the end of us, and Admiral Jackson
would be none the wiser, see?"
"Of course I see!" Dawson growled as the English youth paused for
breath. "I figured all that out for myself years ago. So what? Have you
got anything better?"
"I think so," Freddy came right back at him. "Port Moresby in New
Guinea, Dave. We still hold Port Moresby. There's a big air base there.
And, of course, a radio station. If we can reach Port Moresby we can get
them to flash what information we know to Admiral Jackson. At least we
can give the alarm that Sasebo's force knows of the Guadalcanal attack,
and will probably try to do something about it. That way, at least, the
Guadalcanal forces won't be caught by surprise. Also they'll be on the
alert in Northern Australia in case Sasebo does go all the way down
there. But the big point is, Dave, these Zeros back there couldn't
possibly reach Port Moresby with the fuel they carry."
Dawson thought that over for a moment or two. Then he nodded his head
and grinned at Freddy.
"Brains the guy really has got!" he cried. "Take a bow, Freddy. I think
you've hit the solution right on the old head. It'll be touch and go
whether even we can reach Port Moresby from here. But it's a cinch those
Zeros never will. Then, too, when they see us head south they may think
we're heading for Jackson's force, and figure that Jackson must be on
patrol off the New Guinea coast, which he isn't. Yup! Take a bow,
Freddy. But it's going to be close. Plenty close. Just the same,
though, there's another little thing in our favor. The time of day,
Freddy!"
"What's that?" the English-born air ace echoed, and looked puzzled.
"The time of day, or I should say night," Dave told him, and jerked his
head westward. "In about an hour it's going to be plenty dark. If we
haven't shaken them off our tails by then, we can certainly do it in the
darkness. And who knows, maybe then we can change course again and find
Jackson sometime around dawn. There's nine hours gas in this air buggy,
at least. So maybe everything will be okey-doke after all."
"Well, anyway, turn south, Dave, and let's keep our fingers crossed,"
Freddy Farmer grunted.
Dave winked, gave Freddy the old two-finger V-for-victory sign, and
banked the MK-11 around until he was headed due south. True, his
navigation depended only on the compass. And a Jap compass at that.
However, he felt sure that if he kept on heading as he was going now he
would eventually hit some part of the New Guinea coast. And that would
be good enough. He'd find Port Morseby soon afterward, or--
"Or bust a wing in the attempt!" he finished the thought grimly.
And so, southward went the Mitsubishi MK-11. And southward, also,
trailed the three Jap Zeros no more than two miles behind, and some four
or five thousand feet higher up in the air. And for an hour the picture
remained the same. There was nothing to be seen below but the rolling
endless swells of that part of the Southwest Pacific. And in the air the
three Jap Zeros tagging doggedly along. Ten thousand times, at least,
Dawson twisted around for a squint at those trailing Zeros. And ten
thousand times, too, he glanced at the last glow of the sun's rays that
tinted the western heavens, and at the shadows of night racing up out of
the east.
Soon, now, night would come with a rush as it always did in that part of
the world. Soon darkness would be all about the MK-11, and he and Freddy
Farmer could lose those trailing Zeros. Soon--
But at that exact moment he heard Freddy's wild cry of alarm and felt
the English youth's fist thump down on his shoulder.
"Here they come, Dave!" Freddy cried. "Here come the blighters, blast
them!"
Dawson instantly twisted around in the seat, and just as quickly cold
fear clutched at his heart. It was true enough. The three Zeros had
suddenly speeded up. But, more than that, they were coming down in a
dive straight for the MK-11. One look at the way those Zeros were piling
down and Dawson knew that one of two guesses was true. And possibly
both. The Zero pilots had decided that the two youths planned to shake
them off in the darkness, after leading them astray. Or else they
figured that the American carrier force was due south, and that they
could finish off their "unsuspecting victims" and use the rest of the
gas in their tanks to get back to their own carrier. It was one or the
other, and maybe both. But down they came, anyway, and a spell of cold,
helpless fear was Dawson's.
"Get set with your rear guns, Freddy!" he called out sharply. "I should
have figured this. Those rats are tired of playing around, and I've got
a hunch they're going to do something about it. Something not so good
for us."
"I think so, too!" the English youth called back. "But let them try it,
blast them. Frankly, I'm blessed well fed up with being tagged around.
So let the blighters come. We'll fight them, if we have to. Jolly well
right, we'll fight them!"
The words that poured from Freddy Farmer's lips were better than a tonic
to Dawson. The cold fear left him at once, and instead he was filled
with a fierce determination. Right! Let those Zeros pile down and get
tough. He, too, was fed up with being pushed and shoved and tagged
around. Doggone it, it seemed years since he had let fly with any
bullets at the Japs. The last time had been as that Air Transport
Command plane was approaching the Australian coast from India. Heck,
yes! Since then they hadn't done a darn thing for their country. On the
contrary, they'd been shot up, shot down, and kicked around by the Japs.
So okay. If it was to be a scrap, then that would be fine, and nuts to
the odds against them!
With a silent savage nod for emphasis, Dawson twisted around and
squinted at the Jap Zeros for the umpty-umpth time. They were down
almost on a level with the MK-11, and while two of them remained in
wingtip to wingtip formation, the third Zero speeded up and came up
abreast of the MK-11. Dawson stared at it narrow-eyed, ready to
out-maneuver the Jap if he tried any smart stuff. And it was then he saw
the helmeted figure in the pit put his radio mike to his lips, and
motion with his free hand to Dawson to switch on his receiving set. For
a couple of split seconds the Yank air ace stared in amazement. Then he
snapped out of his trance and impulsively knocked up the switch of his
receiving set in the front pit, and pulled the earphones down over his
head.
For a brief instant or two he heard nothing but the hum of the set
warming up, and a little blast of static. And then he almost jumped out
of the pit with surprise as he clearly heard the voice of the huge Jap
who had been their "escort" back on the enemy carrier.
"Turn around and come with us, please!" came the astonishing demand.
"Turn around at once, and return with us, please, or we will shoot you
down into the water. I am warning you. You cannot escape. Turn around,
and come back with us at once, please!"
Dawson turned around, right enough. His head, and _not_ the plane. He
looked at Freddy, wide-eyed.
"Well, what do you know!" he cried. "And what a hope that guy has. You
heard him, Freddy?"
The English youth nodded, and yanked his own headphones off.
"Jolly well right, I heard the beggar!" he cried angrily. "And here's
our answer to him. Get set, Dave!"
As Freddy shouted the last he grabbed his rear guns and fired a defiant
burst straight over the wings of the Zero. He could very easily have
slammed that burst straight into the Zero, but that would have been Jap
stuff, and he couldn't bring himself to sink that low, regardless of the
seriousness of the situation.
"There's your answer, you dirty blighter!" he howled as the Jap pilot
almost turned his plane inside out in a frantic effort to get away.
"There's your answer, blast you!"
The English youth shouted more things, but Dawson didn't wait to listen
and admire. He had twisted back front and was sticking the MK-11 through
a vicious half-roll to throw off the aim of the two Zero pilots behind
flying wingtip formation. And it was the perfect maneuver in such a
case, too. He did throw the two pilots off and caused them to open fire
a split second too late so that tracers from their guns cleared the top
of the twisting MK-11 by several feet.
"Catch them Freddy, catch them, kid!" Dawson bellowed as he hauled the
wing screaming MK-11 up out of its mad dive. "Nail one of the tramps,
and make it that much less uneven, kid!"
Maybe the English youth heard, and maybe he didn't. Maybe he had that
idea all along. At any rate, his guns hammered out their chattering
note, and Dawson saw one of the Zeros seem to stagger and stumble in
the air. By then he had brought the MK-11 around and up so that he could
bring his own guns to bear. He stabbed the electric trigger button, and
a great shout of joy burst from his lips as the staggering Zero suddenly
became a ball of fire that hung motionless in midair for a split second
and then fell down into the water, leaving behind a trail of oily black
smoke.
Neither Dave, nor Freddy Farmer, however, took time out to watch the
Zero flame downward to its finish. They still had a two to one fight on
their hands, _and_ against two planes that could fly rings around their
MK-11. They had been lucky and had caught one of the Japs with his
"flaps down," so to speak, but the other two were not going to be so
easy. As a matter of fact, it seemed to Dawson that he had hardly
slammed the death burst into that first Jap before one of the others was
wheeling in at him broadside, despite the withering fire from Freddy
Farmer's guns. The MK-11 shook and trembled as it was hit in a dozen
different places. And suddenly Dawson felt as though he had been clipped
in the chest by the tip of a spinning prop. Every bit of air was knocked
out of his lungs, and black and red spots began to whirl and dance
around before his eyes. Then, suddenly, the spots disappeared, and save
for a dull ache in his chest he was all right again.
All right? He laughed harshly as that thought flashed through his brain.
All right? Sure, except for the minor detail that the two Jap Zero
pilots were maneuvering about to "box" the MK-11 in a deadly and fatal
cross-fire. Yes, sure, he was all okay save for that minor little
detail.
"Give it to them, Dave! Don't let the blighters get away with it! Fly
their confounded wings off, blast them!"
The words had come from Freddy's lips, but as far as Dave Dawson was
concerned they were just a waste of breath. He was well aware of the two
Zeros closing in for a cross-fire attack. And he was well aware of the
fact that he'd have to just about fly the wings off the Zeros in order
to skip free of this air trap. As a matter of fact, the only thing he
could possibly do was to play a long shot; to take a one in a million
chance, and pray as he had never before prayed in his life. Take a long
shot chance, and pray.
"Hold tight, Freddy!" he shouted. "I'm going to twist this baby plenty.
I--"
He cut off the rest of what he was shouting because his chest was filled
with sharp pains again, and his lungs felt as though they were
breathing liquid fire. It suddenly seemed to take every ounce of his
strength to move the control stick, and to kick on rudder. But somehow
he managed it, and he sent the MK-11 curving upward and around toward
the Zero on his left. And at the same time Freddy Farmer let fly with
his guns at the Zero on the right. Dawson's Jap saw him coming and,
rather than chance the full fury of the Yank's fire, he pulled off and
upward. In that same split second Dawson steeled himself to the effort,
slammed the stick over, booted opposite rudder and brought the MK-11
around and up in the opposite direction. In other words he cut off his
expected attack on the first Zero to cut in up at the Zero on the other
side. As a result of that double maneuver, which was carried through
with split-second accuracy, he not only broke up the two Zero plane
attack, but forced each Jap pilot to careen upward and away.
Too late the two Japs realized what was going to happen. Instead of both
charging straight in on the MK-11, they both were streaking straight at
one another! Both Japs saw that a midair crash was about to take place,
and both frantically tried to swerve off into the clear. And perhaps
they might have succeeded if it hadn't been for the deadly aim of Freddy
Farmer. The English youth's guns snarled out their song, and one of the
Jap pilots was stone dead before he could turn off into the clear. And
his failure to do so spilled the beans for the other Jap. He couldn't
check his plane in time, and he flew straight into the other faltering
Zero.
To Dawson's ears, and to Freddy Farmer's, came the loud crashing sound
as the two high speed planes met about three hundred feet above the
MK-11. And then the whole sky seemed to be filled with seething flame.
Dawson cried out in impulsive alarm and slammed the nose of his
two-seater downward. Glancing back up over his shoulder, he saw the mass
of exploding flame that enveloped the two Zeros. Then there was even a
louder explosion, and the air was filled with falling slivers of flame.
Choking and gasping from the effort it caused him, Dawson hauled the
MK-11 out of its mad dive at about wave crest height and flew, level
while red and black dots danced around before his eyes again, and dull,
throbbing pain flowed through his chest.
"Nice, Dave!" he heard Freddy Farmer calling to him. "That was the most
perfect maneuver I ever saw. Man! Did you fool those two beggars. It was
absolutely wonderful."
"I'll just take half the credit, kid!" Dawson forced himself to call
back. "But for that sweet shooting of yours the stunt might not have
worked. And--Oh, for gosh sakes!"
Dave gasped out the last as he happened to glance at the instrument
panel. One of the bursts of bullets from one of the Zeros had made a
shambles of the instrument board. And the compass in particular was just
a heap of junk. With the compass gone they would have to depend entirely
upon celestial navigation. In other words, any hope they might have of
continuing on to find Admiral Jackson's task force was completely gone.
Because of the milling around in the fight they had, of course, lost all
track of their exact position. And they would have to know their
position exactly in order to set a true course for the area where they
believed the Yank task force to be. And without the aid of the compass
they wouldn't be able to hold to a true course, even if they could plot
one. And so there was but one thing to do. They at least could tell the
direction of south. And somewhere south of them was New Guinea with the
Yank-held base at Port Morseby. So south it had to be, and in no other
direction.
"Blast their good shooting!" Dave heard Freddy's voice close behind him,
and knew that the English youth was looking at what had happened to the
compass. "Well, south it is then, Dave. It'll be dark in no time, now.
And at least we can tell true south from the stars. But, after all,
we're blasted lucky. So I guess we can't kick much, what?"
Dawson nodded, and dragged air into his lungs. The pain of it caused him
to wince slightly, silently. But he managed to speak the words.
"Go south, I always say," he grunted. "But keep the old fingers crossed,
Freddy. And don't forget the praying, either. We haven't got the Japs to
worry about any more, thank God. But we have got an awful lot of ocean
to consider. And--yeah--a plane that maybe won't quite make it.
"Rot, Dave!" Freddy snapped at him. "You're talking like an old woman.
Come off it. We'll make it, you'll see. Blast it, Dave, we've just got
to!"
"Check, kid, check!" Dawson mumbled. "We've just got to make it, and
how!"
And with a half-nod for emphasis he unconsciously put his free hand to
his throbbing chest.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
_Flight's End_
Darkness, and more darkness, and even more darkness. Constantly,
forever, and eternally. And with it all the monotonous, nerve-pounding
drone of the engine in the nose of the Mitsubishi. Ten million times it
was all Dawson could do to refrain from screaming his head off, and
diving right out of the plane into the black night air. It was the same
minute after minute, and hour after hour. It was almost more than
Dawson, in his condition, could bear. And as the night dragged on and
on, tiny little fears began to mount up in the Yank air ace.
It had been but a few minutes after the three to one air scrap when the
Southwest Pacific night had arrived with a swoop and a rush, and closed
in on all sides. However, as though the gods were favoring those two
youths a little, there were no clouds in the night sky. Above and
stretching far off to all the horizons was a solid canopy of glittering
and winking stars. And so it had been but a simple matter to plot a
course south by the stars, allowing for a slight correction either way.
And so they had headed south at cruising throttle, and with a solemn,
fervent prayer in their hearts that after the seven hours of darkness in
that part of the world would come dawn and the definite knowledge that
they were within sight of the New Guinea coast. Both realized that then
would begin the most difficult part of the long flight. Though
MacArthur's troops and planes were hammering hard at the Japs, the
devils from the Land of the Rising Sun still held most of New Guinea.
And, frankly speaking, the two youths could expect more trouble before
they sat down on the Yank-held base at Port Moresby.
However, they had won out so far, and against great odds, so there was
more than a little joy in their hearts as they went winging south. For a
long time they chatted back and forth about this and that for no other
reason than the pleasure of companionship. Eventually, though, they ran
out of words, and save for a short sentence now and then they both
remained silent.