CHAPTER EIGHT

Sergeant Hale Counted Aloud Through the Interphone

BR-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R!

With a chattering roar that cut through the engines’ thunder,Rosy’snose, top turret, and side guns went into action. From the squadron’s .50-caliber machine guns burst a storm of white tracer bullets. These mingled briefly with the fire of the diving enemy. Then most of the Zeros were below the flying forts.

Rosy O’Grady’sbelly turret opened up, followed by Tony Romani’s fire from the “stinger” turret in the tail. As it ceased, the thought came to Barry Blake: “We’ve knocked them out of the sky! I thought those Japs were tough fighters, but this was like shooting clay pigeons. There’s nothing in sight but three Zeros torching down below—”

A slamming explosion jarred the fuselage. Then the side gun manned by Curly Levitt chattered harshly. Out of the corner of his eye, Barry saw the nearest Fortress stagger out of place in the V.

“Pilot from top gunner!” Soapy Babbitt’s report came through the phones. “Turret damaged by enemy shells. Machine guns still fire, but can’t aim.”

“Are you hurt, Soapy?” the Old Man asked.

“My left shoulder won’t work right,” came Babbitt’s reply. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll keep watch for more diving Zeros.”

“Ready, Blake!” O’Grady spoke sharply. “Watch your throttles—we’re nearing our targets now.”

FLYING WRECKAGE

Barry glued his eyes to the r.p.m. indicator. He forced his nerves to ignore the antiaircraft shells that burst closer and closer. This was the big moment of the whole raid—when the bombs were about to plummet down.

Cold air from the open bomb-bay doors rushed into the big ship’s belly. There came the welcome whistle of a falling bomb; then another, and another. A moment afterward the harbor of Rabaul swept beneath. It was out of sight before Barry could spot the bomb hits.

KRANG!

An antiaircraft burst rocked the big bomber like a cradle. Her right inboard engine sputtered and quit. Looking out at the wing, Barry glimpsed a jagged shrapnel hole in the cowling. He glanced to the left. Another Fortress had been hit. She was falling out of formation.

“Never mind, boys,Rosy O’Gradycan toddle home all right on three engines,” the Old Man declared. “All you’ve got to do is to smack down every Zero you see....”

“Here come three of ’em, straight down at us!”yelped Soapy Babbitt from the jammed top turret. “If only I could aim these guns!”

“Maybe a Jap will cross your sights, Soapy!” the Old Man grunted, as he reefed back on the wheel. “I’ll try to give Hale a shot.”

Rosy’snose came up. Her forward guns cut loose at the trio of diving planes. One spun away, smoking; another changed direction. The third kept coming, with his tracer bullets feeling for the Flying Fortress. When they touched her the Jap pilot pulled the trigger of his cannon.

A stunning blast threw Barry hard against his safety belt. Something—it felt like a hard-thrown baseball—struck his head. He felt himself falling into a black void.

Someone was shaking him, none too gently. A voice, Curly Levitt’s, pierced through his dulled consciousness.

“Wake up, Barry! Wake up and take over these controls before I have to,” the navigator was repeating in his ear. “The Old Man is out cold—ripped by that shell.”

Barry made a desperate effort. It was like struggling against gravity, but he won. His eyes cleared. The plane was flying on a fairly level keel, thanks to Curly’s hand on the wheel, but something was very wrong. The Old Man....

One look at O’Grady’s crumpled form drove the last of the fog out of Barry’s head. The captain’s leftarm was missing below the elbow. A handkerchief tourniquet had stopped the worst bleeding, but there were other wounds on his left side and leg. He was mercifully unconscious.

The bomber’s machine guns were still firing, by fits and starts, but only two engines were still functioning. The other Fortresses were nowhere in sight. Two Zero fighters were coming head-on into Sergeant Hale’s fire....

These impressions took barely three seconds for Barry to absorb. He gripped the wheel hard, setting his teeth against the pain in his head.

“Thanks, Curly,” he gritted. “You tend to the Old Man.... With two good engines even a dumb co-pilot ought to getSweet Rosy O’Gradyhome okay.”

“Good man!” Curly exclaimed, as he turned to the captain. “I’ll fix up your scalp wound later. Just fly southwest until I get a chance to figure our exact position.”

One of the Zeros that had been heading forRosy’snose was now falling, with a trail of black smoke. The other had swooped past. Barry heard one of the side guns firing, then a burst from the belly turret.

“Got him!” came Cracker Jackson’s grunt in the radiophones.

Barry eased back on the wheel and found that his crippled Fortress could still gain a little altitude. Cold air still poured in from the open bomb doors;a chunk of flak must have damaged the jacks that raised them. Barry began calling the turrets one by one to learn of any further damage.

Aside from a shell hole through the rudder and countless bullet holes, there was none worth mentioning. Best of all, the sky seemed to be clear of enemy fighters.

The pain in Barry’s head was easier. His brain functioned more clearly with each minute that passed. From the crew’s reports he made a rough calculation of the Jap planes shot down.

About thirty fighters had attacked the bomber formation as they approached Rabaul. Thirteen Zeros had been shot down at the cost of one Fortress. The eleven remaining bombers had laid their eggs with perfect accuracy on the docks and ships, and flown on. The Zeros, already decimated, had hung around just out of range. WhenRosyfell behind, with one engine damaged by antiaircraft fire, the Japs had jumped on her like wolves.

Seventeen Zero fighters against one crippled Boeing—and the Fortress had won out! Nine of the Japs had torched down. The others had turned back to their home base.

Barry’s heart swelled with pride in the great ship and the fighting crew of which he was a member. Except for that last shell hit....

A glance at the slumped figure of Tex O’Grady sobered him. Curly Levitt had finished bandagingthe captain, and Fred Marmon was helping to lift him out of his seat. The two men lugged their wounded pilot back toward the tail and laid him down, wrapped in their coats.

“What are the Old Man’s chances?” the young co-pilot asked, as the navigator returned.

“It’s hard to tell how deep those shell fragments in his side have gone,” Curly answered. “He’s lost a lot of blood, too. All we can do now is hope.... Hold steady, now, while I swab out that cut in your scalp—oh-oh! I can feel something there.”

“So can I!” grunted Barry. “Take it easy, fella!”

Curly’s fingers touched the cut again, cautiously. Barry felt a stabbing twinge.

“There it is, Mister!” the navigator shouted. “A bit of shrapnel as big as my thumbnail. If your head weren’t solid bone, as I’ve always suspected, we’d be minus a co-pilot.”

He held the scrap of jagged metal in front of Barry’s nose for a second, then stuck it in his pocket.

“When you tie it up, be sure to leave the bone in,” Barry answered with a grin. “When this war is over you can get yourself a nice job in a butcher shop. It would just suit your rough-and-ready style.”

“That’s base ingratitude!” Curly retorted, applying the bandage. “I hope Soapy Babbitt is more appreciative when I fix him up. He got a smashed shoulder when the top turret was wrecked.”

As Curly left him, the full weight of his responsibilitysettled upon Barry’s mind. Had the Old Man been at the controls,Rosy O’Grady’scrippled condition would not have worried him particularly. If it were possible to bring a ship home on only one engine, Barry would have trusted his captain to do it.

Now, however, both the wounded plane and her wounded crew depended on him. With little more than training school experience, could he land them safely? As he struggled against such fears, Fred Marmon’s voice sounded in his ears.

“I’ve got bad news for you, Lieutenant,” the engineer announced. “The same burst of flak that jammed the bomb doors washed out the electrical system. Your landing flaps won’t work and your wheels won’t come down. Looks like we’ll all have to bail out and letRosycrash.”

Barry’s first feeling was one of relief. Now, at least, he wouldn’t have to risk the lives of everybody aboard, landing a shot-up plane on a jungle field. But, wait! How about Old Man O’Grady? Even if somebody pulled the chute’s cord for him and dumped him out, the landing would kill him. A parachute lets you down with about the same shock you’d feel if you jumped out of a second story window. A half-dead man could never survive it, even if he didn’t land in the jungle and break his back.

“You men will bail out,” Barry said into the intercom mike. “When we get near the field, strap Captain O’Grady into his own seat, and pad him withyour coats against the shock of a crackup. I’ll try to landRosyon her belly without too much of a flop. It’s the Old Man’s only chance.”

The crew got that reasoning without any trouble.

“It makes me feel like a doggone coyote!” big Danny Hale muttered, turning to look at Barry. “My great gran’daddy didn’t leave the old Alamo, when it wassuredeath to stay. I reckon if he was in my place—”

“He’d obey orders, just as you’re going to do, Danny,” Barry Blake shot back at him. “I’m in command of this plane, while the Old Man is out. You and every other member of the crew will bail out when we reach the field. That’s final!”

“I agree absolutely, except on one point,” Curly’s voice chimed in. “You’re wounded, Lieutenant. It’s a miracle that you can fly a ship at all, with the beating you’ve had. It’s no reflection on your skill—or your grit—to say that you might go dizzy at the last minute of landing, and crack up. Now, I’ve had some flight training, enough to land belly-floppers on a soft field. Therefore it’smyplace and not yours—”

“Spoken like a lawyer, Curly!” laughed the young co-pilot. “You’re a swell guy to offer, but it’s no go. So don’t argue. Just tell me when we’re nearing our base, and then help Fred bring the Old Man back to the cockpit.”

There was a little more discussion of the landing Barry would have to attempt, but nobody else protested.As soon as Soapy Babbitt was made as comfortable as he could be, the thermos jug of coffee was passed around. Barry forced himself to eat a little.

After a seemingly endless time Curly Levitt reported that he had warned the base by radio. The field would soon be in sight.

In the distance Barry recognized the New Guinea coastline. Now he picked out certain mountain landmarks that gave him the exact direction of the base.

“Bring the Old Man up front, fellows,” he said. “And then hook on your parachutes. We have about five minutes to go.”

The men worked fast. Captain O’Grady was still unconscious under the double effect of shock and the morphine that Curly had administered. The navigator and Fred Marmon handled him as tenderly as they could. The strapping was finished, and the men were back at the open bomb bay when Barry spotted the field. Big Danny Hale was gripping the zippered case that held his precious bomb-sight.

Barry tried to judge the proper moment for the first parachute jump. Twisting in the seat, he raised his hand.

Fred Marmon saluted, grinned, and dived headfirst into space. The others followed in quick succession. The bomber roared on, slowly circling the field. Far below, Barry counted six white ’chutes drifting toward the raw, brown slash in the jungle.

“They’re safe!” he murmured. “Wish I had a parachuteforSweet Rosy O’Grady, too!”

When the last ’chutist had landed, the young pilot nosed down and came in up-wind for his risky attempt. He cut the gun, fishtailed to kill speed. A Fortress’s wheels should touch the ground at ninety miles an hour, for a smooth landing; butRosycouldn’t let down her wheels. A belly landing at ninety would be an ugly mess.

At a shaky sixty m.p.h. Barry brought her in. At the last moment he let her drop. The bomb-bay doors dug into the runway, before they ripped loose. The ship bounced on her belly turret, tore an engine clean out of its mounting, and came to rest.

When the crash squad entered the cockpit,Rosy’syoung co-pilot was “out cold.” Fortunately neither he nor the Old Man had received any further hurts. A hospital-corps man jabbed a hypodermic into Barry’s arm. Sixty seconds later, both he and Captain O’Grady were being rushed on stretchers to the field’s temporary dressing station.

The next afternoon, Barry Blake woke up, feeling almost himself again. The marvelous new Army drugs had given him twenty-four hours of refreshing sleep. His head wound had been expertly cleansed, sewed and bandaged. His greatest discomfort was a gnawing appetite. He swung his legs over the edge of his cot and looked around for his clothes.

“Hold it down, Lieutenant!” the medical-corps man in charge warned him. “You’re scheduled tostay right in this hangar till tomorrow.”

“Quit woofing me, Corporal,” Barry growled. “I feel fine. And I’m so hungry my belt buckle is bumping my backbone. Did the major order you to starve me, too?”

“No, sir,” chuckled the medical man. “I’ll bring you some chow right away. It’s almost time for mess call so the cook will have it ready.”

“Wait a second!” Barry exclaimed, as the other turned to go. “Where’s Captain O’Grady, and Sergeant Babbitt? They ought to be here—”

The corporal paused in the doorway, shaking his head.

“Not here, Lieutenant,” he replied. “This place is only equipped as a field dressing station as yet. Captain O’Grady and Sergeant Babbitt were flown to Australia last night. The Captain will have a fighting chance in a real hospital, and they’ll probably save Babbitt’s arm, too.”

Barry lifted his legs back onto his bunk and relaxed. So the field doctor had given Tex O’Grady a fighting chance! That was better news than any ofRosy’screw had expected.

The medical-corps man returned with hot chow and five grinning Fortress crewmen. Fred Marmon was the first to grip Barry’s hand. Curly Levitt crowded him aside, as Danny Hale and Tony Romani and Cracker Jackson surrounded the cot. Everybody was talking at once. Out of the barrage of wisecracks,congratulations and laughter, Barry Blake got one definite impression: his crew was immensely proud of him, for making that landing and saving the life of their Old Man.

The medical corporal found difficulty in drawing Barry’s attention back to his hot chow. He succeeded at last, butRosy’syoung co-pilot was still too busy talking to know what he was eating. The six friends would have discussed the raid, the fight, and the return trip for hours, if mess call had not interrupted.

After supper, Curly Levitt returned to the dressing station. The others, he said, were needed to help set up the new equipment which had arrived during the past two days. There were electrical generators, searchlights, floodlights, antiaircraft guns, and the first units of a big repair shop. This last would take care of damaged planes landing on the field. It would have crews to bring in ships that had crashed.

“When the repair plant is running, it will probably be able to rebuildSweet Rosy O’Grady,” her navigator stated.

“I wish we could hope as much for her Old Man,” Barry sighed. “But there’s no repair shop in the world that can put a missing arm back on a pilot.”

“It will just about break his heart,” Curly agreed, rising to his feet. “I imagine that Mrs. O’Grady won’t feel too badly about having her husband back, however.... Well, here’s the doctor, come to have a look at you. That’s my signal to take off.”

NIGHT ATTACK

When Barry next saw Curly Levitt, the dapper navigator was firing a sub-machine gun at the searchlighted sky. Black parachutes were dropping toward the field, with Jap soldiers dangling beneath them. Every man on the field who could find a gun of any kind was shooting at the rain of enemies. And the Japs were firing back.

The party started with a terrific bomb barrage about midnight. The Japs evidently believed that neither aircraft detectors nor antiaircraft equipment were as yet set up. They were wrong about both. Another thing they didn’t know was that most of the living quarters, supplies, and even planes, had been moved into the jungle that fringed the field.

A few moments after the bombs started falling, the new antiaircraft batteries went into action. They caught three of the Jap bombers with their shells. In return, bombs wiped out two guns, three searchlights, and their crews. Then came the parachute troops.

There weren’t many of them—not more than fifty in all. Apparently the fire was too intense for the Jap transport planes to risk. Why these few suicidesquads were dropped remained a mystery until morning.

Barry reached the field as the first ’chutists landed. He saw a Garand rifle in the hand of a soldier who had been killed by shrapnel. The weapon, he found, was fully loaded—and unharmed. As he turned to pick a target, the field’s floodlights went on.

A dozen of the Japs lay motionless, tangled in their parachutes. The others were squirming free, or firing from bombholes with their small caliber sub-machine guns. Barry felt a bullet tug at his trouser leg; another burned the skin of his shoulder. He threw himself prone.

A Jap had just wriggled free of his chute and was diving toward a bomb crater. Barry took a snap shot at the man, and saw him collapse. He switched his aim to a hole from which the pale flames of Jap machine guns were licking like serpents’ tongues. They were firing at the floodlights, which were rapidly going out.

The shadows deepened across the bomb-torn field. Barry was sure that some of them were Japs crawling toward the jungle. He fired at the nearest. Suddenly he realized that he was trying to shoot an empty gun.

Bullets were kicking up dirt too close for comfort. Barry glanced about and spotted a convenient bomb crater. It was strange that he hadn’t noticed it before. Clutching his empty gun, he rolled into the hole.

As he reached the bottom a steely hand seized himby the throat. Instinctively his hand shot up, grasped a muscular wrist. Moonlight glinted faintly on the long knife in the hand that he had blocked.

While he struggled with both hands to wrest the weapon away, a rocket streaked up the sky. Directly overhead the flare burst, flooding everything with white light. Barry’s enemy gasped and dropped his butcher knife. He was Fred Marmon.

“Lieutenant Blake!” the redhead yelped. “Thank Heaven for that flare—I might have carved you for a Jap.”

“You mean I might have broken your arm!” retorted Barry. “Listen, Fred—if you’ve got an extra gun or a clip of ammo, let’s have it. I think those yellow snakes are heading this way.”

“I have something better,” Marmon replied. “A sack of hand grenades. I got ’em when the Japs started landing. Help yourself—”

He broke off as Barry made a lightning lunge past him with his empty rifle. A high-pitched scream rang briefly. Barry had rammed his gun-muzzle like a bayonet into the face of a crawling Jap who had reached the edge of the hole.

Another queer-shaped helmet appeared, and beside it a machine-gun’s muzzle. Barry swung his gun-butt at the weapon, knocking it aside. A split instant later Fred struck with his knife. The second Jap kicked convulsively.

“I fixed him!” the redhead muttered. “See any more, Lieutenant?”

Barry’s Enemy Gasped and Dropped His Knife

Other flares were lighting the field. Barry spotted a furtive movement in a crater thirty yards from the jungle’s edge.

“There’s a bunch that’s getting ready to break for the bush, I think,” he said. “Give me a few of your grenades.”

“Swell! We’ll both rush ’em,” Fred Marmon responded. “Here’s the bag of pineapples.... Help yourself, sir.”

Barry stuffed his pockets hastily. He kept one grenade in his hand, with his finger through the ring.

“I’ll go first,” he said shortly.

Crouching low, he sprinted toward the Japs’ bomb hole. Before he had quite reached throwing distance, the raiders saw him and opened fire. A slug glanced off his helmet. He took three more strides and flung himself flat. Behind a ten-inch-high ridge of earth he pulled the pin of his first grenade. Then, rising on one elbow, he flung it.

Five yards away he glimpsed Fred hurling another. As the second grenade landed six Japs boiled up out of the bomb crater. Two were still on the edge when the grenades went off—Barry’s in the hole; Fred’s just ahead of them.

A cheer went up from the American riflemen and machine gunners. A new storm of gunfire broke out, aimed at three or four other bomb craters.

“Come on, Fred!” Barry yelled. “We’ll clean outthe rest of the snakeholes. The boys are shooting to keep the Japs’ heads down for us.”

“Right with you, sir!” came the sergeant’s shout.

So furious was their friends’ fire that few Jap bullets came near Barry and Fred. Crouched within easy throw of the occupied craters, they flung their deadly little missiles. Some of the enemy attempted a dash for the bush, only to be cut down. Once a grenade was tossed back. It exploded in the air dangerously close to Barry. Later he found that a flying fragment had cut his cheek.

With their “pineapples” gone, the two Fortress men trotted back to the trees.

“Why didn’t I bring another bag of ’em?” the red-headed engineer wailed. “I just know there’s a few more Japs playing possum out there on the field. Only way to get ’em is to toss a grenade into every hole you can find—”

Just in front of them an antiaircraft battery went into action. The white fingers of the searchlights began combing the sky again. Between the gun reports, Barry caught the scream of a falling bomb.

“Down!” he yelled, pulling Fred to the ground beside him.

The ground erupted near them. Half dazed by the shock, the two friends started crawling. Dirt rained down on their helmets. From farther up the field came more bomb concussions.

This time the bombardment was less intense, butit lasted for half an hour. One Jap bomber followed another at irregular intervals, flying at a very high altitude. The light of a blasted and blazing gasoline truck furnished a plain target, not to mention the antiaircraft gun flames and the searchlights. Yet the Japs were so high that more bombs fell in the jungle than struck the field.

When the raid was over, Barry Blake headed for the dressing station. His injured head was pounding like a bass drum. He longed to lie down and close his eyes.

There was no place for him in the hospital tent, however. The medical officer was operating on men wounded by bomb fragments—tying off severed arteries, sewing up torn flesh, probing for shrapnel. He was stripped to the waist, covered with sweat and blood. The medical-corps men were equally busy.

Barry had no intention of getting in their way. He found some aspirin for himself, swallowed two of the pills, swabbed iodine on his cut cheek, and left. In his crew’s shelter tent he found Curly and Fred arguing about the raid. He sank down on a cot beside them.

“There’s something queer about those parachute troops,” Curly declared. “The Japs didn’t drop them just by accident. They had some very important job which only suicide squads could do. If only we knew what it was....”

“Don’t worry, sir,” said the red-haired sergeant.“They didn’t accomplish it. We’ve just searched the field and found only four live Japs. They were all wounded. Two of ’em opened fire on us and were blotted out. Number Three played dead until one of our boys tried to turn him over. Then he set off a grenade that blew both of ’em to pieces. Number Four struck with his teeth—just like a rattlesnake—and bit a medical-corps man’s cheek. He’s the only one that’s still alive.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure that they didn’t accomplish anything important,” said Curly Levitt. “A few of them may still be loose in the jungle. I have a hunch that we’ll hear from them yet.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, Curly,” Barry Blake put in. “I’m not so much worried about the few Jap parachutists that may have escaped to the bush. To be sure, they could do plenty of damage. But if immediate damage had been their purpose, we’d have had two or three times as many to fight. I have a hunch that this bombing and skirmishing on the field was just a trick to cover up some other maneuver.”

“You mean a Jap landing on the beach, sir?” asked Fred Marmon. “That thought hopped into my head, too—but it’s no good. Our boys have that coastline guarded so well that wild pigs couldn’t get through without raising an alarm. Their scouts would have brought us warning.”

“Let’s try to get a little shuteye, then,” Curly Levittyawned. “We won’t help matters by worrying or arguing all night. ’Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”

At dawn the field was roused by a third bombardment. This time it was a shelling from medium-heavy field guns. It plowed the already bombed runways until the field looked like a map of the moon’s craters. Two swift fighter planes tried to take off before the last smooth strip of ground was blown up. One of them ground-looped.

The second, by clever dodging of bomb holes, managed to take the air. Fifteen minutes later it returned, riddled with bullet holes. The pilot nosed over trying to land on the field’s least plowed end. When they pulled him out of his wrecked fighter he said that he had flown over the enemy positions at less than five hundred feet and had a pretty good look at them.

The Japs were entrenched on a grassy ridge, about 1500 feet above the field and within easy range. There were two or three hundred of them, with at least twenty pieces of artillery camouflaged in clumps of trees. Evidently they had been landed by parachute from a swarm of huge transport planes, under cover of the night attack on the air field.

“You were right about the purpose of that raid, Lieutenant Blake,” Fred Marmon admitted, as theRosy O’Grady’screw moved their tent farther into the jungle. “The Japs will make our field uselessas long as they hold that ridge. The problem is how to clean them out.”

“Better heads than ours are working on that right now,” Barry told him. “We could bomb the Jap positions with planes based at Port Moresby, for instance. Or we could bring up troops and take the ridge by assault. But neither job would be as easy as it sounds. We’ll just have to wait for the brass-hats to decide.”

The American plan did not develop for forty-eight hours. During that time a transport vessel arrived with more antiaircraft and two companies of soldiers. They were welcome additions to the field’s strength, but they did not solve the problem of the Japs’ shellfire.

On the third day after the Japs’ first raid, the field’s commandant called all his officers together. These included the air as well as the ground forces. Between the regularwhoompof bursting shells, the colonel outlined his plan of attack.

“Tomorrow,” he stated bluntly, “we shall attack the enemy position on Grassy Ridge. I should like to have had artillery here to soften up our objective, but we cannot wait for it to arrive. A surprise attack must take its place. After dark the infantry will move forward as far as possible. They will carry iron rations, and ammunition for their weapons. The attack will be at dawn.”

“How about supplies, in case the Japs aren’trouted by the first assault?” an infantry captain asked.

“In that case, our engineers will open a jeep road through the bush with bulldozers,” the commandant replied. “They’ll start in the morning, and push ahead to the steep hillside a mile and a half from Grassy Ridge. From there on we’ll have to carry all supplies by manpower, including mortars for close-in bombardment.”

“How about us fliers, Colonel?” the commanding officer of the Fortress squadron spoke up. “Do we have to loaf while even the native blacks are doing their bit? Can’t we fix up one runway while the Japs are busy ducking our shells? My boys would love a chance to smash those egg-heads with a few five-hundred-pounders.”

“You’ll probably have your chance, Captain,” the commandant smiled. “Building a road to the Ridge is the engineers’ first job; after that they’ll tackle the field. Don’t let your crews get mixed up in the ground fighting, or some ships may be short-handed when you’re ready to take off.... I think that is all for the time being, gentlemen.”

HAND TO HAND

Curly Levitt linked an arm through Barry’s as they left the commandant’s tent.

“That warning about crews joining the scrap doesn’t apply to us, does it?” he asked. “We’re short-handed already—with the Old Man and Babbitt in the hospital. Anyhow, theRosy O’Gradywon’t fly for a long time after this battle is over. We’re free to do just about what we please, aren’t we?”

“I get your point,” Barry answered with a grim smile. “You’re suggesting that the six of us form a sort of guerrilla squad and bag a few Japs on our own. Not a bad idea at all—if our squadron commander agrees. Let’s get him alone now and see what he thinks about it.”

Captain Loomis was not yet thirty years old, and next to flying a fighting ship he loved best a fight on the ground. His sympathy was easy to enlist.

“I can’t give you boys official permission to join the ground attack,” he told Barry and Curly, “but I won’t confine you to the post. If you pick up some rifles and grenades and wander off into the woods, that’s your affair. And I certainly wish you good hunting!”

“Thanks, Captain,” Barry replied as the two turned to leave. “If we find a Samurai sword in the bush, we’ll bring it back to you for a souvenir.”

The two young lieutenants found the rest of theRosy’screw at mess, and passed them the word to rendezvous in their tent. When the six were all together, Barry broached the plan.

“It’s better than sitting around and swatting mosquitoes,” he concluded. “And we know that the fight for Grassy Ridge will be tough. Six extra men might be quite a help.”

“You don’t have to sell us the idea, Lieutenant,” Fred Marmon spoke up. “After two days of taking Jap shellfire we’re all spoiling for a chance to dish it out. I know where we can get some hand grenades and side-arms tonight.”

“I know where there’s a case of tommy-guns,” said Tony Romani. “We can ‘requisition’ them, so to speak, this afternoon. And plenty of ammo, of course.”

“I’ll collect a few tin hats,” added Cracker Jackson, “and some iron rations and water canteens. Reckon you-all didn’t think of them.”

Danny Hale rose to his feet and spread his big fingers.

“If I get near enough to one of those yellow snakes,” he said slowly, “I’d like to match his jiu-jitsu tricks with an Apache wrestling hold. Anyhow, the six of us ought to have a pretty good timebefore the party’s over.”

Before supper theRosy O’Grady’screw had collected a young arsenal in their sleeping tent. It included bayonets and three sheath knives. Fred Marmon had brought six suits of green coveralls to replace their flying togs, and even some burnt cork to blacken their faces.

“We’ll have to fit a tin hat over that nice, clean bandage of yours, Lieutenant Blake,” he said. “Anything white would draw Jap bullets like a doggone magnet.... Look. If I set it on sidewise, like this, it doesn’t hurt your wound.”

“That’s fine, Fred,” Barry agreed. “I’d be cooler without the thing, but itwillturn bullets. We’re all going to have a lot more sympathy for the infantry after this masquerade.”

The attacking troops set out as soon as the tropic night had shut down. Barry Blake and his friends joined a platoon that was pushing and slashing its way through the pitch-black jungle, with the help of a few dimmed flashlights. The vine-laced growth was so dense that at high noon only a green twilight would have penetrated it. Bayonets and machetes made openings through the worst tangles. Thorn bushes fought back, raking arms and legs mercilessly. Some of the advancing units used compasses to keep them headed toward Grassy Ridge. A few of them had the help of native guides. Most, however, followed the trails opened by the advance guard.

TheRosy’screw took their turns with the machetes, cutting a path. The work, in that hot-house temperature, was exhausting. At any rate, the advancing troops had plenty of time. They reached the hill’s steep, rocky base at about midnight.

Here the word was passed to rest for an hour. Mosquito headnets were donned; emergency rations were opened. Weary, and sweating at every pore, the men stretched themselves out in such level spaces as they could find by groping on the damp ground.

Fred Marmon complained that the mosquitoes liked his blood better than that of any man in the Army. He declared that more of them were gathering from all over New Guinea, as the news spread.

“If they suck me to death,” he groaned, “dig a hole and bury my carcass quick so it won’t draw any more of them. Enough of these flying siphons could wipe out the whole company.”

Big Danny Hale also suffered aloud. He declared that the only difference between New Guinea mosquitoes and Zero fighting planes was that the bugs didn’t need an airfield. In size and poison, he insisted, they were about equal.

At the end of the hour, word was passed to start climbing the lower, wooded sides of the hill. This was to be a far slower and more cautious task than the first few hours of the advance. The Japs were less than a mile above them now. Not even dimmed flashlights would be permitted, except in the handsof platoon leaders. All movements would be as slow as a snail’s and, if possible, as silent.

By touch, and by occasional low whispers, the men kept in contact. There were frequent halts, to let those behind catch up. Only the knowledge that they were nearing the enemy, and would soon be charging his positions, kept the soldiers’ nerves from exploding.

The last and hardest wait came at the edge of the bush, where the coarse, four-foot-high grass began. Scouts had been sent out to locate the Jap positions, so the soldiers’ “grapevine” reported. When they returned, the troops were to move forward. If all went well they would pounce upon their enemies in the first gray light of dawn. The Japs, notoriously late sleepers when they did not expect an attack, would be caught literally napping.

“It sounds fine,” Curly Levitt muttered in Barry’s ear. “But one little mistake of ours could give those people warning. Wouldn’t it have been safer to surround the Nips’ positions and rush them from all sides?”

“Possibly—in full daylight,” Barry whispered back. “But at dawn there’s danger of shooting down our own troops by mistake. Our jungle uniforms are enough like the Japs’ to fool you where the visibility is low. You’ve given me an idea, though, Curly. If the rest of our crew agree, we six might circle around to the enemy’s rear. We’re not underorders, and we’d be taking our own risk.”

“Wait a minute while I crawl around and ask them,” theRosy’snavigator replied eagerly. “I think they’ll eat it up!”

Curly was right in his guess. The extra risks involved meant little to the four Air Force sergeants. They would go where Barry Blake led, even if it meant charging the whole Jap force with hand grenades.

Fortunately for their plan, the six “guerillas” were on the far right wing of the attacking line. In the darkness their silent departure would not be noticed. Keeping contact by touch alone, they crawled away along the edge of the jungle.

The moon was now well up in the sky, silvering the long grass of the hill-crest. Thus Barry could watch the lay of the land, while keeping in the black shadow of the bush. On reaching the height of land, he stopped.

“There’s a rocky outcropping twenty yards from here,” he whispered to Curly Levitt. “I’m going to crawl out to it and try to spot the Jap gun positions.... They might give us a clue to the trenches our scout plane reported the first day.”

Without waiting for Curly’s answer, Barry Blake wormed his way toward the exposed outcrop. Reaching it, he inched his way to the highest part. Now he had no protection except the dirty color of his jungle suit. If a Jap sentry should catch his leastmovement, it would be just too bad.

From the rocks he looked down on a sea of grass, broken by little islands of brush and trees. No trenches appeared. They were either cleverly camouflaged with grass, or else there were none near by. One of the tree clumps, however, drew Barry’s especial interest. From where he lay, a vaguely pagoda-like shape could be glimpsed protruding from the shadows.

A Jap tent, draped with camouflage netting? It would be worth a risk to discover the truth, Barry believed. Cautiously he crawled back to his friends.

“We’ll proceed in single file, on hands and knees,” he told them. “Stick a lot of grass in your helmet nets before you start. It’s nearly dawn now, so we won’t have long to wait for the big fight to open. Better take a good drink from your water canteens while you have a chance.”

A foot at a time they advanced, with little pauses. A sentry, had he glimpsed the movement of their grass trimmed hats, might have taken it for a passing breeze.

The light grew stronger. The clump of trees took more definite shape. Now the guerillas could see clearly the angle of a large tent with its protective netting. From within came snores in three or four different keys.

“Officers’ tent!” Curly whispered. “Sentry must be asleep, too—if there is one. What’ll we do now?”

“Get a little nearer; wait for the first shot of the main attack, and then toss a couple of grenades apiece. That ought to put us into the scrap with a bang.”

“Twelve bangs!” chuckled Curly. “Even one small bomb would do a better job, though.”

Barry moved off in a different direction, to bring the open door of the tent into full view. Five yards further on he stopped with a gasp. His hand had slipped into a hole, beneath the grass roots.

Laying down his tommy-gun, Barry grasped the edge of the hole and lifted. A whole section of the “ground” tilted up. Beneath it yawned black emptiness.

“Here’s a trench!” he whispered over his shoulder to Curly. “It’s covered with grass sods, laid on matting. Tell the boys to come on in.”

Feet first, he let himself down into the hole. It was only four feet deep and very narrow. Evidently the Japs had dug it as a protection against air attacks, but it could also be used for ground fighting. For the guerillas’ purpose it was ideal.

At Barry’s orders, only three mats were removed—no more than could be quickly replaced. In the opening all six men stood, waiting for daylight and the first gun. Each held a grenade, as he faced the door of the Jap Officers’ tent.

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