“Crayle Lied When He Said Our Tanks Were Dry!”
“Crayle Lied When He Said Our Tanks Were Dry!”
“Crayle Lied When He Said Our Tanks Were Dry!”
“Look out!” yelled a member of his crew. “Here come the Japs—they’re on to us!”
The droning of airplane engines swelled to a snarling roar. Over the treetops came a twin-enginedMitsubishibomber, but she was not heading toward the two B-26’s. Evidently she had just taken off from Tanimbar on patrol, with no idea that enemy planes were so near. Her Jap crewmen were probably more surprised than the Americans. Swerving, she opened fire with her bow and belly weapons as she started her climb.
“Man those guns!” yelped Crayle. “That Jap will be back for us. Inside with you!”
Without a second’s hesitation the team obeyed. A moment before they had defied his orders, but this was different. In a fight they’d stand by their skipper, crazy or not.
Barry’s team was already inside. His Marauder’s engines bellowed. Like a startled seagull she swept down the long, straight beach. As Barry lifted her into the air he saw the Mitsubishi coming back.
“Good grief!” he gasped. “She’s going over Crayle’s plane at a thousand feet.... She’s going tobombas well as strafe it!”
Climbing as he turned, he was still too far from the Jap for his .50-calibers to take effect. In a matter of seconds theMitsubishiwould drop her bomb at point blank range. The stranded Marauder’s crew wouldn’t have a chance!
Evidently one member of Crayle’s team had realized this and decided to save his own skin. He was running for dear life toward the jungle. As tracer bullets began streaking past him he flung himself flat.
Leaning hard on the controls, Barry fairly whipped his plane around. Already Chick Enders was firing his bow gun. The two weapons in the top turret were raving.
“Riddle the Jap!” Barry shouted. “Don’t let him drop that egg—Oh-h-h!”
The slender, deadly shape of a falling bomb had caught his eye. To the agonized nerves of the watchers its descent seemed as slow as a falling leaf’s. Deliberately its pointed end dipped downward, aiming straight at Crayle’s doomed plane.
Barry did not wait for the explosion. With his jaw set like a rock, he headed his B-26 for the enemy. The bomb’s blast barely jolted the air about him.
“Catch the Nip before he loses himself in the clouds!” Chick Enders muttered, reaching for a new belt of ammunition. “He’s trying to run from us, and that’s his only chance.”
“He won’t make it, Chick,” Barry replied through clenched teeth. “We’re more than a hundred miles faster.... You boys in the turret—start ripping thatMitsu’sbelly.Now!”
The turret guns chattered. A second later, Chick’s bow gun joined them. The Marauder was overtakingher enemy as if he were anchored.
Smoke burst from the Jap’s fuselage. Flame licked at his left engine. He staggered like a wing-shot goose under the slashing American fire. His guns were still talking back, but their aim was nervous and poor.
All at once a great ball of flame appeared just behind the Jap’s wings, and his nose dropped seaward. Swathed in fire, he plummeted into the water.
Barry banked sharply, turning back toward the island. The bombed B-26 was blazing on the beach. At the jungle’s edge a lone figure lay motionless.
“They’re all dead, Skipper,” Hap Newton muttered. “Let’s go home before the Nips send out a flock of Zeros to shoot us up....”
“Wait!” Barry Blake exclaimed sharply. “That bird on the beach isn’t dead yet. I saw him move.”
Barry swung away in a big circle and came in toward the end of the beach. The others of his team realized what he intended; he was going to land, regardless of risk, to save the neck of a coward who had deserted his fighting crew-mates. At best it meant that they all would fail to reach Port Darwin on the gas that would be left. At worst, the Zeros from Tanimbar would catch and strafe them on the beach.
Yet not a man questioned their skipper’s decision. Each one was ready to back up Barry’s judgment with his life. The crew ofSweet Rosy O’Gradywould remain a smoothly functioning unit as long as it existed.
Barry’s second landing was as careful as his first. Rolling as near to the burning bomber as he dared, he set the brakes, and followed Hap Newton through the hatch. The man they had come to rescue was sitting up about fifty yards away.
“It’s Crayle, the yellow pup!” Hap grated.
“Itwouldbe!” Chick bitterly exclaimed. “I always knew a hot pilot of his stripe would be a quitter when the real test came.”
Barry Blake said nothing as he helped his crew turn the plane around for a quick take-off. He was wondering whether Crayle’s dazed manner was real or faked. A trickle of blood from the pilot’s forehead suggested a head wound. The man was mumbling unintelligibly when they reached him.
Barry’s fingers quickly explored the gash in the injured man’s scalp. Crayle winced but voiced no protest. The wound, Barry found, was no more than a shallow cut. Nowhere else on Crayle’s clothing did he see any sign of blood.
“Shell-shocked,” was the young skipper’s verdict. “His mind has snapped, fellows. Maybe he’ll get over it shortly, but just now we’ll have to treat him like a baby. Help me carry him back to the plane, Hap.”
“Let me, Skipper!” Fred Marmon said, taking Barry’s place. “I’ve been feeling useless ever sincethatMitsubishitorched down.”
Despite their awkward burden, they broke into a run, conscious that any second might bring the snarling of Zero engines overhead, and a hail of tracer bullets. Barry, first into the belly hatch, turned to lift Crayle’s shoulders through the low door. Mickey Rourke, the last man, glanced up before ducking inside.
“Here they come, sir!” he cried, as he dived through the opening. “Five Zeros, flying low from Tanimbar.”
The bomber’s engine pulled her down the runway like a scared shadow. Her guns were spitting before she was in the air. One Jap exploded above her, and the others scattered briefly. As the B-26 climbed, they came in from all angles, stabbing at her with their tracers.
Again and again Barry’s plane was needled by bullets. Twice she received shell hits as she roared up toward the sheltering cloud ceiling. A second Zero fell away with his engine smoking. Then a shell hit Mickey Rourke’s tail gun.
Barry heard the little Irishman’s yell over the intercom, and guessed its meaning. He zoomed sharply—the last thing that the pursuing Jap expected. Fred Marmon’s gun blasted the Nip plane an instant before the B-26 plunged into the clouds.
“We’ll just stay here for a while,” Barry declared. “The Jap bullets missed my instrument panel. Wecan fly in any direction we choose as long as our gas lasts. What’s your suggestion, Curly?”
“Wait till I glance at my chart,” replied the navigator. “There’s a mass of little islands at the southwest of us—part of the Babar group. We might set down there unobserved, especially if the ceiling is low. Of course, we’ll take big chances on finding a place to land.”
A moment later he gave the compass course. Barry, who was flying due southwest, made the necessary correction.
“How far is the island we’re aiming at?” he asked.
“About a hundred miles,” Curly told him. “It’s not one island, but a nest of little ones. The Japs are less likely to have them guarded.”
“Good reasoning,” Barry commented. “I’m flying at a steady two hundred m.p.h. Figure out just when we’ll be six or eight miles from the nearest island, and let me know. I’m setting down on the water. If this crate fills and sinks too quickly, we’ll drown with her, but it’s worth the risk. We’ll probably be able to reach our rubber boats. In that case we can keep out of sight of Jap shore patrols until dark, and then paddle to land.”
“Skipper,” said Hap Newton solemnly, “I wish I had half of your brains. In your place, I’d probably have tried to land. Of course, the Japs would spot the plane sooner or later, and the hunt would be on. This way we’ll have a swell chance of foxing them.”
“We’ll still be three hundred miles from Port Darwin,” Chick Enders spoke up. “Maybe we can swipe a Jap motor launch some night—”
“Don’t be so modest,” Hap broke in. “Why not a plane while we’re about it? I’d rather take a chance of getting shot down by our own fighters than be potted like a sitting duck on the water by Jap Zeros.”
“Hold it down, fellows!” Barry Blake ordered brusquely. “We’re hitting the pond in a very few minutes. Get out of your parachute harness, and grab a brace. Fred, you and Soapy Babbitt loosen the topside hatch so it won’t jam when we come down. Mickey Rourke will come forward so he won’t be trapped in the tail if things go wrong. Hap, stand by those levers that spring the rubber rafts. Curly, the minute you give the signal, we’ll cut the engines and nose down.”
There were no more wisecracks. Barry’s crew obeyed orders without wasting a motion, and waited quietly for the next development. Only Hap Newton spoke during those last minutes of flight.
“I’ll take care of Crayle, Skipper,” he said. “He’ll be easy to handle, dazed as he is. I’ll inflate his lifejacket and boost him through the hatch.”
“Ready, Skipper,” Curly’s warning came a few moments later. “Time to go downstairs.”
Hap Newton cut the throttles. As the engines’ roar died out the plane’s nose dipped seaward. When they broke through the low ceiling the water rolledbarely a thousand feet beneath.
The ocean, Barry noted with thankfulness, was calm, except for a long, smooth ground swell. He must time his landing so as to set his ship down in the middle of a watery valley. Thus he could kill her forward motion against the waning slope of the swell ahead, and the shell-torn bomber might float for a good many seconds. If he should miscalculate and strike a crest, his plane would dive like a fish.
One glance only he spared for the island that lay nearest, a full six miles away. It was tiny—little larger than a city park. The Japs might have posted a guard or two on it, but at this distance they could easily fail to notice a bomber landing on the water with a dead stick.
The long, oily swells now swept along barely a hundred feet below him. Barry picked the valley where he must try to set down.
“This is it, fellows!” he warned.
Every man in the plane except Crayle held his breath. The next seconds seemed age-long. Then came the shock.
Fixtures flew from the bulkhead above the radio panel. Green water poured in through the shell holes in the bomb bay. It roused the half-stunned men to desperate action.
Hap Newton had already sprung the rubber life rafts. These were now floating on either side of the plane, attached to it by light lines. Soapy Babbittand Fred Marmon were first through the topside hatch, by Barry’s orders. Next came Mickey Rourke, the little tail gunner. Before climbing out, Mickey tossed a queer-looking bundle to the men outside. It was a long, oilskin covered parcel wrapped in a Mae West lifejacket.
“Don’t let it get away from yez,” he grunted, as he pulled himself up. “That bundle may be worth the lives of all of us before we’re through.”
Chick Enders was the fourth man out, Curly Levitt the fifth. They crouched on the slippery, rolling fuselage, and reached down to take Crayle’s limp weight from Hap Newton and Barry.
“Hurry, you two!” Chick shouted. “This crate’s sinking fast.”
Salt water was already three feet deep in the cockpit, as Barry turned sharply on his co-pilot.
“Up with you, Mister!” he snapped. “I’m last!”
For the first and only time, Hap Newton was guilty of an act of mutiny. He seized Barry in a gorilla-like grip and literally hurled him through the opening overhead.
“You’re worth three of me, Skipper,” he panted, “in everything but pounds!”
On top of the waterlogged plane, Barry twisted himself around like a cat, to face the hatch. Hap’s head and shoulders were over the edge as the bomber’s nose dipped suddenly.
“Quick, you idiot!” the young skipper cried. “She’sgoing under! What’s holding you, Hap!”
“My feet!” the co-pilot gasped. “They’re tangled in a parachute harness or something. Don’t wait for me, Skipper!”
Barry grabbed the bigger man beneath the arms. His feet found a purchase on the hatch combing. With every muscle of his body straining, he added his strength to Hap Newton’s.
“Now,” the thought wrenched at his brain, “something’sgotto give way!”
It did. Like a cork from a bottle Hap’s big body popped out of the hatch. Both men went under water. Breathless, stroking for dear life, they fought to reach the surface. The water seemed like a living enemy, clutching them, pulling them down. Their lungs were on fire.
They broke surface together, gasping, not far from one of the rafts. Fred Marmon’s whoop of joy blended with the splash of paddles.
“The plane—where’d it go?” Hap Newton gulped.
“To Davy Jones’s locker!” Fred answered as he reached past Crayle to grasp the co-pilot’s hand. “We thought it had sucked you and the Skipper down with it.”
THE CATAMARAN
THE CATAMARAN
THE CATAMARAN
Chick Enders and Curly Levitt pulled Barry onto their raft.
“Great guns, Skipper!” the little bombardier exclaimed. “I never was so glad to see anything as I was to spot your headgear poking up out of that swell!”
“Chick cut our line just in time,” Curly remarked, “or the ship’s plunge would have spilled us into the pond, too. And, speaking of water, I hope we find a spring on that island when we reach it tonight. Nobody ever thought to bring along anything to drink, unless Mickey Rourke has a canteen in that bundle of his.”
“I have not!” the little gunner retorted. “Many a flier has been set adrift without water and lived to tell the tale. The small matter of a drink did not worry me. But the night before we took off from the flat-top I had a dream of floatin’ helpless on a rubber doughnut while the bloody Japs strafed me from the air. So I brought along a waterproofed tommy-gun, just in case me dream came true! Ye can laugh at me if yez feel like it, gintlemen.”
“Who wants to laugh?” Curly Levitt cried. “After this I’ll trade all my day dreams for one of yournightmares, Mickey.”
“We’re the nitwits not to think of something like that!” Barry Blake confessed. “Did you by any chance remember to put some oil and cotton waste in the same package? Our pistols could stand a cleaning now, before the salt water makes them useless.”
Rourke pulled the little oilskin-wrapped container from his bundle and handed it to Barry.
“Here it is, sir,” he said with a grin. “I’m sorry I’m not a real sleight-of-hand artist, so I could produce a glass of ice water just as easy.”
Barry’s left eyelid flickered in a mysterious wink. Pulling out his water-soaked automatic, he handed it, butt first, to the little sergeant.
“You clean my gun for me, Mickey, and I’ll produce your glass of drinking water—though it may be minus the ice. I’m afraid neither a silk hat nor a rabbit was included in this raft’s equipment, but we have something just as good.”
While the others watched, open mouthed, Barry turned to a small, waterproofed case attached to the side of the raft. Opening it he drew out an object that looked like a small alcohol stove built on futuristic lines.
“Here’s our water supply,” he said, holding it up. “You put seawater inthereand a little can of fuel inhereand set the thing going with a match. In an hour we’ll have a quart and a pint of pure, distilledwater. Hap Newton has a gadget just like this on his raft.... What do you think of it, Hap?”
“It’s the only respectable still I ever saw,” the irrepressible co-pilot answered. “How much ‘Adam’s Ale’ will it turn out before all the fuel’s used up?”
“About fifteen pounds,” Barry stated. “One of the officers on the carrier told me each plane’s rafts were equipped with it. I just forgot to pass on the news. This still is a piece of regular Navy equipment, and so is the fishing tackle that goes with it.... Look!”
Reaching into the case again he brought out a sealed, three-pound can. Under the amazed eyes of his three companions, he opened it to show a complete fishing outfit of hooks, lines and dried bait. There was even a small steel spearhead for gaffing large fish.
“We’ll use this right away,” the young skipper declared. “Since we’re so near to land we can afford to use some of our still’s fuel to broil a tasty fish dinner. Here are three hook-and-line rigs, so it shouldn’t take us long to catch a meal.”
The castaways discovered all at once that they were ravenously hungry. With the tension of immediate danger gone, they went at the fishing with the zest of youngsters. The fish were hungry, too. Within half an hour fifteen pounds of finny food lay on the bottom of the two rafts.
The difficult job was preparing and cooking them. Barry solved the problem by cutting the fish intofillets and broiling these on the blade of one of the raft’s aluminum oars. Two cans of fuel were used for that one meal.
“We couldn’t be so wasteful, out of sight of land,” Curly Levitt observed. “We’d have to learn to eat our fish raw and like it.”
“Which might not be so hard, after all, sir,” Mickey Rourke responded. “A sailor once told me he’d drifted for three weeks on a big raft with six other lads, and eaten raw fish three times a day. They cut it thin and dried it in the sun, like herring. The sea water had salted it already. Me friend said it tasted fine.”
“Your sailor friend was spinning you a salty yarn, if you ask me,” said Chick. “What did he do when the water rations gave out?”
“Sure, that was easy!” Mickey Rourke replied. “He drank fish with his meals and was never thirsty except when it stormed for three days and the fish wouldn’t bite—”
“Haw, haw, haw!” howled Hap Newton, whose raft had drifted closer. “You bit, all right, Chick. You ought to know better than to match wits with an Irishman. So theydrankmore fish when they got thirsty, huh! That’s the best joke I’ve heard since I was a dodo. How about it, Barry?”
Barry Blake’s smile was not sympathetic.
“The joke’s on you, Hap!” he chuckled. “Mickey, hand me that fish we didn’t cook, and I’ll show LieutenantNewton just what sort of a sucker he is to doubt your word.”
From the bottom of the bait can Barry took a folded square of muslin and the sharp edged spearhead. After making criss-cross cuts through each side of the five pound fish, he pulled the diced flesh from the bones and placed them in the cloth.
“Now hold the can under this muslin while we wring out a fresh fish cocktail, Mickey,” he directed.
From the cloth, strongly twisted by Barry and the little sergeant, a stream of watery liquid dribbled into the bait can. When no more would come, Barry threw out the squeezed fish meat and put in more diced pieces. The final result was half a cupful of fish juice.
“It’s drinkable,” the young skipper declared after the first taste, “just as that naval officer on the flat-top told me it would be. There’s practically no salt taste, and it’s not as strong of fish as you’d imagine. Who wants to hint that Sergeant Mickey Rourke is a liar, now?”
Hap Newton shook his head solemnly.
“I take it all back, gentlemen,” he said. “I’ll never doubt your word again, Mickey, unless I see you wink behind my back. But please don’t ask me to guzzle your fish cocktail while I have a perfectly good still to make my own moonshine water. Pass me a match, Fred, and let’s get the thing started. I want to wet my whistle before Crayle, here, wakes up and demands a fresh water bath.”
“Now We’ll Wring out a Fresh Fish Cocktail.”
“Now We’ll Wring out a Fresh Fish Cocktail.”
“Now We’ll Wring out a Fresh Fish Cocktail.”
While their water stills boiled, the two raft crews began paddling toward the island. Their progress was less than a mile an hour, but that did not bother them. With darkness still several hours away, they dared not approach too near.
“The moon rises early tonight,” Curly Levitt informed his friends. “If we’re within two miles of land then, we should be able to see the shore line. The cloud ceiling isn’t so thick that it will shut out all the light.”
As a matter of fact, the clouds thinned as evening approached. A stiff breeze sprang up, drifting the rafts so rapidly toward land that the paddles were no longer needed. As the last daylight faded a faint glow above the eastern horizon told that the moon was up.
The rafts had been tied together all afternoon, to avoid drifting too far apart. Now, with paddles plying steadily, they were making good headway toward the dark line of jungle that marked the island. Barry Blake, in the leading “doughnut,” strained his ears for any sound of breakers that would indicate a dangerous landing place. There was none—only the rhythmical roaring of the surf on the smooth beach, and the slap-slap-slap of water against the rafts’ flat bottoms.
They were a hundred yards from the head of a little cove when the clouds thinned enough to showthe moon. For five short seconds the light was fairly clear. A scudding cloud mass dimmed it, but not before Barry had glimpsed a long, black shape moving out from shore.
“Stop paddling!” the young skipper whispered. “Pass the word to Hap’s raft.... There’s a boat putting out from the beach—due to pass us within a few yards. Have your guns ready if it spots us, and keep your heads down.”
“Sure, I knew me little tommy-gun would come in handy, Lieutenant,” Mickey Rourke muttered. “I’ll take the oilskin bag off and be ready when yez say, ‘Open fire!’”
Tense moments passed. A patch of darkness blacker than the surrounding water moved into Barry’s range of vision. Mickey had seen it, too. He snuggled lower in the raft, the stock of his weapon tight against his shoulder.
Abruptly a high-pitched, chattering voice broke out in the oncoming boat. Barry felt Sergeant Rourke stiffen beside him, waiting the word to fire. But that word was never given. A girl’s voice spoke from the darkness in clear American.
“Quiet, Nanu!” it said. “That’s not a Jap boat, unless it’s upside down. Paddle closer and we’ll look the thing over.”
Gusty sighs of relief went up from the bomber’s crew.
“A girl! From the States!” they chorused.
“So they want to look us over,” remarked Fred Marmon’s voice sententiously. “Well,I’m a monkey’s uncle!”
Feminine laughter pealed in the darkness. There were two women in the strange boat and at least one white man, to judge by the voices. Barry thought, however, that he could distinguish other figures.
“We’re the crew of an American bomber, forced down by lack of fuel this afternoon,” he explained. “We nearly turned a sub-machine gun on you people a minute ago, thinking you were Japs. If we hadn’t heard one of the ladies speak—”
“That was Dora Wilcox,” another girl broke in. “She and her father had a mission station here; and I’d just come out to join my father at his cocoanut plantation when the Japs came. We’ve been hiding from them ever since. The little brutes caught and killed Reverend Wilcox only last week. I’m Claire Barrows, and my father is here beside me.”
“We had a hard time persuading Miss Wilcox to come with us,” a man’s voice added. “She wanted to stay with the native converts until they themselves urged her to leave. The Japs are due to occupy this island in force at any time.”
“Nanu and Kari Luva and their wives decided to escape with us in their catamaran,” Dora Wilcox chimed in. “Why don’t you people join us? This craft is really too heavy for three men and four women to paddle, and we’re well stocked with waterand food. I’m sure that Providence brought us together—and kept you from shooting us in the dark.”
There was no resisting the girl’s logic. Barry Blake quickly introduced his crew by name as they lifted Crayle into the native boat. He himself came aboard last, carrying his precious still and fishing tackle. The two rubber rafts were left to float ashore and mystify any Jap patrol that might find them.
Dora Wilcox, he soon discovered, was the real leader of the refugees. The four natives showed a childlike devotion to her. Even Clarke Barrows, the middle-aged plantation owner, deferred to the girl’s opinion. Barry Blake found himself consumed with curiosity to see the face of this young person who planned like a general and thought of everybody else before herself.
Dora Wilcox’s hope was to sail the entire three hundred miles to Australia. She had brought palm fiber mats to cover the catamaran during the day and make it appear abandoned. The mats would serve the double purpose of camouflage and shade. At night the sail would be raised. With a favorable wind, she told Barry, the double-dugout craft could travel as much as eighty miles between dusk and dawn.
The young Fortress skipper glanced up at the scudding clouds. Weather, he realized, would have a great deal to do with the success or failure of their escape. Without a keel the catamaran would makea lot of leeway. If the wind held from the northeast, it could easily blow them ashore on a Jap occupied island. The wisest plan would be to get as far to windward as they could before dawn.
“Let us take the paddles, Miss Wilcox,” he said. “My crew will relieve your native boys until it’s time to hoist sail. Then perhaps we can figure out a way to beat the leeward drift.”
“We’re at your orders from now on, Lieutenant,” the girl replied. “None of us is a navigator. If an American bomber crew can’t take us through, no human power could do it.”
The seven airmen fell to work with a will and a weight of muscle that sent the thirty-foot boat lightly over the swells. At midnight, when the sky cleared, they were well out of sight of land. Now for the first time the bomber team had a chance to see their companions’ faces.
In the moonlight neither of the white girls looked more than eighteen or twenty years old. Claire Barrows had her father’s wide mouth and turned-up nose, and a smile that was decidedly attractive. Dora smiled less often, and her features were more finely chiseled. She wore her long hair in braids wound about her head. Her calm, efficient, thoughtful personality could be read at a glance. Somehow she made Barry’s pulse beat faster than any girl had done before.
The two native couples were quite young, in their’teens or early twenties. As they sat relaxed, balancing with the boat’s dip and sway, their shapely black bodies would have thrilled any sculptor. Barry could imagine what capture by the Japs would mean to these children of nature—slavery, degradation, living death!
The thought made him fiercely determined to outwit the enemy, to bring all these people through the gantlet of Jap boats, planes, and shore patrols. Thirteen persons now depended largely on him as their skipper. He must find some means of covering those three hundred miles to Australia in a shorter time.
“I have it!” he exclaimed aloud. “We’ll use the paddles in place of a centerboard. Is there any rope handy, Dora?”
“Plenty,” replied the girl. “But what do you mean by using paddles for a centerboard, Lieutenant?”
“I’ll show you,” the young skipper smiled, looking straight into her eyes. “But please leave off the handle and call me Barry, won’t you?”
“All right,” Dora Wilcox answered, with a twinkle in her eyes. “It’s easier to say.... Oh, Nanu! Hand me that coil of rope you’re sitting on.”
With the help of his crew, Barry tied four of the native paddles at intervals between the catamaran’s twin floats. The broad wooden blades, thrust deep in the water, acted like a keel. Now the wind pushing on the sail would not drift the craft sidewise. Alreadyequipped with a steering oar, the awkward-looking boat was now as manageable as a catboat.
As the single, lanteen-type sail went up, water boiled white under the double bow. The catamaran was gathering speed.
“Splendid!” cried Claire Barrows. “All we need now is a chart and a compass to set the course. Which way is Port Darwin, anyway, Lieutenant Newton?”
“I’ll be just plain ‘Hap’ to you, if you want me to live up to my nickname,” the big co-pilot retorted. “When it comes to finding directions, Curly Levitt is the lad to consult. He carries a compass in his head, I think!”
“I have one in my pocket, which is a lot better,” Curly spoke up. “And I stuffed a chart of these islands under my shirt when the plane was forced down. With that equipment I can keep track of our course by dead reckoning. It will be pretty crude, without a log to check the knots we’re making, but at least we won’t miss the broadside of Australia!”
FLOATING WRECKAGE
FLOATING WRECKAGE
FLOATING WRECKAGE
For the rest of the night, most of the catamaran’s company dozed or slept. The craft was amazingly steady for its size. Although low to the water, she was not particularly “wet.” The raised central platform on which her crew sat or sprawled caught only a feather of spray from time to time. The four natives slept as soundly as if they were on shore.
At dawn the breeze freshened. For three hours the catamaran skipped southward over the long rollers, while everyone kept a sharp lookout for planes. Fiber mats were lashed in place to afford the greatest possible shade. Barry noticed with amazement how cleverly Dora Wilcox had painted their top surfaces to look like wreckage to a passing plane. Only the sail and the greenish wake behind could tell a Jap pilot that there was life on the crazy-looking craft. At first sight of a plane, Barry planned to drop the sail, and trust that the fading wake would not be noticed.
“Every mile that we cover lessens our danger,” he declared, “and every unnecessary hour we spend in enemy waters increases it. I think it’s worth the risk to keep moving—especially in perfect sailing weatherlike this.”
His companions agreed. There was risk, whichever way they turned, and to know that every hour cut their distance from the continent by eight or nine more miles was a great boost to their morale.
At noon the wind had slackened. The catamaran was making barely five knots, Curly judged. The sky was like a vast, blue furnace, without a speck of cloud. Had it not been for the straw mats, the white members of the company would have been painfully sunburned. The four natives were elected to keep watch for planes, as their eyes and their skins were better able to stand intense sunlight.
The watchers may not have been to blame for failing to see the Jap seaplane in time. He had probably come gliding out of the sun, invisible and silent. The roar of his motor and the snarling of his machine guns, as he suddenly power-dived, were the Americans’ first warning.
Thirty-caliber bullets peppered the catamaran. A few pierced the camouflage matting. Three or four, by some freak, chewed the mast half through at a point four feet above the decking. One struck the leg of Nanu, the steersman. The rest of the little slugs struck the log hulls or missed entirely.
Glenn Crayle, who had remained until now in a shell-shocked stupor, came to life with a howl. A bullet had grazed his shin. He moaned for help, but nobody paid any attention. Barry Blake’s quick, sharporders averted the panic that otherwise might have cost them all their lives.
“Lie low, everybody. Whatever happens, don’t disturb the mats. Mickey Rourke, crawl outside with your tommy-gun and pretend to be wounded. Send the native women in under cover. That Jap will be back in two shakes to look us over. If he flies low enough to make sure of your hitting him, let him have it.... Otherwise hold your fire.”
Claire Barrows began weeping hysterically.
“We’ll all be k-killed,” she sobbed. “Like rats in a c-cage. I’m g-going to jump overboard and—”
SMACK!
Dora Wilcox slapped her friend hard across the mouth.
“Stop it, Claire, this instant!” she commanded. “A fine example you’re setting Alua and Lehu. For shame!”
As Claire’s sobs quieted, Mickey’s voice reached the others from outside the shelter of mats.
“The Jap is comin’ in low to see what he did to us,” the little sergeant reported. “I’ll play dead till the last second, and then pour it into him. He’s aNakajimasingle-engine job, equipped with floats.”
The hum of the Jap’s motor grew louder. Once more his machine guns opened up, but this time his burst was high enough to miss the catamaran’s crew. It finished the mast which fell across the matting, scaring the women but doing no damage.
As the plane roared low overhead, Mickey Rourke’s gun opened up. Its harsh, deadly chatter held the hopes of fourteen souls. It ceased, and the Jap’s engine song rose sharply.
“I hit him!” came Mickey’s whoop. “He’s zoomin’.... He’s goin’ into a stall.... His engine’s smokin’ and he’s goin’ to crash!”
Without waiting for more, the catamaran’s company threw aside the concealing mats. They were just in time to see theNakajimaend her tail-spin in a great splash and a burst of flame, less than two hundred yards away.
The fight was over. Except for a patch of burning oil on the water, and the three wounded persons on the sailing craft, it would have been hard to realize that the thing had not been a nightmare.
“’Twas just as I saw it in me dream,” Mickey Rourke was saying. “The only part I didn’t see was Nanu and Miss Wilcox bein’ wounded—”
“What’s that?” Barry cut in. “You wounded, Dora? Let me see what’s under that cloth!”
The girl shook her head. Her face was pale, but the hand with which she pressed a folded towel to her left arm was perfectly steady.
“See to Nanu first,” she replied. “Hurry—or I’ll do it myself. He’s lost too much blood already. You’ll find clean cloths here in my little chest.”
Barry flung open the cover of the teakwood box she indicated. Inside, packed neatly with a few femininebelongings, were a number of old, clean cloths. Barry snatched out a threadbare pillowcase and a man’s ragged white shirtsleeve. With these, he made his way to Nanu who sat in the stern with his hands clasped around his thigh.
The native boy’s wound was a clean puncture. The small-caliber, steel-jacketed bullet had passed through his thigh muscles just above the knee. Fortunately it had missed the larger artery and the blood had already begun to clot. Barry applied a cloth pad to each bullet hole, binding them tightly in place with strips of the old pillowcase. Throughout the operation, Nanu lay quiet. When Barry slapped him on the shoulder and told him, “Everything’s okay!” the boy’s eyes had lost all trace of fright.
Meanwhile, Claire and Hap were dressing Dora’s hurt. A bullet had gouged her forearm, making a painful but not a crippling wound. Claire showed considerable skill in the bandaging. She had brought her nerves fully under control, and was giving sharp orders to Hap.
Barry glanced at the splintered mast and fallen sail. Before much progress could be made, it was evident that the catamaran would have to land for repairs. At present it looked so thoroughly wrecked that the most suspicious Jap patrol pilot would hardly waste bullets on it.
The same thoughts were evidently in Curly Levitt’s mind. Standing up beside his skipper, hepointed to a fairly large island, seven or eight miles to leeward.
“We can go ashore there tonight, Barry,” he said. “With the sail hanging on the stump of the mast as it is now, we’ll drift toward that island at the rate of about one knot per hour. Everybody can keep out of sight under the mats and wreckage. We’ll tie the steering oar in place and let the wind do the rest....”
“No!” Glenn Crayle’s shout interrupted him. “You’re foolish to go any nearer to land. The Japs will bomb us. They’ll shoot us down like dogs. You’ve got paddles, haven’t you? Start using them, then, if you’re not too lazy! I forbid you to head for shore, Blake!”
“He’s crazy as a loon,” Curly muttered. “How are we going to shut him up, Barry?”
The young skipper made his way forward to where Crayle sat binding a handkerchief around his grazed shin. He took a firm grip on the shell-shocked pilot’s shoulder.
“Look there, Crayle,” he said, pointing to a black triangular fin that showed above the oncoming wave. “That shark is hungry. He smells blood. He’ll probably trail this boat till it lands—unless one of us falls overboard. Be quiet and behave yourself, oryou’ll be that one!”
Crayle’s mouth fell open. In sudden terror he gazed at the approaching shark.
“No! No!” he moaned, clutching Barry’s arm.
The young skipper freed himself with a grimace of disgust.
“Everybody under the mats!” he ordered. “There’s no telling when the next Jap plane will show up. Once we’re out of sight we can relax and eat a bit of lunch, if the ladies care to break into their supplies now.”
Cocoanuts, bananas, smoked chicken and taro bread had been stored in the catamaran’s hollow hulls—enough to last the entire company for a week. Since it was the first meal the bomber’s crew had tasted for a whole day, they were given extra rations.
Crayle wolfed down his share and reached for more. A sharp word from Barry stopped him, but the young skipper caught a look of animal cunning that replaced the greed in the other’s eyes. From now on, Barry decided, the shock-crazed lieutenant would need to be watched like a wild beast. There was no predicting what mad impulse might seize his twisted brain.
They were finishing their meal when another Jap plane roared overhead. This was a twin-enginedMitsubishibomber, a land-based type, that appeared to have taken off from the island to leeward. It swooped low to investigate the drifting catamaran.
For a tense thirty seconds Barry’s party waited, and wondered if more bullets would come slashing through their thin fiber mats. Then the engines’snarl faded to a distant droning. Their camouflage had worked!
Not so pleasant was the thought that they would have to land on a beach patrolled by the enemy. If this island were the site of a Jap air base it would be well guarded. Even the darkness might not be camouflage enough to fool the Nip patrols.
As the afternoon waned, the island’s shore line grew more and more distinct. A second bomber rose from behind the wall of dark green jungle, and three more returned from some patrol or bombing mission. There could be no doubt of the existence of an air base somewhere inland from the beach.
The one encouraging fact was that none of the planes paid any particular attention to the drifting catamaran. Undoubtedly they had all looked it over. If the wreck looked so harmless to the Jap pilots, shore patrols were not likely to bother their heads about it. The real danger would come after Barry’s crew went ashore to cut a new mast.
The sun was low in the west when two squadrons of heavy bombers approached at 20,000 feet. Even before the Jap ack-ack on the island cut loose, Barry’s party recognized them—American Flying Fortresses and Liberators!
Peering up through the cracks in the camouflage, everyone aboard the catamaran raised a wild cheer. For a moment, Barry had all he could do to keep his crew from tossing the fiber mats aside and standing up to wave. His orders were drowned out by the thunder of exploding bombs.