CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ravenous Appetites Made the Dinner a Success

“There’s the moon coming up now!” Hap Newton exclaimed, pointing to a glow on the eastern horizon. “Out with those toadstabbers, gentlemen! We’ll cut out a new green dress forSweet Rosy O’Grady—or fall asleep trying!”

The camouflage was only half completed when the first supply plane arrived. It was a bigCoronadoflying boat, altered for extra cargo space. It brought enough gasoline in cans to feedRosy’sbig engines on the trip home, and it took Tony Romani back to the field hospital. The next two planes brought bundles of steel mats for the beginning of a long, straight runway.

Three days laterRosy O’Grady’ssunburned crew had lost ten or fifteen pounds apiece, but the roadway of perforated steel was completed. One end of it was under water, owing to the curve of the beach. An incoming wave might cause the huge bomber to ground-loop at the moment of her take-off, but that was a chance that had to be taken.

As the men piled into their ship they tried not to worry about this danger spot; yet there was no denying the risk. Belted into his co-pilot’s seat, Hap Newton warmed up the four big engines. Slowly he increased the r.p.m. untilRosy O’Gradywasstraining to be off. The mighty slipstream ripped jungle foliage and tossed the fragments of her camouflage screen.

“Let’s go, Hap!” Barry Blake said quietly.

With brakes released the bomber leaped ahead. She rushed down the narrow steel runway, her airspeed gauge climbing fast. If one of her big wheels should run off into the sand, disaster would almost certainly result.

Almost on the “step” she reached the wet end of the strip. Spray flew from her right hand wheel. The water tugged at the tire like a many-tentacled octopus. Despite both the pilots’ weight on the controls, it pulled her down. The right wing dipped into a wave.

Every man on board held his breath, bracing himself for the shock and rending crash of a ground loop.... Then, abruptly, the ship righted herself. When Barry eased back on the controls she lifted her twenty-five tons as lightly as a windblown leaf.

“Home, James!” croaked Chick Enders, and a gale of laughter swept through the Flying Fortress, releasing her crew’s badly stretched nerves.

SECRET MISSION

The safe return of Barry Blake and his crew to Mau River was celebrated the following night at supper. The meal was the nearest thing to a banquet that the army cooks could turn out. There was a sort of program, too, mostly humorous. It recalled the never-to-be-forgotten days at Randolph Field.

Barry himself was heralded as the “Big Dog” at the moment of his entrance into the mess tent. Colonel Bullock, as master of ceremonies, announced:

“The Big Dog is coming in to land.... The Big Dog is rolling down his flaps.... The Big Dog has landed.... The Big Dog is waiting to be serviced!”

Between each announcement, the second lieutenants softly chorused: “Woof, woof! Woof, woof!” When Barry lifted a large baked potato from the serving dish it was announced that “The Big Dog is getting bombed up.”

At this point an exuberant woofer from Texas lost control. Tilting his head far back, he gave tongue to a genuine coyote howl that raised the hair on the necks of more than one “effete Easterner.” The bumptious ex-cowboy was penalized by being made to sing “Deep in the Heart of Texas” with hismouth full of olives.

Following that there were speeches in praise ofSweet Rosy O’Gradyand every member of her crew. Tony Romani and Cracker Jackson received their full share of glory, as wounded heroes. FinallyRosyherself was described as the plane that “sighted convoy, sank same, and retired to a desert island, where she became a sort of Empress Jones, too proud to come home and associate with her sister Fortresses.”

After the celebration, Colonel Bullock asked Lieutenant Blake and three other pilots to report to his tent for a brief conference. Arriving a moment after the rest, Barry noted that he was the only Fortress skipper present. The others were twin-engine pilots, who had made fine bombing records during the recent slaughter of the Jap convoy. They were Captain Rand Bartlett, Lieutenant Thurman Smith, and Lieutenant Ben Haskins.

The four young officers sprang to their feet and saluted as the colonel appeared. Bullock waved them to canvas-bottomed chairs.

“I’ve been asked to supply four of my best bomber crews,” he told them, “for a secret and difficult mission. What that mission is I don’t know myself, but you are to fly B-26 planes. The orders from headquarters stressed a high record of bombing hits. You’re to take off before daylight tomorrow and fly to Port Darwin. There you will doubtless learn more details. Have you any questions, gentlemen? Youare at perfect liberty to pass up the job—in which case I’ll choose some other crew.”

Barry Blake was the first to break the ensuing silence.

“I think we all feel alike about it, sir,” he said quietly. “It’s a big honor to be chosen by you under these circumstances. But as Fortress men, my crew and I might not measure up to the best B-26 performance. Those Martin bombers are sweet little ships, but they handle differently from a Boeing. We wouldn’t want to let you down, sir—”

“I know all that, Blake,” Colonel Bullock interrupted with a smile. “I chose you and your crew after a good deal of thought, just as I picked Haskins and Bartlett and Smith. You’ve flown twin-engined planes in Advanced Training School and you’ll get the hang of your new B-26 on the way to Darwin. I’ll supply you with a first-class tail gunner to take the place of Tony Romani.... Now, gentlemen, for the last time, do you want the job?”

“Yes, sir!” chorused the four pilots.

The C.O. arose. One after the other he gripped their hands and wished them good hunting. In that moment he seemed more like a proud parent than their superior officer. The four young officers knew that they had found a lifelong friend in Colonel Bullock.

Rosy O’Grady’screw, all except Tony and Cracker Jackson, were overjoyed at their new assignment.They lay awake talking it over until Barry curtly ordered them to “drive it into the hangar and get some sleep.”

“Rosywill be laid up for a couple of weeks’ repairs anyway,” Chick added in a loud whisper, “and so will Tony and Cracker. We’ll probably be back by that time. Nobody’s got any kick coming, so far as I can see—unless it’s the Japs!”

Out on the runway at five o’clock Barry’s crew found their new ship waiting, complete with tail gunner. The latter was a little bulldog of a man with the map of Ireland jutting fiercely out of his helmet. He was Sergeant Mickey Rourke from South Boston. He greeted each of his new crew mates with an undershot smile and a brief “Pleased to meet yiz!”

LaterRosy’screw found out that Mickey was the lone survivor of a B-26 that had been sliced in two by a diving Zero fighter. Mickey had bailed out of his severed tail section unharmed and had swum ashore. After two weeks in the New Guinea bush he had walked into the Mau River base and calmly reported for duty.

The four Martin bombers took off by moonlight and promptly headed southwest. Barry foundThe Colonel’s Ladyas Hap had named their new craft, strangely quick and light on the controls, compared with her big sisterRosy. Flying in formation with the other three Marauders soon cured his tendency to over-control, however.

As the sun rose, tinting the peaks of New Guinea’s high backbone ahead of them, he turned over the controls to Hap Newton.

“Easy on the stick, Mister,” he warned his big co-pilot. “Those crowbar wrists of yours work swell at the wheel of a Fortress, but this little lady won’t stand for rough handling.”

“Finger-tip control!” chuckled Hap as he took over. “I may be rough, but I can be oh, so gentle, too, Skipper! Just watch me take her upstairs.”

The bomber formation was climbing steadily, to top the 16,000-foot range ahead. A bitter chill seeped into the plane. The crew found themselves breathing faster to get enough air. Automatically they reached for their oxygen masks. Those things were lifesavers when you got up above 20,000. Even at somewhat lower altitudes they helped keep your head clear and your stomach in place.

At 18,000 the air was bumpy. The flight leader, Captain Bartlett, took his bombers up to 20,000, where it was colder but smoother. Beneath them the great range was spread out like a relief map, with patches of white cloud here and there showing local rains.

An hour later the immense blue bowl of the Arafura Sea rose up to enclose them with its rim of endless horizon.

“We’re like four tiny flies buzzing across a giant’s washbowl,” Barry thought. “And yet this ArafuraSea is just a little spot on God’s Footstool. Most high school students never knew where it was before the war. A flier certainly comes to feel his smallness in time and space!”

The four planes loafed along at about 200 m.p.h., to conserve gas. They dodged a thunder storm just north of the Gulf of Carpenteria and swung back to the southwest. At noon they were over Port Darwin, Australia, with a heavy overcast obscuring sea and land. Barry took over the controls in preparation for landing.

“Ceiling one thousand feet and dropping fast,” came the airfield’s radioed report. “You arrived just in time. In another hour we’ll be closed in.”

“This weather may postpone our mission, whatever it is,” Chick Enders remarked as they went down through the wet cloud rug. “Looks like a general storm coming over the coast.”

“That’s something for the brass hats to worry about, Chick,” Barry Blake replied. “We haven’t the haziest notion yet what we’ve come here to do—There’s the field, Hap! It looks a lot better than the one we left this morning.”

Though his B-26 was still a bit unfamiliar to the young Fortress pilot, he set her down without a bounce. The field was hard and smooth, with only a few patches showing where Jap bombs had recently dropped. The lowering clouds, Barry remarked, would probably keep enemy raiders at a distance forthe next few days.

Reporting to the Operations Building, the Marauders’ four young officers were told to return immediately after mess for instructions. The general himself would be present, with other high-ranking officers. All further information would be given at that time.

Mess call sounded as they left the place. In the camouflaged mess tent, they found a number of flying officers already gathered around rough tables. Most of these greeted the newcomers with cordial smiles, but there was one outstanding exception. A rather handsome, sleek-haired second lieutenant stared at them insultingly, then turned his back and moved to a farther table.

“Glenn Crayle!” exclaimed Hap Newton. “The same swell-headed hot pilot that he was at Randolph! Did you get that ‘dirt-under-my-feet’ look he gave us?”

“Hold it down, Hap!” Barry whispered. “No use in stirring up more hard feelings. The whole room heard you. After all, Crayle’s a fellow officer.”

“He’s just as much of a sorehead as he ever was,” muttered Chick Enders. “I’d hate to fly in formation with him, for fear he’d pull some spite trick and crash both of us.”

“You’d probably get ‘jeep jitters’ and scare the life out of him if you were at the joy-stick,” Hap Newton laughed under his breath. “Here come the brasshats! We’d better take places at this table, near the wall.”

They saw no more of Glenn Crayle than his neatly uniformed back until the meal was over and the B-26 bomber officers assembled in the briefing room. There, after another dirty look, the sulky pilot whispered behind his hand to a hard-eyed acquaintance. The pair of them glanced toward Barry’s group and laughed. Whatever “crack” Crayle had made was certainly not to the Fortress crew’s credit.

The briefing room filled quickly, until the space between the long table and the walls was filled with the officers of four bomber squadrons. Facing them stood the general and a rear admiral of the Navy. As the former raised his hand, absolute silence fell on the group.

“Gentlemen,” the general said quietly, “this talk will be very brief and, I trust, to the point. You are to leave sometime tonight on a mission of high strategical importance. Your objective is the Japanese-held harbor of Amboina. As you know, this is the enemy’s strongest East Indian base. We cannot at this moment tell you why its demolition is so important to our war strategy. Your orders are simply to destroy every plane, ship and installation that you can, cripple its defenses. Leave it helpless to resist the regular bombardment forces that will follow up your attack.”

He paused impressively. In the silence Barry couldfeel a rising tide of unspoken questions filling the room. How, for instance, could four squadrons of medium bombers effect such a complete destruction as the general had described? Why not use Fortresses and Liberators, such as were even now smashing the U-boat pens at Lorient and Wilhelmshaven?

“You, gentlemen,” the officer continued, “have been picked from several bomber commands for a task of utmost difficulty and danger. The planes you will fly are B-26 bombers that have been altered to carry twice their normal bomb load, and about one fourth of their regular supply of fuel. Each plane will lay a two-ton, delayed action bomb directly on an assigned target, from mast-head height. You will then go on to strafe the Jap aircraft in the seaplane anchorage at the head of Amboina Bay. By that time you will have just enough gas left to fly the six hundred thirty miles back to Port Darwin—providing you meet no interference on the way.”

“Are there any questions, up to this point?”

Captain Bartlett was the first pilot to speak.

“You mentioned that we should carry about one fourth of our usual gas supply, sir,” he said in a puzzled tone. “But the B-26’s greatest range with a one-ton load is only twenty-four hundred miles. To fly six hundred thirty miles to Amboina and back again would use up more than half of it.”

For the first time a slight smile crossed the general’s face.

“You are quite correct, Captain,” he answered. “However, I didn’t say that you were to fly from here to Amboina. That is the little surprise we are preparing for our enemies. Your three squadrons of Martin bombers are already loaded on an aircraft carrier which you will board tonight. Under cover of the weather front that is moving northwest we hope to approach within fifty miles of Amboina. The flight deck of this carrier is quite long enough for medium bombers. You’ll need a bit of verbal instruction regarding the take-off, however. Am I right, Admiral?”

The naval officer cleared his throat.

“We’ll take care of that after we’re at sea,” he said to the assembled fliers. “You won’t have to worry about finding and landing on your flat-top in the fog, as the Navy pilots would. Once you leave our flight deck it’s good-by—until we see you back in port.”

“And now,” added the general, “we’ll turn to the matter of targets. Here’s a map of Amboina Harbor, with all the important installations marked. As you receive your assignments, please note them down, gentlemen. With a limited number of bombs, we must have no duplication.”

The target assigned to Barry’s crew was the radio station at the extreme tip of Nusanive Point. Captain Bartlett, Lieutenant Haskins, and Thurman Smith were given the heavy coastal fortifications just beyond. Other crews received the airfields across thebay at Hatu and Lata and the antiaircraft batteries mounted in the hills along shore.

Amboina City, with its piers, its big coaling station and its naval installations, offered the biggest group of targets. A whole squadron was assigned to hammer it with two-ton block-busters.

At supper time the study of contour maps, targets and enemy gun positions was still in progress. Nobody had been permitted to leave the briefing room. So great was the secrecy with which the whole venture was surrounded that guards had been posted several yards from the building, to keep anybody without a pass from approaching it. Not until ten o’clock was the order given to dismiss; but the evening was not over.

A dozen army trucks pulled up near the door. The fliers piled in, and the vehicles roared away toward the docks. There a number of speedy PT boats were waiting. In these the hundred-odd flying officers were rushed through the spray-filled darkness to a point offshore which the steersmen seemed to find by instinct.

There lay the carrier, a long, dim shape that grew rapidly huger until the speedboat paused close to her towering side. Ship’s ladders had been lowered already. Each boatload of airmen climbed hurriedly to the dark port that opened into the ship’s bowels. Behind them the PT boats roared away into the surrounding blackness.

The Fliers Piled into the Army Trucks

Young Navy fliers of the carrier’s own company came forward to greet the Army men and conduct them to their mess. They were cordial chaps, perhaps a little more formal than the Army fliers. They stood treat for the newcomers with soft drinks and there was a lot of pleasant small-talk. Finally they got around to showing the bomber group their temporary quarters.

The enlisted members of the B-26 crews were already on board, bunking forward with the petty officers. In the morning they’d all get together and each crew would be assigned a plane. From then until the moment of take-off they’d be responsible for its care.

Barry’s team took four bunks in a corner of the large room assigned to the Army group. For the first time in many hours they had a chance to talk quietly together about the mission on which they had embarked.

“It’s a smarter stunt than any of the Japs have pulled off,” Hap Newton declared. “B-25’s and 26’s are usually considered too big to take off from a carrier’s deck. I still don’t see how we can do it with a double load, but the experts must have figured it out. Each ship will be practically a flying bomb.”

“Flying Fortresses could do the same job from a land base and do it better,” Chick Enders remarked. “We’ve done skip-bombing withRosy O’Grady. The trouble is that she’s too big a target, and she cost aquarter of a million dollars to build.”

“Not only that,” Barry Blake put in, “but all the forts that can be spared for this job will be coming right in after us to hammer the Jap gun emplacements in the hills. That’ll be high-altitude bombing, if the weather is right.”

“The weather,” agreed Curly Levitt, “is the big risk. There has to be enough fog or low-hanging cloud ceiling to hide the carrier from Jap patrol planes, right up to the last minute. But over the island itself our forts and Liberators will need visibility unlimited. If the meteorologists have guessed wrong, it will be just too bad.”

That was true enough, Barry thought, but it didn’t worry him. The brass hats who had planned this secret attack so painstakingly must know what sort of weather they could count on. Meteorology was almost an exact science nowadays.

He caught sight of Glenn Crayle talking with his co-pilot at the other side of the room. Barry could not hear what they were saying, but Crayle’s cocksure manner suggested his familiar, boastful line. Probably the sleek-haired pilot was thinking of this Amboina job as offering a splendid chance to make the news headlines. At any rate, thought Barry, the fellow must be a first-rate pilot, or he’d never have been picked for such a mission.

OUT OF THE FOG

Flanked by two cruisers and four destroyers, the big flat-top plowed through rain and fog across the Arafura Sea. Her speed was low, since the weather front was moving slowly. She must stay behind its dark curtain until the moment came for her planes to take the air.

Since the B-26 bombers were not fitted to return to her decks, there could be no practice take-offs. However, everything possible was rehearsed. A special catapult had been built to insure each bomber flying speed before it reached the end of the flight deck. The engines were checked and tested and tuned until their engineers could swear to their perfect condition. The new bomb releases were objects of especial care. At the last crucial second as they swept toward the target, nothing must go wrong.

Just thirty-two hours from the time he had boarded the carrier, Barry Blake sat at the controls of the first “flying bomb” to be launched at Amboina. Hidden in mist, the carrier had approached within forty miles of the island. The B-26 was already in the catapult; her Double Wasp radial motors were roaring at full throttle. Every man on board was braced for thelaunching.

The shock came, jerking the pilots’ heads back as their seats pushed them suddenly. The heavily loaded MartinMarauderliterally shot along the carrier’s fog-swathed deck. Barry eased back on the stick, and felt the deck drop away.

“We’re flying!” Hap Newton said hoarsely. “I never was so jittery taking off from a bomb-pitted jungle strip. I’d been wondering whether that catapult would boost us into the air or into the sea. How does she handle, Barry?”

“Like a lady!” replied the young skipper. “I can feel the double bomb load, but it’s balanced perfectly. We’ll have no trouble with it.”

Barry glanced at his climbing altimeter. When it showed a thousand feet he leveled off, heading due north. An instant later the surrounding fog fell away like torn gauze. The carrier had been keeping just within its edge until the moment her warhawks were released.

Amboina Island rose like a deep purple cloud on the northern horizon. In less than fifteen minutes it would be directly beneath, Jap flak would be bursting; tracer shells and bullets would be criss-crossing the air. Already the Jap defenses must be seething like hornet nests. Their plane detectors had probably caught the first hum of Barry’s engines—now multiplied by ten or twelve as the catapult launchings proceeded.

“Pilot from tail gunner,” Mickey Rourke’s voice sounded on the interphone. “I can see four of our planes jist comin’ out of the fog.”

“They’ll scatter when they reach the harbor,” Barry remarked. “That will keep the Jap guns from concentrating on any group of them.”

“Yeah, but how about us?” Chick Enders asked. “We’ll get to our target before the others are even in range.”

“So what?” retorted Hap Newton. “The Japs will still be blinking the sleep out of their eyes when we slam ’em. And once we’re rid of this bomb load, Barry’s going to make us mighty hard to hit. That right, Skipper?”

“I’m not going to wait for that,” Barry told him. “Do you see that fog layer hanging close to the water? It reaches almost to the tip of Nusanive Point. We’ll duck into it and fool any gunners that might spot us too soon in clear air.”

A long, shallow dive took them into the fog layer two hundred feet above the water. And there, for the next thirty miles, they stayed. When at last the mist thinned to a few wispy streamers the swift little B-26 fairly hugged the water. Her target, the Nusanive radio tower, loomed just ahead.

The shore batteries had spotted her now, but she was flying too low and too fast for them. The ack-ack was bursting far above and behind her. Some of it was aimed at her sister bombers who were now scatteringover Amboina Bay.

“Listen, Chick!” cried Barry. “I’m going in low—just clearing the roof of that radio station.”

“Can’t miss it, Skipper!” the little bombardier replied. “I’ll lay this two-ton egg right on their breakfast table. Boy! Look at that gun crew duck for cover....Bombs away!”

Barry reefed back sharply, gaining altitude in the few precious seconds before the delayed action blast arrived. Without it he might find himself knocked out of the air by the concussion.

The plane jumped—like a baseball struck by a giant’s bat. Her nose went down. With all his might, Barry pulled back the control post. At three hundred feet he leveled off, turning sharp right, to skirt the steep slope of Mt. Kapal.

“Tail gunner from pilot,” he called. “What happened to that radio station?”

“Everything, sir,” Mickey Rourke’s answer came back. “The last I saw of the tower, it was headin’ for the moon, with a few bits of the station roof taggin’ along behind. Your bomb must have landed in the cellar.”

“Keep your eyes peeled for Zero fighters when we start shooting up the seaplane anchorage,” Barry warned him. “We’re moving too fast for them now.”

“You’ve got the best seat in the whole show, Rourke,” put in Fred Marmon. “Babbitt and I are missing all the fun, with our heads stuck into thistwo-gun top turret. If we were flyingSweet Rosy O’Gradynow, we could see something of the countryside.”

“The countryside,” said Chick Enders from his perch in the nose, “is going by too fast for me to see much of it. Oh-oh! That ack-ack battery just ahead has spotted us—”

WHAMMM!

BRRRRRRRRRR!

The explosion of a Jap shell just above the hedgehopping Marauder was answered by a two-second burst of Chick’s gun.

“That crew is out of action,” he said grimly as the gun emplacement swept beneath him. “They came a little too near to spotting us. Better keep below the treetops where you can, Barry.”

Entering the little valley behind Hauisa Point, the B-26 fairly skimmed the bushes. At the base of Mt. Horiel she turned north, dodged behind Mt. Sirimau and cut across the broad base of Latimore Peninsula. Behind her now lay the Amboina docks and naval station, the target of bombers that were still on the way. To the left appeared the tiny villages of Halong and Lateri, Barry’s landmarks.

He hopped over the little rise between them and found himself above his next objective—between forty and fifty Jap seaplanes. Nearly half of these were big three- and four-motored flying boats,KawanishisandMitsubishis. A fewAichiT98’s and anumber of single enginedNakajimasmade up the rest.

“Burn ’em up, Chick,” Barry Blake ordered curtly. “Between you and Rourke we ought to account for plenty of these babies.”

The chatter of Chick’s machine gun answered him. Barry swept over five of the hugeKawanishis, while Chick Enders and Mickey Rourke ripped at their engine cowlings, floats and keels. He swung over a line of littleNakajimas, climbed swiftly, and came back to strafe a string ofMitsubishiboats.

Suddenly a tracer shell streaked past the bomber’s nose.

“Look out!” yelped Mickey Rourke. “One of them bloodyAichifloat planes has opened up on us....”

WHANG!

A rending explosion in the empty bomb bay punctuated the little tail gunner’s warning. Barry banked so sharply that his right wing nearly touched the water. He hopped over aKawanishiand kept the big flying boat between him and theAichi’sshells.

“If nobody objects,” he remarked drily, “we’re getting out of here while we’re still in one piece.... Anybody hurt back there?”

“I’ve got some shrapnel bites in my legs,” Fred Marmon replied. “How about you, Soapy? That shell burst right behind us.”

“Are you telling me, Fred?” the radioman returned. “I won’t be able to sit down in the presence of my betters for a couple of weeks, anyway. I feel as if I’d squatted on a red hot stove. When this plane quits jumping like a bee with St. Vitus’ dance, you’ll have to look and see what happened to my south end.”

Reassured that neither of his two sergeants was seriously hurt, Barry cut straight across the Hitu Peninsula, dodging between the hills. From far behind came the muffled WHUMP, WHUMP, of block busters falling on Amboina and the Lata airfield. There were no Zeros over the hills as yet. Those which had managed to take off had more trouble than they could handle in the harbor itself.

Suddenly a line of white surf stretched across the Marauder’s course. Skimming low above the waves she headed for the low fog bank that lay three miles out from shore. A single shore battery opened fire, but the shells burst well behind her. Seconds later she was safe inside the wall of vapor.

“How’s the gas, Barry?” Curly Levitt asked. “If we have to set down before we reach Darwin, I want to have my island picked out. We might not happen on a perfect beach like Tana Luva’s, but any land is better than a rubber raft.”

“We’ll make it to the mainland, I think,” the young skipper said, after a glance at the fuel gauge. “We haven’t a lot to spare, though, after foolingaround the harbor with those seaplanes. I’ll go upstairs and cut the engines down to bare flying speed, Curly. That ought to save enough gas to bring us home safely.”

The Marauder climbed easily now, with no bomb load and nearly empty fuel tanks. At ten thousand feet she looked down on a world of rolling clouds still dyed with sunrise colors. The air at that altitude was clear and almost windless.

“Course is southwest by south,” Curly Levitt’s voice came over the phone. “As long as we stay above the ceiling, I can make corrections by shooting the sun.”

“Good!” Barry answered. “I’m cutting speed to one hundred fifty m.p.h. We’ll try to hold her there for the rest of the trip. How are your shell-torn heroes doing back there in the waist?”

“Say, Lieutenant,” came Fred Marmon’s reply, “did you ever try to bandage a man’s seat with a roll of one-inch gauze? I might do it if Soapy would hold still, but he’s wiggling like a worm on a fishhook.... Stand still, you jitterbug!”

“Aw, don’t try to be funny!” Soapy’s aggrieved voice answered. “That iodine you sloshed on me burns like fire. Just wait till I start operating on your legs, wise guy!”

A chorus of chuckles bubbled over the intercommunication system. Everyone began ribbing Soapy and Fred, until the two sergeants were forced tojoin in the laughter at their expense.

As the merriment died down, Mickey Rourke reported another B-26 bomber overtaking them. It was flying at top speed, heading for Barry’s plane as straight as a bullet.

“Hold her steady, Lieutenant,” the little Irishman warned. “That crackpot pilot is intendin’ to give us a scare if he can. I wish he wuz a bloody Jap and I could let him have it—yeow!”

The oncoming bomber had dived at the last moment under Barry’s ship. Her vertical fin had actually ticked Mickey’s tail position, sending a slight shock through the whole plane. An instant later she was nosing ahead, still perilously close to the belly of the slower flying craft.

“Look out, Barry!” Chick Enders yelled. “The crazy galoot is going to zoom right under our nose ... and I’m a dodo if it isn’tGlenn Crayle!”

Barry gritted his teeth as Crayle’s fuselage rose up just ahead of his greenhouse.

“Cut the engines, Hap!” he ordered. “I’ll try to hold our nose up till that fool is clear. If only we had a trifle more airspeed....”

Hap was muttering savagely under his breath. Chick Enders was gripping his gun, obviously yearning to pour bullets into Crayle’s back. Abruptly, however, the little bombardier relaxed. Crayle’s tail assembly was pulling clear—and Chick had just caught a glimpse of the rear gunner’s scared face.

“Slap on the coal, Hap!” Barry cried, as his plane’s nose tilted sharply upward. “We’re going into a spin.”

The twin engines bellowed. Hap “revved” them up to the limit, but the spin continued. Instantly there flashed through Barry’s mind all his instructor at Randolph had told him to do in such a situation. His hands and feet now moved automatically, applying just the right control at the right moment.

Four thousand feet above sea level he pulled out and leveled off on the compass course.

“Okay—take over, will you, Hap,” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “I’m tired out.”

His big co-pilot was gazing upward through the plastic window. Hap’s face was a deep red.

“Wait till that cockeyed ape gets out of sight, can you, Barry?” he asked in a choked voice. “He’s stunting now—and waggling his wings at us. If I took over nothing could keep me from giving him a dose of his own medicine. I’d probably crash us both.”

Though his face was still damp with perspiration, Barry smiled.

“All right, Hap,” he said quietly. “I’ll give you a chance to cool off. But you’ve really no reason to lose your head because Glenn Crayle is a nut. You’re playing his game when you let him burn you up. He’s already punished himself, and incidentally his crew, by using up his gas with that monkey business.If they get home at all it will be on a raft.”

“Say!” exclaimed Hap, his face brightening. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Apparently Crayle, or someone aboard his plane, thought of it now for the first time. The stunting ship straightened out abruptly and headed for home. Her distance from Barry’s craft, however, remained unchanged.

“He’s reduced speed!” Chick Enders cried. “It’s too late, though. We’ve still enough to get home, and he hasn’t. Let’s fly past and give him the merryha-ha, Barry.”

“I’ll take over now, Skipper,” Hap chimed in cheerfully. “It’ll be swell fun pulling up close to his wing tip and giving him the old ‘thumbs down’ signal.”

“You’re taking the controls but you’re keeping the interval exactly as it is, fella,” Barry Blake declared. “Those are my orders. We’re following Glenn Crayle as far as he goes; and when he sets down, on land or water, we’ll at least be able to report his position.”

An unhappy silence fell upon the Marauder’s crew. They knew that their skipper was wholly in the right and they loved him for it. But their anger at Crayle was not easily bottled up. The appearance of a Flying Fortress squadron high overhead furnished a welcome change of thought.

“Wish we were going back with them!” ChickEnders exclaimed. “Dropping one egg and skedaddling like a scared sparrow isn’t my idea of fun. If we’d come out inRosy, we could have hung around Amboina picking our targets and making a real party of it.”

“That’s the trouble, Chick,” spoke up Curly Levitt. “Sweet Rosy O’Gradyhad been attending too many such parties. She’s all shot to junk. I don’t imagine that squadron of forts will hang around after they’ve reached their target area. They’ll drop their loads where they’ll do the most good, and head for home.”

“Here comes a bunch of Liberators!” cried Hap Newton. “Oh, boy, are those Japs due for a royal pasting! They’ll probably send in a few squadrons of Australian Havocs and North American Mitchells with regular bomb loads to mop up the shipping in the main harbor. That place will be a shambles.”

Hap’s guess was correct. Half an hour later three large formations of Australian attack bombers and B-25’s swept over, headed for the Jap base. The soldiers of Hirohito were going to get their teeth knocked loose before this day was over!

For the next hour Barry watched his fuel gauge as a mother watches her sick infant. From time to time he asked Curly to check their position by dead reckoning. Finally he asked his navigator to shoot the sun and make an accurate check.

“Either there’s a difference between our compassand the one on that other plane,” he said, “or Crayle is away off course. He could be heading for one of the Jap-held islands to make his forced landing. In any case, I want to know exactly where we are.”

Curly Levitt stepped up to the top gun turret with his octant and took his shot. For a few minutes he figured rapidly.

“You’re right, Skipper,” he said in a shocked tone. “We’re heading straight toward the Tanimbar group of islands. If it weren’t for the cloud rug below us we could probably see them from here. There’s a good-sized Jap base on the biggest island, and probably a holding force of soldiers on most of the little ones. Any Allied plane that lands in this area is sure to be bombed or captured....”

“He’s going down!” yelped Hap Newton. “Shall we follow him, Skipper? There may be a low ceiling under these clouds.”

“I’ll take over,” Barry answered. “No telling what we’ll run into below!”

He shoved the bomber’s nose down into the cloud scuff. Eyes fixed on the altimeter, he held her in a power dive, past five thousand, four thousand, three thousand....

At two thousand feet they broke through the ceiling into a thin drizzle of rain. Visibility was fair. Crayle’s ship was about the same distance ahead as before, flying low toward a small land mass three miles away. Beyond the small island loomed thedim bulk of Tanimbar.

Barry dropped his plane quickly toward the water. If no Japs on Tanimbar had already spotted the two bombers, the little island’s mass would hide them from the larger one. There might still be a chance to rescue Crayle’s crew. Yes! There was a smooth, straight beach, now exposed at low tide.

Circling just offshore, Barry watched the other plane land. The tricycle gear touched the hard packed sand lightly and rolled to a smooth stop.

“Neat work!” Barry applauded. “I hope I do as well. Of course a nearly empty B-26 wouldn’t plow up wet beach sand like a fortress....”

“Hey! What’s the idea, Skipper?” Hap blurted in alarm. “You’re not going to maroon us too on that beach? Isn’t losing one perfectly good plane enough to suit you?”

“Keep your shirt on, Hap—and everybody!” Barry replied. “We may have to abandon one plane, but there’s nothing to stop us from picking up Crayle and his team and taking them home with us in ours. I have an idea they’ll jump at the chance, too!”

ADRIFT

The moment that Barry’s wheels touched the wave-packed sand, he knew he had made no mistake. The beach was hard and smooth enough for a take-off. Best of all, its length at low tide made a runway as perfect as could be wished.

A hundred feet from Crayle’s bomber, Barry stopped his plane.

“Everybody out and swing her around!” he cried, unfastening his safety belt. “Maybe we won’t have to take off in a hurry, but we’re going to be prepared.”

Glenn Crayle and his six team mates were standing rather gloomily beside their ship. Evidently they had been laying full blame for their predicament on the pilot. Crayle’s sulky, handsome face was flushed with anger as he glared at the newly arrived crew.

“Couldn’t you find a beach of your own to set down on?” he snarled. “Or did you just want to be chummy? If you came to bum gas, you’re out of luck, Blake. Our tanks are dry.”

Barry ignored him. With a pleasant nod of greeting he spoke to the other crew’s navigator, a blond,worried-looking chap.

“We came down to ask if you fellows wanted a ride home,” he said. “Of course, if you had any gas left it would help, but I think we still have enough left to take both crews back to base. What do you say?”

The other’s worried frown vanished.

“What can we say, except ‘Thanks?’” he answered heartily. “It’s pretty swell of you to risk a landing on this beach just to pick us up.”

“That’s right!” the co-pilot agreed. “This island is enemy territory. You could have just gone on and reported us forced down here. Why you didn’t do that, after what happened an hour ago, I can’t understand.”

“Forget it!” smiled Barry Blake. “Help us turn our plane around, and pile in. We don’t want to hang around here till some Jap patrol plane finds us.... Coming, Crayle?”

“No!” blurted the other pilot furiously. “Tonight there’ll be a chance to find a Jap boat or plane along shore and transfer its gas. If none of my crew has the nerve to take that chance with me, I’ll do it alone.”

There was no answering such a crack-brained statement. Crayle’s proposition hadn’t one chance in ten thousand of accomplishment, even with a full crew to help him. Barry turned away with a shrug.

Crayle’s crew followed him. The combined teamslifted the tail of Barry’s plane and walked it around. Now the bomber was facing in the direction from which she had come. As Barry Blake stooped to crawl through the belly hatch, Crayle’s co-pilot, Ted Landis, halted him.

“Wait a minute, Skipper,” he said. “Crayle was lying when he told you our tanks were dry. We have nowhere near enough gas to reach Port Darwin, thanks to his stunting, but if we put it with yours, we’d all be sure of getting home. Shall we get it now?”

Barry hesitated. What Ted Landis proposed was common sense. On the other hand, Crayle would certainly prefer charges of mutiny, assault and everything else he could contrive if they drained the tank of his plane against his orders.

“All right, Landis,” the young Fortress skipper decided. “We’ll do that. And we’ll take Crayle along whether he wants to come or not. We can all testify that he is not behaving like a sane man. Drain off that gas, Mister, and let’s get away from here the minute it’s transferred to our tanks.”

The crew of the stranded bomber hurried back to it at Landis’ heels. Ignoring Crayle, the co-pilot and his engineer dived into the open hatch. The others stood beside it, blocking their furious skipper’s way.

“I’ll have you all court-martialed!” Crayle shouted, completely beside himself. “Stand away from that hatch—”

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