CHAPTER SIXTEEN

DOWNED AT SEA!

“Not a sign of life there,” Larry said as he looked through the periscope. “Beach fires all out. Down ’scope. Take her up.”

They moved toward the ladder leading up to the conning tower, Larry first, Scoot immediately behind him, in trunks. He held a bundle in one hand.

“Hope I can keep these clothes a little dry,” Scoot said. “I’d like to be dressed when I do this if I can.”

Larry unfastened the hatch cover and hurried up on to the bridge. Scoot was behind him in a second, followed by March and two enlisted men who manned the machine guns at once. Everyone moved swiftly and noiselessly.

Scoot was already sliding down the ladder to the deck, with March right behind him. Larry stayed on the bridge, looking sharply toward shore at every minute.

“So long March,” Scoot whispered as he slid into the water. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“Good luck, Scoot,” March whispered back. And that was all. For just a second he watched Scoot strike out toward the plane, holding aloft his bundle of clothes and making no splashing sound. Then March turned and went back up the ladder to the bridge.

There he stood quietly beside Larry, who said nothing. March picked up Scoot’s dim figure in the water, listening at the same time for the sound of an alarm on the beach in case a sentry saw the black hull of the submarine offshore.

“He’s reached it,” March whispered to Larry.

“Good.”

“Must be unfastening the buoy now,” March said. Again they waited in silence.

“Can’t be sure, but I think he’s climbing up on the pontoon,” March said. “Yes—I can just barely make him out. Can’t be seen from shore.”

Then there was a long silence, tense, expectant. March tried to picture Scoot slipping into trousers and shirt, climbing into the plane’s cockpit, feeling for the switches and controls in the dark. He’d probably have to wind up the starter. And suddenly at this moment, March wondered how much gas the Jap plane had in it.

“Must be enough for it to get back to its battleship,” he told himself.

March jumped. A coughing roar split the silence and the darkness. Flashes of flame came from the exhaust pipes of the plane as the engine roared, subsided, roared again. Scoot had taken just half a minute to warm it up. Then he gave it the gun and March saw the plane begin to move.

“Down, men!” Larry shouted, and the two men left their guns and slid down the hatch. “Get on down, March,” Larry said, “and take her down. I’m right behind you.”

But at that moment shots rang out from the shore. Figures were running along the beach, shouting and gesticulating wildly. The seaplane was roaring away over the water and some men were firing at it.

March, his feet on the rungs of the ladder, looked up, startled. And then Larry fell at his feet.

“I’m hit, March,” Larry said. “Don’t waste a minute. I can get down. Hurry.”

Grabbing his Skipper, March hauled him to the companionway. He heard the spatter of bullets against the sides of the submarine. He lowered Larry quickly down the hatch and men below grabbed him and helped him from the ladder. March slid down after him, shouting commands to take her down while he was still closing the hatch.

“Call Sallini,” he said to one of the men. “Take the Skipper to his quarters. Mac, go in with him.”

The roar of water into the ballast tanks flowed over them, and the whine of the electric motors told them the ship was under way.

“Steady at fifty,” he said. “Hold course. We’ll surface in a little while. Stan, will you take over here? I want to see how the Skipper is.”

“Sure, March,” Stan said. “Pat him on the back for me. Hope it’s not bad.”

March stood at the door of Gray’s quarters. There was not room inside. Larry was on his bunk, looking up to smile with an effort, but with pain marking his face.

“This was oneifwe didn’t think of, wasn’t it, March?” he asked.

“How are you, Larry?” March asked.

“It hurts like the devil,” the Skipper replied. “I think there’s two or three slugs in my chest somewhere. Sallini will be able to tell in a minute.”

The pharmacist was ripping off Gray’s shirt and undershirt, which showed spreading stains of blood. McFee helped him, trying to move Gray as little as possible. Then Sallini examined the wounds carefully for a few moments.

“Three’s right, Skipper,” he said. “And they’re still in you. I don’t see how this one missed the heart but it must have or you wouldn’t be talking now. This one up here busted your collar-bone. That’s what hurts so much right now. And the other, on the right side must’ve gone right through the lung. I can’t tell if any might be lodged in the spine or not. Doubt it or you’d have passed out—couldn’t move much.”

“Can’t move much anyway,” the Skipper replied weakly.

March saw that his face was draining white, and his eyes began to cloud over.

“Sulfa tablets, anyway,” Sallini said. “And bandages to stop the bleeding here, though there’s not much likely to come out while he’s lying down. May be some internal bleeding but I couldn’t do anything about that. Don’t know what else I could do right now.”

“Okay, Sallini,” March said. “Go get what you need and do it as fast as you can.”

The pharmacist left and March stepped close to the Skipper, leaning down close to him as Mac was.

“March,” Gray said. “I don’t know what the devil this is, but I feel like passing out. Anyway—and this is an order from your Captain—carry out plans exactly as we have laid them out. You’re in command of this submarine when I’m—er, incapacitated. McFee will help you carry on. Go get that convoy!”

“We’ll get it, Larry,” March said. “But you’ll do the job, because you’ll be up and around by the time we get there. Or at least you can direct the battle from your bunk.”

Gray smiled and let his head fall back. He seemed to be sleeping. Then Sallini reappeared and Mac and March stepped to the companionway and watched through the door while the pharmacist did what he could for Gray.

The Skipper was unconscious and they had done all they could. March, with a heavy heart, stepped back into the control room and took the interphone from the orderly.

“The Skipper’s been wounded,” he said to the entire ship. “I know that makes you all feel just as badly as I feel right now. Sallini’s done all he can for him and he’s resting. Can’t tell much about his condition, but I’ll let you know regularly how he is.”

Then he gave the order to surface the boat and they went ahead on course in the darkness. March stood his watch on the bridge, looking ahead in the blackness, wondering how Scoot was making out up there, and how the Skipper was making out in his own blackness down below. Sallini had given Larry some blood plasma to overcome some of the loss of blood that the Skipper had suffered, but Gray was still unconscious. When March went below as Stan came to relieve him, he found Sallini worried.

“His fever’s going up,” he said. “I’ve just given him more sulfa. Don’t know what it can be but there’s infection somewhere. Wish I could get those slugs out of him, but that’s a ticklish business.”

“We’ll wait and see,” March said. “Maybe the sulfa will lick the infection and the fever will come down. If not—well, we’ll decide then what to do. Meanwhile, get some sleep. You’ve been up all night.”

March lay down on his bunk for a while and managed to drift off to sleep for three hours. Just as dawn was breaking he got up and had a cup of coffee, had the boat submerged to periscope depth, and traveled ahead more slowly, checking regularly to make sure he was exactly on the course he had agreed on with Scoot.

The Skipper Was Still Unconscious

“I wonder how Scoot’s making out,” he said. “He might be pretty near that convoy now—if there’s a convoy there.”

Scoot was at that moment disgusted. He had been able to do nothing with the Jap plane’s radio during all these hours, and now, even with more light to see by, he could not get it working.

“Maybe when the Japs order radio silence,” he told himself, “they enforce it by gumming up the radio some way so itcan’tbe used. Anyway, I can’t do anything with this baby. I’m going to be keeping radio silence whether I want to or not.”

So he turned his attention to the sea ahead of him, where he hoped to sight the convoy. Looking at the chart occasionally and checking his speed, he calculated where he must be.

Then he saw it! First a few clouds of smoke far ahead on the horizon. Then little dots below the smoke—dots that were Jap ships. More and more and more of them he saw, line after line in orderly procession. Up ahead and at the sides were destroyers and near the front a battleship—no, two battleships. As he flew on further he made out a carrier in the center and at the end three cruisers and more destroyers kept a rear guard.

“Don’t want to get any closer than I have to,” Scoot spoke aloud to himself. “But I want to get all the dope I can and as accurately as possible. Got to stick around long enough to check their speed and course.”

He flew on, counting, checking, making another estimate to compare with his first.

“About fifty-five ships,” he said to himself. “Eight miles long, three miles wide. Pretty slow—there must be some old freighters in there. About ten knots.”

He grabbed a chart and quickly plotted the convoy’s course, wrote brief notations of his conclusions, tucked the paper into a waterproof pouch and stuck it in his pocket.

“Won’t trust to memory, anyway,” he said.

Then, feeling that he had learned all he could, he banked the plane and turned away, still about two miles ahead of the leading ships. He looked back down at them as he headed eastward once more.

“Right now they’re wondering what’s going on,” he said to himself. “Up to now they haven’t thought a thing. They saw the plane coming in and just thought it was a little earlier than they had expected. That maybe made them wonder if I had some special report. But now they really are in a dither! They just can’t figure out why I should come so close and then turn back.”

He laughed. “Well, that’s their problem, not mine.”

He gave the little plane all the speed he could. If they were going to send up a plane to have a look at him, he wanted to get as far away as possible. They might send up several planes.

“If they’re fast, then I’m sunk,” Scoot said. “But why should they send up a flock of planes to look at one Jap seaplane that acts a little funny?”

He checked his course often, so that he could land where the submarine could pick him up. And he kept looking behind for the Jap plane that might be coming after him.

He did not have to wait long for that. Half an hour away from the convoy he saw the fast little pursuit ship behind him, coming like the wind. He wished his own plane could travel twice as fast, but he could not urge another mile per hour from it. Gradually the gap closed between the two planes.

“Now what?” Scoot asked himself. “What should I do? I’ll keep right on this course, first of all. And I’ll just keep flying straight ahead as if I were minding my own business. Nothing much else Icando. That plane’s got three times the speed and ten times the fire power of this one!”

The pursuit was only a few hundred yards behind. It stayed there for a while, apparently awaiting some kind of signal from the seaplane. Then it came around to one side, and Scoot tried to hide his face.

“First and only time I ever wished I looked like a Jap,” Scoot said.

The fast plane flew alongside the other for a time, slowing down to keep pace with it, but still some distance to one side.

“What is this?” Scoot asked. “Are we just going out for a spin together? I wish he’d do something.”

The Jap flier obliged by cutting back and coming up on the other side, then speeding up and circling around in front. It was at this moment that he looked full into Scoot’s face. Scoot could even see the alarm that filled him, the wide eyes, the gasp of amazement, as he realized that an American was flying the Jap seaplane.

At that moment, Scoot pressed the trigger on his own machine gun, but it was too late. The Jap had darted out of range just in time. He was so fast that Scoot could not possibly maneuver his slow ship to battle him.

“There’s only one chance,” Scoot said to himself, “and I’m going to try it. If this monkey is the bad shot most of them are, he may miss on his first try, even with a set-up like me. If he does, that’s my chance.”

The fast pursuit was diving on the seaplane’s tail. Scoot heard the staccato rattling of the ship’s machine guns.

“Good!” he cried. “Firing while he’s still too far away, like all of them! Too anxious!”

But then Scoot’s plane wobbled, tipped over, and went spiraling down to the sea in a slow spin. The pursuit plane circled above and watched. About fifty feet above the water, the seaplane lurched a little, seemed to come out of its spin. The pursuit plane pilot looked puzzled, but he smiled again as he saw the plane stall, slip back and hit the sea, tail first.

ATTACK!

It was the cold water that brought Scoot to his senses, cold water creeping up over his chest. When he felt it, he scrambled forward, but fell back in his seat at once. The arm he had reached out to pull himself up with would not work. It hung limp at his side. He glanced down and saw blood streaming from it.

“Got to do something about that!” he muttered dazedly. “Anyway, it worked. He thought he hit me. I did a nice slow spinning dive. He thought he’d got the pilot and the plane just went out of control, fell into a natural slow spin. And did I keep it slow! He must have thought it was funny when I pulled out of it just over the water, but I didn’t make it look too good. Couldn’t. But I’d slowed her down plenty, then put her into a stall and let her flop back tail first.”

The water was creeping higher as Scoot sat there thinking of what had just happened. Then he shook himself to clear his head, reached up with his good arm and pulled himself forward. The door of the cockpit was already wrenched half off, so Scoot crawled out easily enough. But then he slipped and fell into the water.

The shock revived him a little more so that he grabbed one pontoon. Slowly and painfully he pulled himself up on it. Then he looked up into the sky. Far to the west he saw the dot that was the Jap pursuit ship heading back to its convoy. Scoot smiled weakly.

“He thinks he’s killed an American flier,” he mumbled. “He doesn’t know how hard that is to do.”

The plane was not sinking any further. Its tail and most of the fuselage were covered but the nose and wings and pontoons were above the surface.

“Only one pontoon busted,” Scoot told himself. “The other’s holding us up—that and the wing tanks that are almost empty.”

Then he saw his broken arm again. He had to stop that flow of blood. He wriggled forward a little on the sloping pontoon so that he could wrap his legs around the brace leading from it to the plane’s fuselage. Then he used his good left arm to rip off most of one side of his shirt. Holding one end of the strip in his teeth, he wound the cloth around the bad arm above the break, making it as tight as he could. It slipped a little as he tied it, but it was fairly tight. The flow of blood did not stop, but it was greatly reduced.

“Don’t know how much longer I can keep my strength,” he said to himself. “Better make myself fast somehow.”

He Tied Himself to the Strut

Slowly he struggled out of his trousers, after taking the waterproof pouch with the convoy information and putting it in his money belt. Next he tied himself to the strut with the legs of his trousers. Then he sat, looking eastward in the direction from whichKamongomust come.

“I’m not quite as far as I ought to be,” he thought, feeling consciousness leaving him. “They’ll probably go right under me.”

It was there that March found him. He had broughtKamongoto the surface a short distance before the spot agreed upon for the meeting. But there had been no sign of Scoot. Keeping steadily ahead on course, March had ordered all men to stay below at their stations except for himself and the controlman on the bridge. They were riding the vents, with main ballast tanks open, and air vents at the top closed. The water rushed in to fill part of the tanks, but not all of them, because of the air trapped inside. That still allowedKamongoenough buoyancy to keep on the surface, but not at full speed. All that was needed for a dive was the opening of the air vents at the top of the ballast tanks. That might save twenty seconds in the diving operations and twenty seconds might make all the difference in the world.

March had looked frantically over the sea when they reached the designated spot. Still no sign of Scoot. And no report from the radio.

“Something happened!” he muttered to himself. “Something happened!”

So he continued on the surface—mile after mile beyond the assigned spot, in danger every minute from enemy planes that might sight him. Still no word over the radio.

He was just about to give up and order the ship to submerge when he saw the dot on the sea ahead. He was ready for a dive at any moment—but it might be Scoot instead of an enemy craft. So he stayed on the surface, and looked, looked, looked as they came nearer. Then he saw it was a plane, crashed in a crazy position. He ordered main ballasts pumped and full speed ahead. Next he ordered men up to man the guns in case this should prove some trick of the enemy’s.

But long before they reached the plane they knew what it was. When they were still some distance away, they saw the figure on one of the pontoons. As they neared the plane, men were ready with a collapsible boat. Quickly they rowed to the plane, lifted Scoot into the rocking boat and took him back to the submarine. Lifting him up to the conning tower, they heard him mumble something. He reached the bridge just in time to have March lean close to his lips and hear, “Money belt—convoy.”

In another minute Scoot was below in March’s bunk and Sallini was hovering over him. And March was looking at the chart and the information about the big Jap convoy. He rushed to the interphone.

“We’ve found it!” he called to all hands. “Scoot Bailey found it. We’re radioing headquarters, then going in to attack.”

There was a whoop of joy throughout the ship. This was what they came out in pigboats for—to find a flock of Jap ships and send them to the bottom!

Quickly March gave details in code to Scotty at the radio and soon the message was flashing out over the water. In a moment there would be action on submarines, at airfields, in navy bases to the south and east where the Americans were waiting for just this news.

Then March took the ship down and they moved forward on a new course, planned to bring them to the convoy at the earliest possible moment. March figured it would take about two hours. By that time other ships and subs would be on their way, and planes would be roaring overhead soon after he reached the Jap ships.

He went in to Scoot and found Sallini smiling.

“He’ll be fine,” the pharmacist said. “Broken right arm, bad jagged cut severing the artery. But we’ve got the blood flow stopped now, got the wound clean and dressed. He’s had some blood plasma and I’ll keep giving him more as long as he needs it. He lost plenty of blood, but he’ll be okay fast.”

“Nothing besides the arm?” March asked.

“Just some cuts around the head and one leg,” Sallini said. “Nothing serious. And exhaustion, too, but we can pull him out of that fast. He ought to be talking in a few hours and walking in a few days.”

“How’s the Skipper?” March asked.

“Still unconscious. Fever high but receding a little bit. Maybe he’ll make it.”

“Here I am going into battle with my Skipper and my best friend out cold!” March exclaimed.

“You’ve got the whole crew with you, sir,” the pharmacist said. “Every man of ’em. Let’s get in the middle of that bunch of Jap ships and blast the daylights out of ’em!”

Tension began to rise in the boat as they neared the convoy, traveling at a hundred and fifty feet where no shadow of a sub would be likely to be seen from the air. March got on the phone and told all hands the plan of attack, not minimizing the dangers.

“We’re going into the middle,” March said. “Alone. It was the Skipper’s plan. We’ll be the first there, and we’re to scatter them so the planes will find easy pickings and the other subs can pick them off as they scamper away. We’ll have all tubes ready to go at just about the same time—six fore and four aft. Then we’ll duck for all we’re worth and we’ll go mighty deep and lay low.”

There was another shout through the ship and the men stood eagerly at their posts. And then came waiting, tense waiting, as the ship moved forward. Menhad a cup of coffee, smoked a cigarette, walked back and forth nervously. But they did little talking. They were waiting, listening.

Finally the sound man picked up something.

“Propellers,” he said, “plenty of them—ten degrees to port.”

“Take her to two hundred feet,” March ordered, and then gave a slight change in course to the helmsman.

“We’ll get right in their path and lay low without motors running. The sound detectors on the advance destroyers won’t catch us, then. When they’ve passed over we can pick up motors again because their own propellers will kill all the sound ours make. We’ll come up in about the middle, pick our spot and let go. I’ll want the periscope up for just about five seconds.”

The boat leveled off at two hundred and fifty feet. Motors were shut off. Soon the sound man reported the close approach of the propellers. March had judged right—they were passing overhead.

“Destroyer a little to starboard, passing over,” the soundman reported.

“Another to port,” he reported in a moment. Then, a little later, “Battleship.”

“Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to get that?” murmured one of the men.

“Nice, yes,” March replied. “But that wouldn’t do the job for the other boys that we’re going to do. We’ll let one of the Forts get that battleship. We’ll just send it running.”

The men nodded in agreement. They knew the Skipper’s plan was best.

Ship after ship passed over as there was silence in the submarine. Then March spoke.

“Come up to seventy-five feet now. They can’t hear.”

The motors whined again and the sub tilted up slightly. Everyone watched the depth hand move to seventy-five and stay there. The sound man continued to report propellers overhead. March figured that they must be getting near the center of the convoy.

“Say, here’s something!” the sound man exclaimed. There was complete silence as he listened more intently. “That’s a carrier or I’m a monkey!”

“This is our spot!” March said quietly. Then he spoke over the phone to the entire ship. “We’ve found our spot. Right by a carrier.”

There were a few cries of pleasure, but most of the men were too excited to shout. March gave the order to bring the boat up to periscope depth, standing by the shaft ready to grab it.

As the ship leveled off he cried, “Up ’scope” and the big shaft slid upward. March grabbed the handles and had his eyes in place in a fraction of a second. All the others watched him intently. He swung the ’scopea little to the left, then to the right. His voice came sharply then, giving the target setting for the forward tubes—all six of them. The men knew that was for the carrier.

Then March swung the ’scope clear around a hundred and eighty degrees and focused. “Troopship!” he called, and then gave the target setting to be relayed to the after torpedo room.

“Down ’scope!” he called. “Stand by to fire!”

The shaft slid down. Everyone in the boat knew that the periscope might have been seen even in those few seconds it was up, even though most lookouts on the convoy were keeping their eyes chiefly on the seas beyond the group of ships. The sound man would know if a destroyer came racing toward them. But March was not going to wait.

“Fire one!” McFee pressed the button that fired number one torpedo.

“Fire two!” The second one shot from the bow.

“Fire three! Fire four! Fire five! Fire six!”

In rapid order the commands came, then everyone waited tensely. March looked at his watch, counting off the seconds. Then it came—the roar, the shock of an explosion, and the mighty cheer that tore through the throats of every man onKamongo. The first torpedo had struck home, but at that moment March called out, “Fire seven! Fire eight! Fire nine! Fire ten!” And during those commands the men heard further explosions from the first torps that had gone streaking out.

March had not been able to count how many had come, but he knew that McFee had done so. But now all were waiting for the first sounds from the aft tubes. In a moment it came—the first torpedo against the troopship, and March waited no longer.

“Take her down!” he cried. “Three hundred feet!”

DEPTH CHARGES

Three hundred feet was just about the limit for them. Pressure was terrific at that level, they all knew. But they wanted to get as far away from the depth charges to come as they could.

Kamongo’smotors whined at high pitch as they sent the boat angling down toward the bottom. As they went down March got the report that five torpedoes had hit the carrier and all four had ploughed into the troopship.

“It was hard to concentrate,” said McFee, “but I know I’m right. And, brother, that’s good shooting.”

“Wish we could know just how much damage we did,” March said.

“But you don’t want to know badly enough to surface and find out, do you?” asked Mac with a grin. “The planes will find out when they come along in a few minutes. They’ll tell us—later, just what we did. Anyway the sound man reports that the ships are scattering in so many directions he can’t keep track of them.”

Then March heard something else from the sound man. “Sounds as if there’s solid rock below us—at about two hundred eighty feet.”

“Wonderful!” cried March. “Settle down to it and we’ll just lie there and rest. Shut off all motors. Then let them try to find us.”

“Destroyers coming in up above, sir,” the sound man said.

“Pretty slow, weren’t they?” Mac commented.

March picked up the phone from the orderly and spoke to the ship. “They’ll be coming any minute now. Hold fast. And we’ll be snug on the bottom.”

The first depth charge came far above them, and the shock from it was very slight. But then the submarine bumped slightly as its keel settled gently against the bottom. Motors were shut off andKamongotilted a little to one side as it lay down on the sloping shelf of rock at the bottom of the sea.

There came the metallic click and then the monstrous b-b-r-r-rrooom of a depth charge to the right and above them. Then one to the left. Then one beyond the bow. Then one beyond the stern.

“Laying a nice pattern,” McFee called, as he held fast to the little railing at the periscope well.

“That would get us if we were higher,” March said. “They probably figured we’re at about two hundred feet.”

“They don’t dare go any lower in their subs, usually,” McFee said, as he braced himself for the next series of charges which shook him.

March looked around the control room. Everyone was holding fast, but looking very calm. He phoned forward to the torpedo room to ask how everything was up there.

“All fine, sir,” reported Pete Kalinsky. “And nice shootin’, sir.”

Room after room reported everything all right. “Just a light filament busted from that last one in here,” said the machinist’s mate from the engine room.

March saw that one of the men at the controls was steadying another while he lighted a cigarette. He smiled, and then looked up sharply as a figure appeared in the door at the forward bulkhead. It was Scoot, hanging on groggily and looking angry.

“What’s goin’ on here, anyway?” he demanded loudly. “Can’t a guy sleep in peace?”

March ran to him, but a depth charge—the closest yet—sent him sprawling to the floor. McFee picked him up, holding fast to the bulkhead while doing so. Then, between explosions, they got Scoot back to his bunk, where they strapped him in place. The young flier went to sleep again peacefully.

On the way back to the control room March and McFee stopped to look at the Skipper. Sallini was with him, and he smiled.

“Temperature went down—just about the time you hit that carrier, sir,” he reported. “He’s coming through all right, though they’ll have to take those slugs out of him pretty soon.”

Scoot Appeared in the Doorway

“We’ll get him to a hospital,” March said, and then grabbed the door hard as he heard the click and then the hardest explosion of all.

“They can’t hear anything,” he said to McFee. “Do you suppose they figure we’re lying quiet down here and are going to send them deeper and deeper?”

“Might be,” Mac said. March knew that if such were the case it would be better to try to zigzag away. The next explosion was so close that it knocked over two men in the control room who thought they were holding on fast. The next one knocked out the lights, and March shouted for the emergency system. In a moment there was light again but March was worried, trying to make up his mind what to do. Suddenly he felt that he just could not make any more decisions. He wasn’t supposed to be a submarine Skipper yet, anyway. Why decide?

“Well,” he said to himself, “if the next one’s any closer I’ll try moving away from here.”

He waited tensely. The next explosion would decide the matter for him. He still waited. It didn’t come. He looked at the sound man, puzzled.

“Destroyers moving away, sir,” the sound man reported.

Then they heard another explosion. But this was different. It was near the surface, far away, and it was not like a depth charge. Then came another and another.

“What can that be?” March said, turning to Mac.

“Darned if I know,” the veteran said.

And then it came to March. He knew. With a smile he picked up the phone and announced to everybody, “It’s all over, folks. Those things you hear are bombs from airplanes—our airplanes chasing the destroyers away from us and blasting the daylights out of the convoy we’ve scattered.”

The cheer that went up was tired but came from the heart. All over, men relaxed their grips, lit cigarettes, strolled for a cup of coffee.

“We’ll just stay right here where it’s safe for quite a while longer,” March said. “Then we’ll move on slowly—toward home.”

Kamongowas limping when it came into port and tied up alongside the tenderDavid. It had run submerged so long that its batteries were almost dead. But as they pulled into the little harbor the Skipper came to, first saying “Take her down! Take her down!” and then opening his eyes and looking around in a daze. He found plenty of story-tellers eager to tell him what he had slept through.

“It’s just as well,” he smiled weakly, when he had heard. “I never did like depth charge attacks.”

Scoot was up and about now, his arm in a sling. He would not believe that he had complained about the noise that disturbed his sleep during the depth-charge attack.

No one was completely happy, though, until they had full reports of the convoy battle from the Intelligence Officer at the tender. It was with pride that March Anson carried the complete news to Skipper Larry Gray as he lay in the small sick bay aboard the tender.

“We got the troopship ourselves,” March said. “The carrier was on fire and listing badly when the planes came and finished her off. Not a plane got off her. Of the rest, thirty-eight ships are at the bottom of the sea. Not one ship reached Truk!”

Larry looked at March silently and then a slow smile spread over his face. “Skipper,” he said, “you did a swell job.”

That was all the commendation March wanted or needed, though he wasn’t dismayed later when he got the Navy Cross and his promotion to full lieutenant.

As for Scoot Bailey, he was flown to Australia to get over his broken arm before resuming his flying fromBunker Hill. The same award and promotion had come to him for his part in breaking up the Jap convoy, and he was very happy. But his last words to March were on the old argument between them.

“I won’t say another word against pigboats,” he said. “But I still want to get back to a plane. As I said once before, they make a great team, don’t they?”

WHITMANAUTHORIZED EDITIONS

WHITMAN

AUTHORIZED EDITIONS

NEW STORIES OF ADVENTUREAND MYSTERY

NEW STORIES OF ADVENTURE

AND MYSTERY

Up-to-the-minute novels for boys and girls about FavoriteCharacters, all popular and well-known, including—

Up-to-the-minute novels for boys and girls about Favorite

Characters, all popular and well-known, including—

INVISIBLE SCARLET O’NEILLITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE and the Gila Monster GangBRENDA STARR, Girl ReporterDICK TRACY, Ace DetectiveTILLIE THE TOILER and the Masquerading DuchessBLONDIE and Dagwood’s Adventure in MagicBLONDIE and Dagwood’s Snapshot ClueBLONDIE and Dagwood’s Secret ServiceJOHN PAYNE and the Menace at Hawk’s NestBETTY GRABLE and the House With the Iron ShuttersBOOTS (of “Boots and Her Buddies”) and the Mystery of the Unlucky VaseANN SHERIDAN and the Sign of the SphinxJANE WITHERS and the Swamp Wizard

INVISIBLE SCARLET O’NEIL

LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE and the Gila Monster Gang

BRENDA STARR, Girl Reporter

DICK TRACY, Ace Detective

TILLIE THE TOILER and the Masquerading Duchess

BLONDIE and Dagwood’s Adventure in Magic

BLONDIE and Dagwood’s Snapshot Clue

BLONDIE and Dagwood’s Secret Service

JOHN PAYNE and the Menace at Hawk’s Nest

BETTY GRABLE and the House With the Iron Shutters

BOOTS (of “Boots and Her Buddies”) and the Mystery of the Unlucky Vase

ANN SHERIDAN and the Sign of the Sphinx

JANE WITHERS and the Swamp Wizard

The books listed above may be purchased atthe same store where you secured this book.

The books listed above may be purchased at

the same store where you secured this book.

WHITMANAUTHORIZED EDITIONS

WHITMAN

AUTHORIZED EDITIONS

JANE WITHERS and the Phantom ViolinJANE WITHERS and the Hidden RoomBONITA GRANVILLE and the Mystery of Star IslandANN RUTHERFORD and the Key to Nightmare HallPOLLY THE POWERS MODEL: The Puzzle of the Haunted CameraJOYCE AND THE SECRET SQUADRON: A Captain Midnight AdventureNINA AND SKEEZIX (of “Gasoline Alley”): The Problem of the Lost RingGINGER ROGERS and the Riddle of the Scarlet CloakSMILIN’ JACK and the Daredevil Girl PilotAPRIL KANE AND THE DRAGON LADY: A “Terry and the Pirates” AdventureDEANNA DURBIN and the Adventure of Blue ValleyDEANNA DURBIN and the Feather of FlameGENE AUTRY and the Thief River OutlawsRED RYDER and the Mystery of the Whispering WallsRED RYDER and the Secret of Wolf Canyon

JANE WITHERS and the Phantom Violin

JANE WITHERS and the Hidden Room

BONITA GRANVILLE and the Mystery of Star Island

ANN RUTHERFORD and the Key to Nightmare Hall

POLLY THE POWERS MODEL: The Puzzle of the Haunted Camera

JOYCE AND THE SECRET SQUADRON: A Captain Midnight Adventure

NINA AND SKEEZIX (of “Gasoline Alley”): The Problem of the Lost Ring

GINGER ROGERS and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak

SMILIN’ JACK and the Daredevil Girl Pilot

APRIL KANE AND THE DRAGON LADY: A “Terry and the Pirates” Adventure

DEANNA DURBIN and the Adventure of Blue Valley

DEANNA DURBIN and the Feather of Flame

GENE AUTRY and the Thief River Outlaws

RED RYDER and the Mystery of the Whispering Walls

RED RYDER and the Secret of Wolf Canyon

The books listed above may be purchased atthe same store where you secured this book.

The books listed above may be purchased at

the same store where you secured this book.

THE EXCITING NEWFIGHTERS FOR FREEDOMSERIES

THE EXCITING NEW

FIGHTERS FOR FREEDOM

SERIES

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