Barry Blake of the Flying Fortress Read online

  BARRY BLAKE OF THE FLYING FORTRESS

  by

  GAYLORD DUBOIS

  Illustrated by J. R. White

  Fighters for Freedom Series

  Whitman Publishing CompanyRacine, Wisconsin

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  BARRY BLAKE OF THE FLYING FORTRESS

  Copyright, 1943, by Whitman Publishing Company

  Printed in U.S.A.

  All names, characters, places, and events in this story are entirelyfictitious.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I Randolph Field 9 II Two Kinds of Rats 17 III Jeep Jitters 26 IV Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle 33 V Sweet Rosy O’Grady 41 VI Submarines to the Right 51 VII Raid on Rabaul 60 VIII Flying Wreckage 71 IX Night Attack 82 X Hand to Hand 93 XI Lieutenant in White 110 XII New Guinea Gardens 118 XIII Mysterious Island 129 XIV Dogfighting Fortress 137 XV Slaughter From the Air 149 XVI Secret Mission 170 XVII Out of the Fog 184 XVIII Adrift 198 XIX The Catamaran 212 XX Floating Wreckage 225 XXI Patched Wings in the Dawn 238

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  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Smoke Drifted Through a Crack in the Drawer 22Barry Learned the Correct Touch on Each Control 37“Radio’s Okay, Sir!” Came Soapy Babbitt’s Voice 53Sergeant Hale Counted Aloud Through the Interphone 69Barry’s Enemy Gasped and Dropped His Knife 85“Here’s a Trench!” He Whispered Over His Shoulder 101“I’ll Be Back as Soon as the Nurse Will Let Me.” 115Shell Fragments Whizzed About the Plane’s Interior 143Ravenous Appetites Made the Dinner a Success 167The Fliers Piled into the Army Trucks 181“Crayle Lied When He Said Our Tanks Were Dry!” 201“Now We’ll Wring out a Fresh Fish Cocktail.” 217Peering Through the Camouflage They All Cheered 233

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  _Barry and Chick Were Among the First to Leave_]

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  Barry Blake

  of the

  FLYING FORTRESS

  CHAPTER ONE

  RANDOLPH FIELD

  The bus from San Antonio pulled in to the curb and stopped. The doorsnapped open. Half a dozen uniformed upperclassmen wearing grimexpressions moved closer to the vehicle.

  “Roll out of it, you Misters!” bawled their leader in a voice ofauthority. “Shake the lead out of your shoes! Pop to it!”

  Barry Blake and Chick Enders were among the first out of the bus, butthey were not quick enough to suit the reception committee.

  “Are you all crippled?” rasped the spokesman of the upperclass“processors.” “Come alive and fall in—_here_, on this line. Dress_right_! I said _dress_—don’t stick your necks out. Atten-_shun_! Hopeyou haven’t forgotten _all_ the military drill you learned at primary.You, Mister! Rack it back. Eyes on a point. And out with your chest ifyou have any. Keep those thumbs at your trouser seams.... All right!Here’s your baggage tag. Write your name on it. Tag your baggage—andmake it snappy. Stand at attention when you’ve finished. _Hurry!_That’s it.... Take baggage in left hand—left, not right. And wipe offyour smile, Mister! ’Sbetter.... Mister Danvers, you will now takecharge of these dum-dums.”

  Barry was sweating. The blazing Texas sun was in his eyes. His chestached for a normal, relaxed breath; yet he dared not move. MisterDanvers’ barking command came as a sharp relief.

  “Right face.... Forward, _march_! Hup! Hup! Hup! Pull those chins back.Hup! Hup! Eyes on a point! And hold your right hands still—this isn’ta goose-step. Hup! Hup! Shoulders back—grab a brace—you’re in theArmy now! Hup! Hup! Dee-tachment, _halt_!”

  For more strained moments the new arrivals stood on the arched stoop ofthe Cadet Administration Building and listened to acid instructions.The talk dealt with the proper manner of reporting for duty. The toneof it, however, showed the processor’s profound doubt of the“dum-dums’” ability to do anything properly. It was deliberatelymaddening.

  Barry Blake felt a wave of hot resentment sweep over him. A secondlater cool reason met it and drove it back.

  “They’re just trying to see if we underclassmen can take it,” he toldhimself. “A cadet’s got to learn how to be an officer and a gentleman,in _any_ situation. They’re teaching us the quick, hard way, that’sall!”

  Barry held his tough, well-proportioned muscles a little less stiffly.He wondered how Chick Enders was taking the processor’s verbal jabs.From where he stood he could see Chick’s short, bandy-legged figurequiver under the barrage of upperclass sarcasm. Chick’s good-naturedmouth was a hard line, and his eyes were pale blue slits above his pugnose. The homely cadet was having a hard job trying not to explode.

  Suddenly he relaxed, and Barry, seeing it, chuckled inwardly. He hadknown Chick Enders since they were both in kindergarten. When he gotangry, the kid’s blond bristles would stick up like the fuzz of a newlyhatched chick. That always meant a fight, unless Chick’s sense of humorgot the upper hand, as it had just now.

  While the processor’s stinging remarks continued, Barry’s memoryflashed back to the day that he and Chick had graduated from theCraryville High School. Barry had been valedictorian of the class, andChick, he recalled, had been prouder of the fact than anyone.

  There was an almost hound-like loyalty in the homely youth’s soul, andhis hero was Barry Blake. From their earliest snow-ball battles to highschool and varsity games where Barry carried the ball and Chick raninterference, it had always been the same. Both had enlisted at thesame time and later applied for flying cadet training.

  “I’m glad we’re still together,” Barry thought, with another glance athis friend’s freckled profile. “If he’d been sent to any other basictraining school than Randolph Field, I’m afraid it would have brokenChick’s heart. We’ll be together here for nine weeks. After that—well,there’s a war on. We’ll train and fight wherever we’re sent, with nocomplaints....”

  “All right, you Misters!” the upperclassman’s voice broke in on Barry’sthoughts. “Right, face! Column right, march! You’ll receive yourcompany and room assignments upstairs. _Try_ not to forget them!”

  Still under a running fire of orders and caustic comments, thesuffering “dum-dums” were taken to the supply room. Here each new cadetproceeded to draw a full outfit of bedding, clothing, and equipment.

  “I feel like a walking department store!” Chick Enders muttered as hejoined the line behind Barry. “They must have figured outscientifically just how much a guy can carry if he uses his tenfingers, his elbows and his teeth....”

  “Roll up your flaps, Mister!” snapped a keen-eared processor, taking astep toward Chick. “You’ll get your chance to sound off soon enough!”

  Just in time Chick caught and straightened out an apologetic grin. Hehad a hunch that _any_ smile just now would be asking for trouble.Pulling his freckled face even longer than usual, he stepped out atBarry’s heels, and hoped that none of his assorted burdens would slip.

  At the barracks, while changing into coveralls and new shoes, Barry andChick were able to exchange a few hurried words.

  “I’d heard that these upperclassmen were pretty unsympathetic,” thehomely cadet remarked, “but I never thought they’d
lay it on quite soheavy. I guess they stay awake nights inventing ways to make a dum-dumsweat.”

  “Don’t let it get under your skin, Chick,” Barry laughed. “There’s nomeanness behind their processing. It’s intended to make soldiers out ofus. The first thing they do is to prick our balloons—take the conceitout of us, if we have any.”

  “And the next thing is to toughen us up,” grinned Hap Newton, theirroommate. “Don’t worry—in five weeks _we’ll_ be processing a new bunchof dum-dums, and making ’em like it!”

  Before they had finished changing clothes the processor in chargebellowed another order.

  “Hit the ramp, you Misters!” he shouted. “On the double! Leave yourpowder and lipstick till tonight.”

  Barry Blake grabbed his cap. He headed for the doorway, tightening hisbelt as he went.

  “Come on, Chick,” he said. “I don’t know what the ramp is yet, but Iaim to hit it hard and quick.”

  “Me too,” his friend grunted, “even if I lose a shoe.... Mine aren’tlaced up yet.”

  The ramp, they discovered, was the broad stretch of concrete justoutside the cadet barracks. Pouring out of the door, the dum-dums weregreeted by rapid-fire commands:

  “Fall in! Dress, _right_! Straighten-that-line-d’you-think-this-is-a-ring-around-the-rosy? ’Ten-_shun_! Count off! Forwar-r-rd, march! Hup,hup, hup! Column right, march! Column left, march! By the right flank,march! To the re-ar-r-r, _march_! Squa-a-ad, _halt_! Left, face! About,face! Forward, march!”

  To Barry and Chick, both assigned to Squad 17, these maneuvers were awelcome change. Having mastered close-order drill at primary school,they now went through it automatically. Their taut nerves relaxed. Thestiff soles of their new issue shoes were just beginning to smart, whena hollow voice boomed through the air.

  “’Tenshun all squads now drilling!” whooped the invisible giant. “Squad26! Take Squad 26 to the tailor shop.... Squad 17. Take Squad 17 to thebarber shop. That is all.”

  It was the voice of the Field’s public address system. Instantly theprocessors in charge of the two squads named marched them off thedrilling area. As Squad 17 entered the shop, six barbers stood waitingby their chairs. Barry got a quick mental picture of sheep being drivento the shearing pen.

  First in line was a sulky-looking youth, whose name-tag proclaimed himto be Glenn Cardiff Crayle. He had a sleek black pompadour, and a habitof passing his hand caressingly over it.

  “Just trim the sides and neck, please,” Barry heard him mutter to thewielder of the shears.

  The barber exchanged winks with the upperclassman in charge. He slippedexpert fingers under a long lock of Crayle’s hirsute pride.

  “Maybe you’d better have it regulation, sir,” he suggested with heavyemphasis.

  _Snip-snip-snip_ went the shears. Cadet Crayle writhed as if they werea savage’s scalping knife, but he knew he was helpless. Barry Blakechuckled inwardly. “Regulation length” would mean no loss to his ownshort, wavy hair, or to Chick’s blond bristles.

  Six barbers and ten minutes for a haircut! In little more than aquarter of an hour, Squad 17 was marching back to the drilling area.Another half hour of close-order drill—then dinner formation.

  Scarcely were they seated in the big cadet mess hall, when the nervousdum-dums found their worst suspicions realized. Mealtime was justanother opportunity for hazing by the upperclassmen. Placed at the footof a table seating eleven men, Barry and Chick discovered that theywere the “gunners” of the group. That is, they must pass—“gun” or“shoot”—food and drink up the table whenever asked.

  Two minutes after the meal began, the “table commander” at the upperend sent down his coffee cup for re-filling.

  “A cup of coffee for Mr. Danvers,” murmured the lowerclassman nearesthim.

  “A cup of coffee for Mr. Danvers,” repeated Hap Newton as he passed thecup.

  “A cup of coffee for Mr. Danvers,” Barry Blake solemnly announced, ashe filled it and passed it back.

  “You, Mister!” the table commander barked, looking straight at ChickEnders. “The potato dish is empty. You will signal the waiter byholding it up—like this.”

  With his upper arm horizontal and his forearm vertical, theupperclassman demonstrated the proper gesture. Hap Newton giggled.

  “Silence!” snapped the processor. “What’s your name? Newton? Sitforward on your chair, Mister—on the first four inches. Chin up, getsome altitude. And take your left hand off the table. And_remember_—for a dum-dum to laugh, smile or chortle at mess is aninexcusable breach of manners.”

  “Yes, sir,” mumbled Hap Newton, so meekly that Chick Enders nearlydropped the potato dish, trying not to laugh.

  Dinner ended all too soon for most of the hungry new cadets. The foodwas ample, but so excellent that the time seemed too short to do itjustice. At the close of the noon hour, Squad 17 was issued rifles, andplunged into the monotonous manual of arms. Not until evening did theweary dum-dums have time to relax.

  Their first day at Randolph Field had been a full one—crammed with newimpressions that would whirl through their dreams that night.

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