Barry Blake of the Flying Fortress Read online

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  OUT OF THE FOG

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

  Since the B-26 bombers were not fitted to return to her decks, therecould be no practice take-offs. However, everything possible wasrehearsed. A special catapult had been built to insure each bomberflying speed before it reached the end of the flight deck. The engineswere checked and tested and tuned until their engineers could swear totheir perfect condition. The new bomb releases were objects of especialcare. 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, BarryBlake sat at the controls of the first “flying bomb” to be launched atAmboina. Hidden in mist, the carrier had approached within forty milesof the island. The B-26 was already in the catapult; her Double Waspradial motors were roaring at full throttle. Every man on board wasbraced for the launching.

  The shock came, jerking the pilots’ heads back as their seats pushedthem suddenly. The heavily loaded Martin _Marauder_ literally shotalong 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 jitterytaking off from a bomb-pitted jungle strip. I’d been wondering whetherthat catapult would boost us into the air or into the sea. How does shehandle, Barry?”

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

  Barry glanced at his climbing altimeter. When it showed a thousand feethe leveled off, heading due north. An instant later the surrounding fogfell away like torn gauze. The carrier had been keeping just within itsedge 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 flakwould be bursting; tracer shells and bullets would be criss-crossingthe air. Already the Jap defenses must be seething like hornet nests.Their plane detectors had probably caught the first hum of Barry’sengines—now multiplied by ten or twelve as the catapult launchingsproceeded.

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

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

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

  “So what?” retorted Hap Newton. “The Japs will still be blinking thesleep out of their eyes when we slam ’em. And once we’re rid of thisbomb 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 foglayer hanging close to the water? It reaches almost to the tip ofNusanive Point. We’ll duck into it and fool any gunners that might spotus too soon in clear air.”

  A long, shallow dive took them into the fog layer two hundred feetabove the water. And there, for the next thirty miles, they stayed.When at last the mist thinned to a few wispy streamers the swift littleB-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 andtoo 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 scattering overAmboina Bay.

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

  “Can’t miss it, Skipper!” the little bombardier replied. “I’ll lay thistwo-ton egg right on their breakfast table. Boy! Look at that gun crewduck for cover.... _Bombs away!_”

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

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

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

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

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

  “You’ve got the best seat in the whole show, Rourke,” put in FredMarmon. “Babbitt and I are missing all the fun, with our heads stuckinto this two-gun top turret. If we were flying _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_now, we could see something of the countryside.”

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

  WHAMMM!

  BRRRRRRRRRR!

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

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

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

  He hopped over the little rise between them and found himself above hisnext objective—between forty and fifty Jap seaplanes. Nearly half ofthese were big three- and four-motored flying boats, _Kawanishis_ and_Mitsubishis_. A few _Aichi_ T98’s and a number of single engined_Nakajimas_ made up the rest.

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

  The chatter of Chick’s machine gun answered him. Barry swept over fiveof the huge _Kawanishis_, while Chick Enders and Mickey Rourke rippedat their engine cowlings, floats and keels. He swung over a line oflittle _Nakajimas_, climbed swiftly, and came back to strafe a stringof _Mitsubishi_ boats.

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

  “Look out!” yelped Mickey Rourke. “One of them bloody _Aichi_ floatplanes has opened up on us....”

  WHANG!

  A rending explosion in the empty bomb bay punctuated the little tailgunner’s warning. Barry banked so sharply that his right wing nearlytouched the water. He hopped over a _Kawanishi_ and kept the big flyingboat between him and the _Aichi’s_ shells.

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

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

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

  Reassured that neither of his two sergeants was seriously hurt, Barrycut straight across the Hitu Peninsula, dodging between the hills. Fromfar behind came the muffled WHUMP, WHUMP, of block busters falling onAmboina and the Lata airfield. There
were no Zeros over the hills asyet. Those which had managed to take off had more trouble than theycould 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 laythree miles out from shore. A single shore battery opened fire, but theshells burst well behind her. Seconds later she was safe inside thewall of vapor.

  “How’s the gas, Barry?” Curly Levitt asked. “If we have to set downbefore we reach Darwin, I want to have my island picked out. We mightnot happen on a perfect beach like Tana Luva’s, but any land is betterthan a rubber raft.”

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

  The Marauder climbed easily now, with no bomb load and nearly emptyfuel tanks. At ten thousand feet she looked down on a world of rollingclouds still dyed with sunrise colors. The air at that altitude wasclear and almost windless.

  “Course is southwest by south,” Curly Levitt’s voice came over thephone. “As long as we stay above the ceiling, I can make corrections byshooting 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 yourshell-torn heroes doing back there in the waist?”

  “Say, Lieutenant,” came Fred Marmon’s reply, “did you ever try tobandage a man’s seat with a roll of one-inch gauze? I might do it ifSoapy 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. “Thatiodine you sloshed on me burns like fire. Just wait till I startoperating on your legs, wise guy!”

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

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

  “Hold her steady, Lieutenant,” the little Irishman warned. “Thatcrackpot pilot is intendin’ to give us a scare if he can. I wish he wuza 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 aslight shock through the whole plane. An instant later she was nosingahead, still perilously close to the belly of the slower flying craft.

  “Look out, Barry!” Chick Enders yelled. “The crazy galoot is going tozoom right under our nose ... and I’m a dodo if it isn’t _GlennCrayle_!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Wait till that cockeyed ape gets out of sight, can you, Barry?” heasked in a choked voice. “He’s stunting now—and waggling his wings atus. If I took over nothing could keep me from giving him a dose of hisown 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 anut. You’re playing his game when you let him burn you up. He’s alreadypunished himself, and incidentally his crew, by using up his gas withthat 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 forthe first time. The stunting ship straightened out abruptly and headedfor home. Her distance from Barry’s craft, however, remained unchanged.

  “He’s reduced speed!” Chick Enders cried. “It’s too late, though. We’vestill enough to get home, and he hasn’t. Let’s fly past and give himthe merry _ha-ha_, Barry.”

  “I’ll take over now, Skipper,” Hap chimed in cheerfully. “It’ll beswell 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 asit is, fella,” Barry Blake declared. “Those are my orders. We’refollowing Glenn Crayle as far as he goes; and when he sets down, onland or water, we’ll at least be able to report his position.”

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

  “Wish we were going back with them!” Chick Enders exclaimed. “Droppingone egg and skedaddling like a scared sparrow isn’t my idea of fun. Ifwe’d come out in _Rosy_, we could have hung around Amboina picking ourtargets and making a real party of it.”

  “That’s the trouble, Chick,” spoke up Curly Levitt. “_Sweet RosyO’Grady_ had been attending too many such parties. She’s all shot tojunk. I don’t imagine that squadron of forts will hang around afterthey’ve reached their target area. They’ll drop their loads wherethey’ll do the most good, and head for home.”

  “Here comes a bunch of Liberators!” cried Hap Newton. “Oh, boy, arethose Japs due for a royal pasting! They’ll probably send in a fewsquadrons of Australian Havocs and North American Mitchells withregular bomb loads to mop up the shipping in the main harbor. Thatplace will be a shambles.”

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

  For the next hour Barry watched his fuel gauge as a mother watches hersick infant. From time to time he asked Curly to check their positionby dead reckoning. Finally he asked his navigator to shoot the sun andmake an accurate check.

  “Either there’s a difference between our compass and the one on thatother plane,” he said, “or Crayle is away off course. He could beheading for one of the Jap-held islands to make his forced landing. Inany case, I want to know exactly where we are.”

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

  “You’re right, Skipper,” he said in a shocked tone. “We’re headingstraight toward the Tanimbar group of islands. If it weren’t for thecloud rug below us we could probably see them from here. There’s agood-sized Jap base on the biggest island, and probably a holding forceof soldiers on most of the little ones. Any Allied plane that lands inthis area is sure to be bombed or captured....”<
br />
  “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 intobelow!”

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

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

  Barry dropped his plane quickly toward the water. If no Japs onTanimbar had already spotted the two bombers, the little island’s masswould hide them from the larger one. There might still be a chance torescue Crayle’s crew. Yes! There was a smooth, straight beach, nowexposed at low tide.

  Circling just offshore, Barry watched the other plane land. Thetricycle gear touched the hard packed sand lightly and rolled to asmooth stop.

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

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

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

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------