The others, however, including Major Haskel, snapped out of it in short order, and their seasickness became just an unpleasant memory that would soon be forgotten. They crowded up on deck to drink deep of the cool early dawn air, and to lie to each other about how the tossing around had not bothered them a bit. The hangar flying session did not last long, however. Rumors as to what was coming up next began to fly thick and fast. Randall and Joyce decided to keep what little they knew to themselves, just in case his touch of mal de mer had caused Major Haskel to speak out of turn and not realize it. So they just let the rumors fly all around about their ears, while they stood at the starboard rail, peering ahead in the half-darkness.
That the destroyer was in Japanese-patrolled waters was obvious to everyone aboard, and an electrified tension hung over the destroyer as she cut her path through the dark waters. Enough stars still shone in the early morning sky to allow Randall and Joyce to check and discover that the craft was traveling in a slightly west of north direction. But her exact position was something known only to those up on the ship’s bridge.
As the first faint gray band of dawn was widening on the eastern rim of the world, the destroyer’s speed slackened off until she was just barely making headway. The tension tightened until it seemed that something was bound to let go with a bang. And then, as though by magic, the destroyer was alongside a huge black hulk that towered high above her. The huge black hulk was an American aircraft carrier.
“Greetings, Comet,” Randall murmured softly. “What are you going to do with us, I wonder?”
“If we were a bunch of bomber pilots, I could make a whole raft of guesses,” Jimmy Joyce grunted, as though talking to himself. “But we aren’t. We’re combat pilots. So, it’s got me.”
“Could be we’re being loaned to the Navy for something,” Red spoke his thought aloud. “But it takes some practice to get the hang of taking off and setting down on one of those flat-tops. You ever gone off a flat-top, Jimmy?”
“Only once with my Dad, as a passenger,” Joyce said. “I mean, as a passenger with my Dad. I didn’t do any of the flying, of course. Navy regulations. It didn’t look too tough, though. But you do have to watch things coming in. Just the same, you’re all wet about us being loaned to the Navy. The Navy, son, has pilots of her own.”
“Yes, I know,” Randall grinned at him. “Guys who couldn’t make the grade as Army pilots. But of course that makes you an exception, my friend.”
“And you just saved yourself that time, Mister!” Jimmy Joyce growled. “I’m Army, but I’ll take no cracks about the Navy, my boy. I’ll...”
The rest was drowned out by the brisk voice of Major Haskel.
“All pilots to the starboard rail amidships! Snap it up, everybody. We haven’t any time to lose.”
“And I bet he’s worrying about another storm coming up,” Randall chuckled softly, as Joyce and he moved with the others to amidships on the starboard side. “He wants to get off this tub in a hurry—me, too, for that matter. Boy! Look at that rope ladder they expect us to climb. It looks a mile high from here.”
“A cinch,” Jimmy Joyce snorted. Then with a shake of his head, he added quickly, “But maybe it won’t be for you seasick land-lubbers.”
Randall refused to rise to the bait and allowed the crack to pass without comment. Besides, they had reached the rail with the others, and Major Haskel was barking orders.
“All right, up you go!” he called out. “And hurry it up. Neither commander wants to stay here any longer than he must. Too nice a sitting target for Jab subs that might be lurking about. All right, first man. Up you go!”
Randall and Jimmy Joyce were the sixth and seventh to go up the ladder and onto the flight deck of the carrier. The instant they set foot on the flight deck one of the ship’s junior officers gave them a salute of welcome and led them to the officers’ messroom where a warm and welcome breakfast awaited them. While they were eating, the ship’s commander, a square-jawed, rugged-faced vice-admiral, stepped in to say a few words of greeting and to request them all to assemble in the Ready Room when they were finished.
A little over an hour later they all were gathered in the Ready Room, and their attention was fixed on Vice-Admiral Janes who was seated on a small raised platform just in front of a huge detailed chart of the western half of the Pacific that covered the entire wall. The Vice-Admiral waited a moment while he counted noses, then he nodded and stood up.
“Welcome again to the Comet, gentlemen,” he said, and gave them all a smile. “I hope your stay aboard will be pleasant, short as it will be.”
The ship’s commander paused for an instant, and a faint murmur of mounting excitement passed from lip to lip. So they were going to be aboard the Comet for only a short while? Then what? Nobody knew, and so they all waited patiently for the Vice-Admiral to continue. And when he spoke again there was no smile on his lips. His face was grim and hard, and there was a flashing light in his dark eyes.
“Our forces on Bataan are in a bad way,” he said bluntly, “a very bad way, and if something isn’t done soon, Bataan will fall to the Japs. And after Bataan, Corregidor. It is possible that Bataan has fallen since General MacArthur’s last communique, which was received late yesterday afternoon. I do not think so, however. At any rate, I will proceed with the plan on that assumption. And the plan is simply this: the Comet is going to take you to within flight distance of Davao on Mindanao Island, in the southern Philippines. Unless something totally unforeseen and unexpected happens, you all should arrive at Davao shortly after dark. Flares will be lighted for your landings. You will of course be supplied with charts and course directions that will help you hit Davao right on the nose.”
The Vice-Admiral paused for a moment, looked at the question that showed in each man’s eyes, and grinned faintly.
“Naturally, you’re wondering what you’re going to fly,” he went on talking. “Well, not the Comet’s planes, because we need every one we have aboard. However, we do have aboard an assortment of Army planes—a few fighters, and the rest Vultee attack bombers. You all can draw straws to see who will fly which. That part is up to you, gentlemen.
“Our job is to get you within flight range of Davao. At Davao you will be refueled, and as soon as possible fly up to Iloilo on Panay Island in the central Philippines. We have a field and maintenance equipment there. Lieutenant, Colonel Brady is in charge, and he will organize you into such operating units as he sees fit. The fighters probably will move up to one of the Air Corps fields on Mindoro Island farther north, and operate out of there against the Jap forces being thrown against our boys on Bataan. In case you don’t know it, General MacArthur hasn’t had any air support since the very beginning. The Japs caught his planes on the flying fields and wiped them out. So you pilots will certainly be a heaven-sent joy to our boys on Bataan and Corregidor. Lieutenant Colonel Brady will decide, of course, but I imagine that the Vultees will be kept at Iloilo to operate out of there against Jap shipping in Philippine waters. But you’ll find all that out when you report to Lieutenant Colonel Brady.”
The Vice-Admiral paused again and stared for a moment out over the heads of the group of pilots.
“I wish very much that I could send some of my pilots along with you,” he suddenly said. “There are all too few of you for the big job to be tackled. But I can’t spare any, and so that is that. Needless to say, we all will be hoping and praying for you. But a word of caution: there is every possibility that you may run into Jap aircraft on your way to Davao. If you do, avoid air combat if you possibly can. A few Jap planes sent flaming into the sea will be only a couple of drops in the bucket. However, the loss of a single one of you will mean a whole lot to our forces on Bataan and Corregidor. So your job will be to get through to Davao, leaving air-scrapping the Japs until later.
“I guess that is all I have to say. We’ll hold a detailed briefing later, and at that time you will be assigned your planes, given your charts, and course instructions, and
so forth. Meanwhile your time is your own. Make yourselves at home aboard ship. There are cabins and bunks if any of you want to catch up on sleep, after the tossing around you got aboard that destroyer. And of course there is all the food and coffee you want in the officers’ mess. The only thing I must ask you not to do is to remain on the flight deck in the event we meet up with enemy sea or air forces. Well, that is all. And the very best of luck to each and every one of you. Thank you. Dismissed, gentlemen.”
Every pilot rose to his feet and stood at salute as the Vice-Admiral left the room. But as soon as his broad back disappeared through the door, the Ready Room became a buzzing beehive of conversation. Everybody started talking at once, with the result that nobody heard what anybody else had to say. Not until they were outside and making their way up to the flight deck in twos and threes did any of them pay any attention to what the other man had to say. Randall, Joyce, and Stivers made up one of the groups. And when they reached the flight deck they wandered over close to one of the crash nets on the port side and made themselves comfortable.
“Boy, it sure looks small for a take-off, doesn’t it?” Stivers grunted and eyed the flight deck from bow to stern. “I sure hope I draw one of the fighters. They’re easier to get off. Me, I’m a dry land pilot, I am.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter much to me what I get,” Red Randall said, “just so long as I get it off and into the air. The Admiral, here, can hardly wait, I bet. That right, Jimmy?”
“You said it!” young Joyce grinned back at him. “I only wish the Vice-Admiral would let us make a test flight, so that I could have a crack at getting her back on again.”
“Maybe he’s afraid we’ll spread airplane parts all over his nice ship,” Randall chuckled. “No, thanks. I’ll be satisfied with just taking off.”
“And me!” Stivers echoed. “The Philippines, eh? Well, that will be okay with me. But the Vice-Admiral wasn’t kidding when he said there were few enough of us. If you ask me, pals, I think we’re going to have our hands full, but plenty. Just fourteen of us against all that the Japs must have up there? Not so good, but there it is.”
“Yeah,” Randall murmured, and stared at the new sun sliding up over the eastern horizon. “It could be better.”
Both Joyce and Stivers nodded in agreement. And with that the trio let conversation die a sudden death. Each was content to mull over his own thoughts of what the morrow might bring. But not one of them had a thought that so much as touched the truth of what the war in the Philippines actually did have in store for them.
Chapter Seven – Scratch One Zero
JIMMY JOYCE BALANCED the dime on his thumbnail and looked at Randall.
“Okay, call it,” he said and flipped the coin into the air. “Sudden death. No two out of three stuff.”
“Heads!” Randall sang out, and watched the coin spin down to the flight deck and bounce around a bit before it became still.
They both looked at it and saw that it was heads.
“Read and weep, kid!” Randall exclaimed. “Me, I’m the pilot, and you’re the passenger. But I’ll be big-hearted and make it two out of three if you want. Don’t want any crabbing, you know.”
“And the same to you!” Joyce snapped. “Nope. It goes as is. I’ll take a ship off a carrier flight deck some other time. But do I get the breaks! First I draw this Vultee two-seater, and then I get you as my pilot! Maybe the gods are punishing me for not joining up with the Navy Air Corps in the first place.”
“Punishment, my eye!” Randall laughed. “The gods are favoring you with the break of getting a nice airplane ride and no work to do.”
“With you flying it,” Joyce growled, “that’s punishment for anybody! So skip it, my friend, and…”
Joyce cut short the last as the officer on the Comet’s flight bridge barked through a sawed-off megaphone.
“Into your ships, pilots! Start your engines!”
A few moments later the afternoon sky was filled with the roar of revving airplane engines. Randall checked every “beat” of his power plant, and checked and rechecked the engine instrument readings. His Vultee was the third plane in line to take off, and his heart started beating faster than ever as the first plane in line presently rolled forward and began picking up more and more speed with every rev of its propeller. It was a Curtiss P-40, and it was off and in the air before it had traveled half the length of the flight deck.
“Nice going,” Randall murmured to himself, and licked his lips as he glanced at the sky.
It did not help any to glance at the sky, especially to the west. Mountains of dark clouds were forming on the horizon. They already had blotted out the setting sun and were throwing their dark shadows toward the east. There was bad weather ahead, no doubt of that. But after a meeting with Vice-Admiral Janes, the pilots had unanimously decided to chance it. Fact was, there was nothing else they could do except decide to chance the weather ahead. The Comet was as close to the southern Philippines as she dared go. Right now she was in Japanese-infested waters and skies. As yet, there had been no sign of the enemy, but that did not mean that at almost any second a Japanese sub would not let fly with a brace of torpedoes, or a flock of Japanese dive bombers would not drop down from above. No, the Comet was running too much of a risk right now, and had been for hours. To put about and wait for good weather tomorrow was absolutely out of the question. The Comet could chance making this one run-in close, and then get out of those waters in a hurry. There probably would be no tomorrow for her if she waited.
And so, with even the weather against them, those fourteen eagle-eyed pilots were still going to try to add their weight to the American forces in the Philippines. The boys on Bataan and Corregidor probably did not know they were coming, but they sure would know it when they arrived!
“Wake up, Red!” Jimmy Joyce’s voice barked in Randall’s intercom phones. “He’s pointing his flag at us!”
Randall snapped out of his thought trance, glanced at the flag officer on the flight bridge, and reached for the throttle. The officer dropped the flag sharply downward, and Red eased open the throttle.
“Here we go, ready or not!” he breathed, tightening his grip on the control stick.
The Vultee seemed to creep forward at a snail’s pace. Then it picked up speed, and in no time was streaking toward a broad expanse of Southwest Pacific off the end of the flight deck. Randall braced himself, swallowed hard, and got the tail up. Not for an instant did he take his eyes off the end of the flight deck. And then when he felt the Vultee straining, he eased back on the stick and pulled her clear. The deck immediately fell away out of sight under his wings, and the mountains of cloud dead ahead seemed to loom up bigger than ever and more ominous-looking.
When some five hundred feet were under his wings, he leveled off and circled the Comet once in accordance with instructions. If the plane was not “right,” a dud engine or something, it would undoubtedly show up in the first couple of minutes of flight. For that reason Vice-Admiral Janes had ordered every pilot to circle the Comet once, so that he could come back aboard if necessary.
Randall’s engine, however, was a sweet song of power in his ears, and so after one circle of the Comet he gave her postage-stamp-sized flight deck a farewell glance, and then came about and onto his course for Davao. The number one and two planes already were well on their way and were now just a couple of specks silhouetted against the mountains of clouds ahead. No formation would be flown to Davao. It was every pilot for himself. Get to Davao as fast as he could, and never mind about the other guy.
“Okay back there, Jimmy?” Red suddenly called into his intercom mike. “Everything all hotsy-totsy?”
“As good as could be expected, considering,” Joyce’s voice chuckled in the earphones. “I hope we can clear those clouds ahead, though. I don’t like them. There’s a lot of wind and rain with those babies, I’m thinking.”
“And they extend north and south for miles and miles, too!” Randall grunted as he
squinted at the uninviting clouds. “That’s what I don’t like about them. We’d waste too much gas trying to fly around them. If we can’t go over them, we’ve just got to go through them, I guess.”
“Well, let me off at the nearest stop, Mister, just before you go through them!” Jimmy Joyce said. “I still don’t like the looks of them.”
Red Randall just shrugged his shoulders at that and put the Vultee in a steady, easy climb. The altimeter needle began swinging around its dial, and when it pointed at eighteen thousand, the tops of the cloud mountains were still far above the Vultee’s level. Since neither Jimmy nor he had oxygen masks, Randall did not chance climbing higher. It was better to risk the kicking around they would get going through those storm clouds ahead than to pass out cold from lack of oxygen.
“Hold your hats, folks!” he shouted. “And don’t stick your head out the window while the train’s going through the tunnel. A bad Gremlin, or something, might whack it off for you.”
“Never mind the funny remarks, motorman!” Jimmy Joyce called back at him. “Just stick to your job. I’ll tell you what a great pilot you are, later...maybe!”
Randall grinned, and then let the grin fade from his face as the Vultee rushed nearer and nearer to the mountains of clouds. The plane was well in their shadow, now, and all about was an eerie gray light of half day and half night. Then the first of the storm winds that drove those clouds along hit the Vultee smacko. The control stick was almost wrenched right out of Randall’s hands, and the aircraft dropped a good five hundred feet like an express elevator. A brief instant later, though, an updraft caught it and quickly brought it back to its original altitude. Randall held it steady and rammed its spinning prop into the outer fringes of the cloud mass.
Red Randall on Active Duty Page 4