“Oh!” young Joyce breathed. “Oh!”
“Right,” Randall said. “So we do some more waiting. If the gas holds out, as well as our luck.”
Chapter Seventeen – Lurking Doom
AS THE PLANE roared through the darkness, Red Randall tried to shift to a more comfortable position in the pit, and tried not to hear the low off-key humming in his earphones. It seemed that for a thousand years, now, Jimmy Joyce had hummed one bit of a tune over and over again. Each time he reached a certain point, he made a few half-hearted tries to go on with the rest of the tune, but gave it up and started all over again.
Griping and nerve-rasping as it was, however, he refused to permit himself to beg Jimmy to stop. He knew that young Joyce’s nerves were just as frayed and ragged as his own. One sharp word from either of them and both might hit the roof. And so the Mitsubishi circled endlessly about in the night skies over the entrance to Mindanao Strait.
Five soul-torturing hours they circled about in a lonely world that was black as ink; that is, black as ink save for two occasions, both a good hour and a half ago, when Randall’s sharp eyes had caught the flash of blinker lights below. He was sure they were blinker lights from Japanese destroyers trying to signal his plane. He did not dare flash the signal light that he found in his cockpit, because he had no idea what code the Japanese were using. Instead he had cut off his engine twice in rapid succession, hoping that the lurking Japanese would take it to mean that he knew they were there in position, and that everything was okay up where he was. Whether they had interpreted his burping of the engine to mean just that, he had no idea. Anyway, no more blinker signals were flashed up at him. And he continued to tool the Mitsubishi slowly around and around in the air, waiting and waiting, and praying.
Time after time he strained his eyes westward and down at the Sulu Sea. All he could see was more inky darkness, of course, but he wondered if down there somewhere General MacArthur’s boats were slowly creeping toward the Strait’s entrance. Now and again his eyes deceived him into thinking he saw the faint flicker of exhaust flash, but actually he saw nothing. He even cut his engine several times, and glided down low, head stuck out through the cockpit and ears straining for the pounding beat of the powerful engines driving those PT’s through the water. But each time he heard nothing but the whispering of his own wings in the wind.
And so five long hours slipped slowly away. The needle of the Mitsubishi’s fuel tank was just under the half-full mark. That meant he could keep on tooling it about in the air for about another five hours. But could he? Could he, or could Jimmy Joyce, last another five hours without falling asleep on the job? They were both living on sheer nerve, and perhaps on borrowed time. Five hours more? Then what? A forced landing in the Mindanao Sea? Neither of them had parachutes, so they would have to go down with the plane. Five hours more...of wasted effort, perhaps? Had those blinker lights actually come from Japanese destroyers blockading the Strait? Had John Smith really learned the true details of the enemy’s plans? Was General MacArthur actually going to try to slip through the Strait tonight? Or did he plan to lay over for another day and night in the Cagayan Islands? Had John Smith heard correctly? Had the Japanese really spotted the PT’s in the Cagayans?
Those and a million and one other tantalizing thoughts whirled and spun around in Red Randall’s brain. Three times he was on the point of giving up this seemingly useless night flight and using the gas left to get as far as possible southward on Mindanao Island. It might be more sensible to save Jimmy’s and his own life, and leave everything else in the lap of the gods. After all, he had only the word of a native of the Solomons. But each time he refused grimly to take the safe and easy course. John Smith, and all his men, were perhaps dead over there on Siquijor Island, but they had persevered right to the bitter end. The least Jimmy Joyce and he could do in memory of those brave black men far removed from their native islands was to keep on trying, too.
“Red! Down to the left! Look! A searchlight beam. No! Two of them. Pointing south. Red! They’ve picked up the location of General MacArthur’s boats!”
Randall jerked his head to the left and stared down at two lines of brilliant light that formed a huge V against the dark water. They were two searchlight beams from two Jap destroyers, pointing southward toward the shore line of Mindanao Strait. One ten-second stare at that V of light, which was actually moving southward across the water, and Randall let out a wild yell of long pent-up emotions, slammed the stick over, and kicked rudder hard.
The Mitsubishi twisted to the left and then dropped downward like a comet gone haywire. Randall headed it straight for the right-hand end of the upside down V, kept one hand pressed hard against the throttle, and yelled all sorts of crazy things at the top of his voice. The seconds ticked by and he had the weird, crazy impression that the Japanese plane was actually hanging motionless in the air. The engine was straining and the whirling propeller was clawing at the air to pull it seaward, but it seemed as though invisible hands were reaching down out of the black sky holding the plane back.
And then he saw blinker lights winking furiously at him from that point of light toward which he was diving. A tight grin pulled his lips back.
“Wrong number, brother!” he shouted. “I’m not the guy you think I am. And how, I’m not. You’ll...!”
Suddenly a signal flare came arching upward from the sea below. It climbed skyward, shedding a pale green light in all directions, then curved over and started down. Its pale glow lighted up the lines of a Japanese destroyer cleaving the waters southward. Randall laughed harshly, took his hand from the throttle, and jerked the flare-release lever on his right. An instant later a glare of brilliant white light drenched sea and sky. A moment after that the Japanese destroyer stood out in bold relief. It started to heel over and around to the east. But Randall simply kicked his rudder bar and kept the diving Mitsubishi right on it.
Then, when he was but five hundred feet above the swerving destroyer, and the flare was dropping into the water right alongside of it, he let go with one of his five-hundred-pound bombs, and hauled the plane up out of its dive. By now stabbing flame was coming up from the swerving and twisting Japanese destroyer, and Randall could hear the deep-throated bark of exploding anti-aircraft shells in the air about him. He simply kicked on more rudder, wheeled southward, and twisted around in the seat and looked back.
Even as he did so, a great sheet of red and orange flame shot upward from the surface of the water. The Japanese destroyer stood out clear as day, and it seemed that in that same second the destroyer heaved upward by the stern until the stern was pointed at a forty-five-degree angle toward the night sky. Then the stern fell back into the water, and the destroyer heeled far over to port. What happened to it next Randall could not see, because everything was now blotted out by tongues of crimson flame and billowing yellow smoke.
“Goodbye to that one, and good riddance!” Jimmy Joyce’s voice cried in the earphones. “Bull’s-eye, Red. Nice bombing. I bet a hundred bucks she’s in Davy Jones’s locker within five minutes!”
Randall did not take the bet. In fact, he hardly heard young Joyce’s exultant voice. He had cut the Mitsubishi around, and was roaring down toward the Japanese destroyer that had been playing the other searchlight beam. It had doused its searchlight beam, now, and was shooting rocket flares into the air to light up Randall’s plane, and blazing away at it with all guns.
To Randall, hunched grim-eyed over the stick, it was like flying down into a burning firecracker factory. Hundreds of flashes of red, orange, and yellow light filled the air all about him. And he could no longer hear the thunder of his own engine because of the mighty roar of exploding flak shells. But not for an instant did he make any effort to get clear of the terrific blasts of gunfire from the destroyer below. He did not swerve an inch to the left or to the right He kept the nose dead on for the cluster of stabbing flashes of fire that marked the position of the destroyer. And once again he hung on grimly to h
is dive until no more than five hundred feet separated his wings from the destroyer.
He did not bother to drop a flare this time. His intended target had lighted itself up like a Christmas tree. Instead, he grabbed hold of the other bomb release handle, jerked it back, and then sent his plane curving up and away. Curving up and away? Well, not exactly. Something slammed into the belly of the plane, and for a split second it seemed to halt dead in mid-air. Then it lurched over drunkenly and started down.
Randall caught his breath in a whistling gasp and battled with the controls. For one horrible instant the Mitsubishi did not respond. Then the nose started coming up slowly, and the flame-tinted waters of the Mindanao Sea began to fall away from the wings. Not until then did Randall seem to remember that he had let go with his other bomb, and twisted around in the seat to look back.
He saw no heaving or heeling destroyer, though. The truth was, he had turned back for a look too late. The bomb already had hit the water, or the destroyer, and exploded. Now there was nothing to see except a great mass of bright flames and a lot of yellow smoke. The destroyer was completely hidden behind it or in it.
“Jimmy!” he called hoarsely into his flap-mike. “Did we get it? Did we get close?”
“Yeah...yeah, Red!” came the gasping reply. “You...you got close enough. Chalk up...two...Red. To left...to left! Another one! Give it...machine guns...Red. Nice going... Nice...”
A third destroyer? The devil with a third Japanese destroyer! Jimmy had been hit by flak fire. Randall could tell from the sound of the mumbling, gasping voice in his earphones. He twisted around in the seat to look back at Jimmy. And what he saw in the pale glow of flame that seemed to fill the entire heavens stopped his heart cold, and brought an anguished cry to his lips. Young Joyce was slumped over against one side of the cockpit. His helmet was askew on his head, though one earphone still remained in place. A trickle of something dark was oozing down from an ugly gash on Jimmy’s right temple. That trickle of blood, the closed eyes, and the parchment-colored face, Red caught in a fleeting glance.
“Jimmy!” Randall cried. “Jimmy! Can you hear me, boy? Hang on, Jimmy. You’ve got to. We’ve done as much as we can do. That other destroyer is taking it on the run. It’s scramming out. We’ve done all we can, boy! And now we’re heading for land. For Mindanao. Hang on, Jimmy. I’ll get you there, kid. I promise you. Hang on!”
Randall was not sure, but he thought he saw Jimmy Joyce’s lips twitch back in the start of a grin, and his hand lift in acknowledgment of his words. Then he turned front, choked back a sob, and wheeled the Mitsubishi around until she was headed toward the southeast. If the gas lasted, they were bound to hit Mindanao Island somewhere. He just had to get Jimmy Joyce to some place where his wounds could be treated.
Chapter Eighteen – Mission Accomplished
THREE TIMES THE engine in the nose of the Mitsubishi gave forth its rasping cough before Red Randall’s fatigue-dulled brain grasped hold of the truth. It seemed to take every ounce of strength left in his body to sit up in the seat and fiddle with the throttle and switches. But neither did any good. The radial coughed just once more, then let out a long wheeze and died cold. A glance at the fuel gauge told Randall the reason. The needle was all the way over. There was not a drop of high test left in the lines. And another glance at the altimeter told him that he had just about six thousand feet between his wings and whatever was below.
And, just what was below? The demons of his imagination were having a field day. All sorts of things loomed up ahead, only to melt away in the darkness when he winked his tired eyes and took another look. He saw thousands of islands dotted with thousands of lights. He saw great buildings with all the windows aglow. He saw fleets of aircraft with wings lined with lights. And he saw great squadrons of surface ships aglow with lights from bows to sterns. He saw everything that one should not see in that lonely part of the Pacific Ocean. But when he blinked his eyes and took another look, he saw exactly what was there. Merely the impenetrable darkness of night.
But now it was all coming to an end. There was but one way the Mitsubishi could go, and that way was down. The last drop of high-test gas had been used up, and the radial in the nose was all through until the tanks could be refilled. And what about Jimmy Joyce? Was he all through, too? Was he...?
Randall refused to let himself finish the thought. He did not even take the time to twist around in the seat and look back. All was darkness now, except for his tiny instrument board light. He would not be able to see Jimmy, anyway. And he dared not speak into his flap-mike in case Jimmy had just dropped off into the sleep of the utterly exhausted. However, the real reason he did nothing about Jimmy Joyce was that the main job, now, was to concentrate on the Mitsubishi. It was going down. It was losing altitude that it would never be able to regain in its present fuel-less state. It was going down toward water, or toward dry land.
Which, Randall could find out very easily, but he did not look...because there might be just a limitless expanse of water below. And so for a fleeting moment, he rested his hand on the flare-release lever, making no effort to send the flare hissing downward.
“Go ahead, dope, let it go!” he heard his own mumbling voice. “What are you waiting for? Might as well find out now. You’re losing altitude, you know, don’t you?”
Then he jerked the release handle back, and slowly turned his head to look over the rim of the cockpit and down. A world of white light exploded below. It blinded him completely, but for only an instant. His eyes became focused to the white glare and he stared down past it...and saw only water!
“No, no!” he groaned.
But the groan was followed by a cry of mad joy. Straight down there was only water, yes. But ahead, and within easy gliding distance, was the shore line of...of what? Mindanao? Some other island in the Philippines? Or had he really flown in the opposite direction and that white sandy shore line was hundreds of miles from where he hoped he was?
Truthfully, though, it really did not matter where he was. It was ground, hard ground, and not water. That was all that mattered. Nothing else mattered but getting the Mitsubishi down on that stretch of beach while the light from his released flare lasted.
That land, hard ground, was just ahead of him and within reach fired Randall with wild excitement. He gripped the stick with both hands, until they shook and trembled. He sang snatches of songs, he laughed, he cried, he yelled at the top of his voice, as he guided the Mitsubishi around and down toward the strip of beach.
It seemed a long, long time before he was leveling off and gradually getting the tail down for a perfect stall-in landing. But actually the strip of beach was closer than he realized. In fact, it was so close that the wind had been able to drift the flare far enough so that it landed on the beach and continued to give off its sputtering glow, instead of dropping into the water and winking out.
Down another foot. Another. And another. “Now’s the time. Ease her in and down. A real first-class three-point landing. Hope there aren’t any soft spots on that beach. Must make a perfect landing, and then get back to Jimmy and see... Ah-h-h-h! That’s the thing, baby. You’re still an okay crate, even if you were made in Tokyo.”
The Mitsubishi rolled to a full stop, and seemed to crouch there on the beach like a tired bird as the fading flickers of the flare danced and raced over its wings and fuselage. Almost numb with exhaustion Red Randall somehow managed to haul and heave himself up out of the cockpit. He half slid and half fell to the beach, and then turned to get to Jimmy Joyce. He did not complete the turn, because at that instant a grating voice exploded in his ears.
“Hold it, Jap rat! Up with...! Well, I’ll be a…!”
Randall never heard the last bit. As he turned back in the direction of the grating voice, the white sandy beach seemed to rise up and hit him in the face, and black out both mind and body.
When Randall again opened his eyes, the old familiar fear and dread seized hold of him, because be was flat on his back an
d staring up at a thatched roof. Was he back in that unfinished nipa hut on Siquijor Island again? Or had he been here all the time, and was he just waking up from a mad dream of bushy red-haired blacks fighting the Japanese, of Jimmy and him stealing a Japanese plane, of a wild, crazy night battle against Japanese destroyers seeking to trap General MacArthur’s PT’s and capture the great military leader? Had he just had a mad dream, and was he still a prisoner of the Japanese? Had...?
He let the next question slide away into oblivion as two very important things registered on his brain. One was that he was not on a coarse matting floor. He was stretched out on a fairly comfortable army cot, and a blanket was over him, too. And the other important item was that it was not a thatched roof that he stared at. It was canvas, the canvas roof of a four-sided tent. He turned his head and blinked at one canvas wall, and then turned his head to the other side and blinked at the canvas wall on that side.
At that moment, however, a flap in the canvas was pushed aside, and a man in a rather tattered uniform came in—the uniform of the U. S. Air Corps. Randall stared at the man’s face, and started violently.
“Stivers!” he gasped. “Joyce and I met you in Melbourne! Hey! I thought you were dead! I heard that... Stivers! Have you seen Jimmy? Have you seen Jimmy Joyce? Where is Jimmy Joyce? I...”
“Hey, take it easy, guy!” Stivers said and stepped quickly over to the cot. “The Medico says for you to be quiet and rest. Take it easy, will you, or he’ll have my hide. I just sneaked in to see how you were making it. Man, oh, man! Did you and Joyce do all right by yourselves! You...”
“Where’s Jimmy?” Randall insisted hoarsely. “How is he? For cat’s sake, tell me, will you?”
“If you’ll just shut up,” Stivers said and raised a silencing hand. “Joyce is swell. He’s in the next tent sleeping like a babe. The Medico took a chunk of shrapnel out of his head, but he says Jimmy will be as good as new in a couple of weeks. When the hair grows back you won’t even see the scar.”
Red Randall on Active Duty Page 11