Dave Dawson at Truk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  _Kismet_

  Never before had Dave Dawson been so eager, so all on fire, to establishthe identity of a sighted plane as he was now. Every nerve and muscle inhis entire body became tensed, and actually ached from the strain. Timeand time again, as the prop clawed his Hell Cat upward and to the right,he shoved up his goggles and dashed his free hand across his tired eyesas though by so doing he would improve his vision.

  Truth to tell, under any other conditions he would have been able to geta clear view of the plane even before he started to climb toward it. Butthe position of the dying sun, the glossy red surface of the SouthwestPacific below him, and the tiny patches of cloud that still hung in thesky were all against him. They all worked to distort the distant planeinto all kinds of shapes and outlines. It was something like trying tostudy a fly through red-colored glasses as the fly circled about abrilliant white light. One instant he would almost see it clearly, andthe next it would seem to fade from view altogether, and send hispounding heart racing up into his throat.

  "That Nazi rat, or you, Freddy?" he muttered aloud. "And forgive me,Freddy, but I hope that it isn't you. Because if it is you, fellow, thenwe have lost. He'd have to be out in the open now. So if that ship isyours, Freddy, it can't mean anything else but that he is way out infront of us, and too close to Truk for us ever to hope to get him. Yousee ..."

  But Dawson didn't finish the rest of that sentence. It was as though athin curtain had been pulled across the face of the setting sun. Amighty shadow pushed eastward across the face of the world, and therewas considerably less blinding crimson light. The plane, now little morethan half a mile away, and less than a thousand feet above Dawson'saircraft, stood out sharp and clear. And the plane was a U.S. Navy HellCat.

  "The markings, the markings!" Dawson breathed, and strained his eyeshard to see something besides the sharp, clear silhouette of the otherplane. "Is it F Dash Fourteen? Or Freddy's number F Dash Twenty? Pleasemake it Fourteen, Lady Luck! If you never give me another good break,please give me just this one. Make it Fourteen, please!"

  Five, ten, fifteen seconds ticked by. They seemed as years in length toDawson. Cannons boomed in his brain, and he felt pins and needles in hisveins, not blood. He wanted to shout and yell at the top of his voice.He wanted to do anything that would make it possible for him to see theidentification markings on that other plane. The urge was great to letfly a few blasts from his fifty-caliber guns to attract the attention ofthe other pilot, but with an effort he fought down that urge.

  If the Nazi was flying that other Hell Cat, it would be the worst thingin the world for Dawson to fire his guns. At least at this early moment.It would be bad because the other Hell Cat was still some distance awayand slightly in front of Dawson's plane. In other words, there was stilltime for the pilot of that other plane, if he was the Nazi, to keep asafe distance from Dawson and outrun him to the protection of Zeros fromTruk.

  No, this was a cat-and-mouse play. If that was Freddy Farmer then thisstealing up unnoticed was a waste of time. But if it was the Nazi thenthis maneuver was the best bet in Dawson's bag of air fighting tricks.Right! Get in close, and make sure. Make sure, and then tear in for thekill. And a kill it would be, if that pilot was the Nazi.

  "Steady, guy, steady!" Dawson murmured as his nerves began to twang likeharp strings. "No matter who it is you'll find out soon. So don'toverplay it, fellow. If it's him, then this will be your last chance. Nomore chances after this one. No. This is the pay-off, the old make orbreak. The ..."

  Perhaps Lady Luck smiled upon Dave Dawson at that moment, but mostlikely it was the result of action by the other pilot. At any rate, theother Hell Cat veered slightly toward the south and the rays of thedying sun played full upon the side of the fuselage. And like magic theplane's markings stood out in bold relief. The markings, F DashFourteen!

  "You, it _is_ you!" Dawson panted, and slid his thumb up to the stickbutton that controlled the electric firing of his gun. "It is you, andI've got you cold. Cold as a chunk of Arctic ice!"

  The gods of war in their high places thought differently at thatinstant. Even as Dawson's thumb started to press down on the triggerbutton the other Hell Cat swerved sharply and cut right out of the Yankair ace's sights. True, the maneuver brought the Nazi even closer. Infact, that one maneuver sort of put the two aircraft on even terms. Thatis to say, the Nazi no longer had any safety lead over Dawson's plane.Neither could outfly the other on the flat, now, unless one of theengines went bad.

  "Okay by me, chump!" Dawson grated as he relaxed thumb pressure on thegun button. "Make the turn and ..."

  And right then and there the Nazi proved that his maneuver had apurpose. It proved that he had, for some time at least, been aware ofthe fact that Dawson was sneaking up on him. In other words, the Nazi'sswerve was not to change course toward the Truk area. On the contrary itwas a deliberate air battle tactic. A swerve to the left, and thensuddenly the Nazi came spinning around and down like a flame-spittingdemon from Satan's domain.

  A far less experienced pilot than Dawson would have died then and there.He would have died, hardly realizing what had hit him.

  Too many, many times, though, had Dawson scrapped with the best that theNazis or the Japs had to offer not to be able to react instinctively toapproaching danger. Thus it was, and almost before the thing had becomea thought in his brain, he pulled up straight for the sky in the nick oftime. The Nazi's withering fire missed him.

  At the speed the diving Nazi was traveling it was impossible for him tohaul up his nose and get a new bead on Dawson's zooming ship. As aresult he undershot his target and went cutting down across the sky.

  "Which makes me top man now!" Dawson yelled, and kicked his Hell Catover and down. "And I kind of like that. Now, wiggle and squirm, yourat. Let me see you twist away from these little things."

  Thundering down almost at the vertical, he lined up the other Hell Catand let go with all of his guns. That is, almost all of his guns.Something was wrong with two of them, and they did not fire. The others,however, did their stuff. And with grim satisfaction Dawson saw histracers chew into the tail of the Nazi's plane. It wasn't enough,though. The Hell Cat is a very, very tough ship. It can absorb all kindsof punishment, and the Nazi's Hell Cat was no exception to the rule.Dave Dawson saw it stagger a little in the air, but before he couldcorrect his aim the Nazi was prop clawing upward and around to the left.

  "Not enough, huh?" Dawson gritted, and hauled out of his own dive tofollow through the Nazi's maneuver. "Well, I'm just the guy who can giveyou more. Like _this_!"

  He was not in position for a tail shot then. The Nazi had pulled out toofast, and his Hell Cat was not letting him down. As a matter of fact,though, it was the kind of a shot that Dawson liked best of all. A rearquarter shot that would permit him to rake the other plane from prop totail before its pilot could do anything to get out of the way.

  The Nazi pilot seemed to sense that truth, and there was no reason heshouldn't sense it in view of the fact that he had been flying as adirty Nazi spy in Uncle Sam's Navy. Anyway, he belted his plane hardover on wing and tried to whip it down to the vertical. But Dawsonfollowed right through and pressed his trigger button. And it was thenthat it happened!

  Rather, it was then that it _didn't_ happen!

  With the Nazi cold meat in his sights, not a one of Dawson's guns fireda shot. Maybe it was that a stray bullet from the Nazi's opening bursthad hit something that threw the firing mechanism out of whack. Maybe itwas for any one of a hundred different reasons. The cold hard fact wasthat not one of his guns spoke its piece. And in the next split secondthe Nazi was out of his sights and in the clear.

  During that brief split second Dawson's brain seemed to freeze solid inunbelievable horror. Yet instinct was at work again. Instinct that madehim try every way he knew to get his guns working. But it was all invain. The joke was on him, and the war gods up in their high places werescreaming with insane glee.

  "No! Oh, no!"


  From countless miles away Dawson's own sobbing words echoed back to him.His heart was lead in his stomach, and his head was filled with theflames of an all-consuming rage. Yet with all that he did not give upthe ghost and just let his Hell Cat roar down across the sky. The Nazidid not know that his guns had gone out on him. Ten to one the Nazisimply thought that he had kicked his own plane out of the line of fire,and so Dawson had saved his bullets for another try.

  At any rate Dawson did not give up. He was made of better stuff thanthat. Gunless though he was, he still had the advantage of position. Hehad the Nazi on the defensive, and as long as _he_ could keep theoffensive he had not truly lost.

  "And after all, I've still got one trick left!" he said hoarsely. "Onetrick that will stop you from reaching Truk, so help me!"

  As though the Nazi pilot had actually heard the words, the other HellCat zoomed for altitude in a pilot's trick to cut the corner and dropdown from above. Dawson was not to be tricked by that one, however. Hezoomed himself, and prevented the Nazi from cutting in behind. The Nazitried it again in the opposite direction, but Dawson stayed right withhim, and even improved his position in relation to the Nazi's plane.

  But it couldn't last, and no one knew it better than Dave Dawson. A halfdozen times he got the Nazi in a cold meat position, and was helpless todo anything about it. And by then the Nazi knew, or could make a prettygood guess as to what was what. As a matter of fact, in the very nextmoment the movements of the Nazi's plane proved what was going throughthe pilot's head. The Nazi started to zoom up off to the left, and thendeliberately cut off the zoom and flew right smack across Dawson'ssights. Hot tears of rage almost blinded Dave as he saw the Nazi's HellCat sail by looking as big as a battleship. The greenest pilot ever tofire an aerial machine gun could not have missed that target completely.

  It was then that the Nazi pilot knew for certain, and as his helmetedhead was turned Dawson's way for an instant Dave thought he saw theother's face flame up in a look of mad triumph. Dave thought he saw thatlook, but it might have been his imagination. To tell the truth, hiswhole attention was on something else. The time to lose or win hadarrived. He had fooled the Nazi as long as he could. By his flying hehad made the Nazi wonder a little, and then wonder more and more untilthe Hitlerite took a chance to find out for sure. He did find out, andhe probably thought that victory was his now. He could swing away and goon to Truk without danger. Or he could first stick around and polish offthis gunless American who had intercepted him.

  Yes, perhaps the Nazi thought all those things as he sailed by the frontof Dawson's nose and received not a single bullet. But what he probablydid not realize was that his instant of mad triumph was Dawson's momentfor a last desperate gamble. A gamble in which one and perhaps bothcould lose.

  "Make the most of it, rat! Here I come!"

  Words? Had he spoken them? Or had they simply been the echo of a thoughtracing through his whirling spinning brain? Dawson didn't know, and hedidn't care. He wasn't thinking of anything, now. That time had passed.The time had passed for everything save for mad, furious, smashingaction that would stop this Nazi from reaching the Truk area, and robAdmiral Shimoda forever of what he was now probably waiting for withgleaming eyes and drooling mouth.

  In the next split second a hundred and one things loomed up large inDawson's brain. He saw the Nazi's marking F Dash Fourteen stretched uptall as a house. He saw the color of the fuselage with the last rays ofthe sun dancing off its smooth surface. He saw the Nazi's Hell Cat startto swerve violently. He saw its nose drop down and its tail kick up. Hesaw the Nazi turn his head and saw him impulsively fling up one arm. Hereally saw this time the look of wild terror that flooded the Nazi'sface.

  "Nope! You still lose!"

  Like a soothing, comforting whisper those words filtered back to DaveDawson. And then he slammed his Hell Cat over on left wing, and kickedtop rudder with every ounce of his strength. For the infinitesimal partof a split second his plane and the Nazi's plane seemed to hangmotionless in mid-air. And then his lower wing sliced against the Nazi'sfuselage and cockpit hatch.

  He knew that, because he saw it in the fraction of time allowed. Andthen all the furies of land, sea, and air exploded all about him. Allthe colors of the rainbow surged into his brain in brilliant balls thatblew up in a terrific crescendo of sound. Ten thousand spears of firepierced every square inch of his body. And demons with red hot sledgehammers pounded their way down into his brain.

  Then for an instant, and as though by magic, all sound faded away, andhis vision was as clear as crystal. Directly in front of him, so closethat he could almost reach out his hand and touch it, was the smokingwreckage of two Grumman Hell Cats entwined about each other. He clearlysaw the markings F Dash Fourteen on one of them. But he could not seethe cockpit as a section of wing covered it like a steel band. Hethought he saw something start to fall slowly away from the hoveringmess of wreckage, but a red film slid across his eyes and the fallingobject was blotted out.

  Yet even as the red blurred his vision his whirling brain functioned atlightning speed. He knew that he had been thrown clear of his Hell Cat,and that he had seen the two crashed ships as his body went tumblingseaward in a free fall. Fall? He was falling? Then he had to yank therip cord ring of his parachute. Where was it? He couldn't find it. Orwas that because he couldn't move his right arm? Couldn't, because therewas no right arm there now? Had he lost his right arm?

  But what did it matter? Why bother to pull his rip cord ring anyway? Theopportunity to float down to his death, rather than hurtle down and getit over with quickly? Death was death, no matter how it came to you.Certainly it was. You only died once. And this was it, for him. Well,weren't a lot of others doing the same thing in this war? Sure!Thousands of them. Millions of them. Wonder what Freddy Farmer will say?Wonder where Freddy is, now? Good old Freddy Farmer. No fellow ever hada pal like Freddy. God created only one Freddy Farmer. Good oldFreddy....

  What was that noise? It would be nice to see once more. Blind as a bat,now, though. Everything red, and growing redder. A deep, deep red. Afunny noise, that. Like a plane. The planes of other pilots who haddied? Did a pilot go on flying after he was dead? As dying people hearvoices of those who have gone before them, did a dying pilot hear theplanes of pilots who had already gone? A funny sound, but a nice sound.Just like an aircraft engine. No sound in all the world so deeplythrilling as the sweet song of an aircraft engine, and the hymn sung bywings in the wind. You had to be a pilot to know that.

  So this was it? Well, that was okay. No pain at all. A sort ofcomforting silence. Like slipping off to sleep in a nice soft bed.