Barry Blake of the Flying Fortress

by Gaylord Du Bois

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SWEET ROSY O’GRADY

  His pulses pounding with excitement, Barry Blake gazed across the longrunways of Boeing Field at his first fighting ship. The great FlyingFortress seemed to perch lightly on the ground, despite her twenty-oddtons. Her propellers were turning slowly, glinting in the sun like theblades of four gigantic sword dancers.

  Despite her drab coat of Army paint Barry thought her beautiful. Theslim, torpedo-like profile, the high, strong sweep of her tailassembly—even the fishy grin produced by her bombardier’s window andforward gun ports—thrilled her young co-pilot to the core. This wasthe ship of his dreams. Her name, _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_, was paintedjust above her transparent nose.

  Hurrying forward, he saluted the long-legged, lean-faced pilot whostood by the _Rosy’s_ armed tail.

  The lengthy captain looked up from the postcard he was scribbling. Helifted a nonchalant hand.

  “You’re Lieutenant Blake?” he said with a Texas drawl. “The rest of ourcrew are all here, getting acquainted with the ship. I was just dashingoff a card to the real Rosy O’Grady—my wife. It’s finished. Come inand meet the others. Then we’ll be ready to take off.”

  Inside the big bomber, Captain O’Grady introduced Barry to the sixother members of the crew.

  “Meet Lieutenant Aaron Levitt, better known as Curly,” the skipperinvited. “He’s the smartest, and probably the handsomest, ex-lawyer inthe Air Forces. Born in Manhattan.”

  “Lower East Side,” Levitt added, giving Barry a cordial handclasp and akeen look. “Happy that you’re going to be one of us, Lieutenant.”

  “... and this gent is our bombardier, Sergeant Daniel Hale. He’s of theold time Texas breed, in spite of hailing from Arizona and looking morelike a shorthorn bull. His great-granddad died fighting in the Alamo.”

  Barry pulled what was left of his hand from Sergeant Hale’sbone-crushing grip and turned to “Sergeant Fred Marmon of Glens Falls,New York—the head nurse in charge of _Rosy’s_ roaring quadruplets.”The red-haired engineer-gunner chuckled as he acknowledged Barry’sgreeting.

  “Boy!” he exclaimed. “And do those 1200 horsepower babies keep a manbusy! Some of ’em, that is. One engine will run like a dream for fiftyor a hundred hours. Another will develop more ailments than amotherless child. I’m hoping these new engines will be the first kind,Lieutenant. If not—well, here are Sergeants Cracker Jackson and SoapyBabbitt to help me out. They’re our top-turret and belly gunners, butthey know a lot about aerial power plants, too.”

  Last of all, Barry Blake met Tony Romani, the pint-sized tail gunner.The little corporal was as friendly as could be, but his sad, Latineyes seemed to hold all the cares and worries which his crew mateslaughingly discarded.

  He was already hurrying back to his turret when Captain Tex O’Gradysaid, “Okay, boys! We’ll take her upstairs! I’ll mail this postcard toMrs. O’Grady from Salt Lake City. If you have any letters to send youcan drop them there. We’re heading west to the Orient.”

  The _Rosy’s_ four big engines deepened their song of power as sherushed down the runway. She was a living, throbbing organism, but herpersonality was yet to be learned. Newly fledged from Boeing’s greathatchery of warbirds, she had still to get acquainted with her crew,and they with her.

  Barry Blake sat alert in his co-pilot’s seat, checking the instruments,as the runway dropped away below him. At the skipper’s nod, he touchedthe lever that retracted the landing gear. He heard the wheels wind upwith a smooth mechanical whine, and noted the time it took in seconds.Again he moved the lever, letting the wheels down and raising them backin place. He tested the action of the flaps, the engines’ response totheir throttles, the revolutions-per-minute of the props. In everythingthe _Rosy O’Grady_ behaved as sweetly as any lady with such a nameshould do.

  At Salt Lake City there was a short stop; then on they flew to SanAntonio. Again Barry glimpsed the familiar countryside over which heand Chick Enders and Hap Newton had flown. The perfect green pattern ofRandolph Field, with three or four flights of planes swinging over it,brought a homesick pang.

  “We’ll never forget that scene, Mister,” the voice of Captain O’Gradybroke into Barry’s thoughts. “I graduated from Randolph ten years ago,but it’s just like yesterday when I look back.”

  “Those were the happiest weeks of my life,” Barry replied with a chokein his voice. “I know it now, though at the time it seemed a toughgrind.”

  Captain O’Grady turned one of his warm Irish grins on the youngco-pilot.

  “The real, tough grind,” he said, “will come when we reach our SouthPacific base, I reckon. Barring accidents, the life of a fortress isabout five or six months on the battlefront. Before it’s over we’ll allfeel like graybeards, kid.”

  The _Rosy_ made one more stop at Tampa, Florida, where her engines werethoroughly checked and her tanks filled. Ahead of her stretched thelong hop to Trinidad, off the northern coast of South America. Ifanything should go wrong, there were island bases in the Caribbean Seawhere an emergency landing might be made. But in aviation, an ounce ofprevention is worth many pounds of cure.

  That evening in Tampa the crew had their last big restaurant meal formonths to come. The following afternoon they took off despite stormwarnings. There was no long last look at their native land. A fewmoments after the _Rosy’s_ wheels had left the runway she was climbingthrough a heavy overcast of clouds.

  As they roared over the southeastern tip of Cuba the weather cleared.Below them the Windward Passage lay, deep blue in the sunlight. Aheadrose the rugged mountain tops of Haiti.

  Barry Blake felt a strange thrill as he gazed down into the jungle-cladvalleys where not so many years ago United States Marines had huntedmurderous voodoo worshipers. Somewhere in those dark gorges bloodyvoodoo rites were probably being performed at this very moment.

  Invisible from the air the Haitian border was left behind. The darkgreen ranges of the Dominican Republic flowed past beneath the _Rosy’s_wings. Again the blue Caribbean stretched ahead of her.

  Crossing the long thousand miles between Haiti and Trinidad they struckthe worst weather yet encountered. At ten thousand feet the Fortressslammed into a black storm front.

  It was worse than anyone had expected. The tumbling masses of air werelike giant fists pummeling the big ship. She bucked like a frightenedhorse, reared, stood on her nose, and shuddered.

  Something struck the right wing from beneath, flipping the _Rosy_ overon her side, and off course. It was only air, though it felt to Barrylike a collision with an express train. Tex O’Grady fought the controlswith every ounce of strength in his big body. Muscles stood out inbunches on his lean jaw. In a flash of lightning Barry saw sweatstreaming down the pilot’s face.

  He glanced behind him. Lieutenant Levitt’s teeth showed in a fixedsmile below his little moustache. In the lightning flashes the whitesof his eyes showed clearly. Sergeant Hale’s big mouth was closed like asteel trap. Only Fred Marmon, the red-headed engineer, seemed to beenjoying himself. Meeting Barry’s eyes he winked, and waggled hisfingers in a mocking gesture.

  At that moment lightning struck the ship. Every light went off. Thefuselage might have been the belly of a blasted submarine, pitch darkand battered by ceaseless depth charges. A beam of light touched theinstrument panel. Barry Blake felt the cool barrel of a flashlightpressed into his hand.

  “That will help you keep a check on your instruments!” Fred Marmon’sshout sounded in his ear.

  Barry was grateful for his first chance to do something, however small,to help Tex. He watched the altimeter register a drop of five hundredfeet, a steady climb of eight thousand, then another drop. In thisfashion an hour passed.

  All at once they were out of the storm. Clear moonlight shone throughthe plastic windows of the cockpit. The crew raised a hoarse cheer.

  “Take over, Barry,” drawled Tex O’Grady’s voice. “I want to find out ifI am still in one piece. When _Rosy_ starts bucking like that she’stougher
than any bronc I ever forked on my daddy’s ranch in Texas!”

  Unfastening his safety belt, Captain O’Grady heaved his lanky frame outof the seat and went back to talk with the navigator. Barry swept hisglance over the instrument board. He tried the controls, to feel outany possible storm damage. Satisfied that there was none, he lookedbelow.

  A sea of rolling, silvery clouds lay in every direction. It wasbeautiful, but menacing. The ceiling below that overcast, Barry judged,would be zero. It might hide either land or sea, hills or marshes, forall that anyone knew. The storm had carried the _Rosy O’Grady_ a numberof miles off her course.

  The four big engines’ steady drone of power sounded reassuring, untilBarry remembered the last reading of the gas gauge before the lightninghad knocked it out. There wasn’t enough left for fooling around, whilethe _Rosy_ found out where she was.

  After a few minutes, Captain Tex O’Grady loafed back to the cockpit.

  “The radio’s out,” he told Barry. “That means we can’t get crossbearings to find our position. Curly Levitt is getting a fix now onsome stars. Trouble is, he’s afraid his octant may have been knockedout of kilter when it fell off the navigation table, back there in thestorm. Why don’t you go back and cheer him up?”

  Barry thanked the lanky pilot and unfastened his safety belt. Hesuspected that O’Grady was just giving him an opportunity to stretchhis legs. If a fellow needed cheering up, nobody could do a better jobof it than “Old Man” O’Grady himself.

  Lieutenant Curly Levitt was up in the top turret sighting through hisinstrument when Barry stepped back.

  “Three stars is enough for a fix,” he shouted above the engines’thunder. “Just wait till I shoot Venus.”

  “Better not—it might really be Sirius!” punned Barry. “Anything I cando to help?”

  “Thanks,” replied the navigator, as he prepared to step down, “Justopen your mouth again and I’ll put my foot in it.”

  Barry dodged, just in time to tumble over Fred Marmon who“accidentally” happened to be crouched just behind him. As he pickedhimself up, even sad-eyed Tony Romani laughed. The crew’s tense nerveswere relaxing. Whistling a few bars from _Pagliacci_, the mustachioednavigator went back to his desk.

  Curly Levitt was still a bit worried, however. On the accuracy of hisreckoning depended the life of every man on board. If he failed, thechances were excellent that _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ would plunge to awatery grave the moment her gas supply gave out. At best she wouldcrash in the Venezuelan jungle—unless, of course, the clouds broke upfarther on and showed her crew a landing field.

  “Check this reckoning with me, will you, Blake?” Levitt invited. “Thenif there should be an error we can blame it on the wallop my octanttook in the storm.”

  “Okay!” Barry agreed. “If your octant is off, we’ll probably find itout too late to help ourselves. So don’t worry.”

  Reckoning the fix is really a simple matter. At a given time only onepoint on the earth’s surface can be directly under any star. Using hisoctant, the navigator “shoots” or measures the elevation of two or morestars, and then figures out just where each “substellar” point is onthe earth’s surface.

  His next step is still easier. With his substellar points located onthe map, he draws circles around them. One of the places where thesecircles intersect is the place where his plane was at the time thestars were “shot.” There is no real difficulty in guessing whichintersection is the right one: the others are apt to be thousands ofmiles from his last known position.

  Everything, of course, depends upon the accuracy of the star-shootingoctant. This expensive and delicate instrument will not always standabuse such as Curly Levitt’s had taken. There was reason for the youngex-lawyer to be worried. He slipped on his headset and switched on theinterphone. The click in his ears told him that it still worked.

  “Pilot from navigator,” he said. “If I’m right we’re fifty miles duenorth of Cayo Grande. Our present compass course would take us justpast the southern tip of Trinidad. That checks pretty well with my deadreckoning. I haven’t had an accurate drift reading since we banged intothat front.”

  “Navigator from pilot,” came the drawling reply. “_Rosy_ says she’lltake your word for it. She likes your style, hombre, even if you _are_a lily-fingered product of the effete East. A man who can keep _any_sort of dead reckoning in a storm like the one we just rode throughwill do to cross the river with.”

  For the next hour Barry flew the big bomber, while her “Old Man” dozedin his seat. Below them the clouds continued unbroken. The moonlight ontheir gleaming crests and ridges gave the young co-pilot a queersensation. It was hard not to believe that he was guiding a fantasticship over the surface of a strange planet, thousands of light-yearsfrom Earth. In the lightless cockpit nothing seemed real.

  “You fool—snap out of it!” Barry found himself muttering. “You’reheading into dreamland with your throttles wide. And that blur on thewindow isn’t imagination—_it’s oil_!”

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