Barry Blake of the Flying Fortress

by Gaylord Du Bois

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DOGFIGHTING FORTRESS

  Three days passed without news of any Jap naval maneuvers. That was notsurprising, for the weather was frightful. The regular bombing runsfrom Henderson Field to Rabaul and Gasmata had been called off becauseof it. Two reconnaissance planes were missing—probably wrecked bythose unspeakably fierce South Pacific squalls. It seemed unlikely thatenemy warships would be out.

  Nevertheless, Colonel Bullock was nervous.

  “The Japs have used bad weather as a screen for their movements beforenow,” he pointed out to Barry Blake. “If they wanted to risk gettingoff course and piling up on a reef, they could sneak up within strikingdistance of this coast, and land their troops when the fog lifts.”

  “_Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ is ready to take off the minute you givepermission, sir,” Barry responded. “We’ll gladly take the chance ofrunning into a squall. All of us would rather be upstairs fighting theweather than stewing in our own juice down here.”

  The colonel met Barry’s eyes, and grinned.

  “You mean you’d risk anything for a chance to bomb the Japs,” hechuckled. “All right, Blake! You can take off at dawn tomorrow, wind orno wind. Head eastward toward Rabaul, then swing around by theAdmiralty Islands. The Japs might even send a convoy from Truk, theirbig base to the north.”

  _Rosy O’Grady’s_ crew was jubilant when they heard the order. The fog,the bugs, the everlasting sticky heat of Mau River made idleness atorture. That night they crawled under their mosquito bars and fellsound asleep without the usual “bull session” of complaints.

  The fog had lifted a little when they finished their pre-dawn breakfastand headed for the runway. _Rosy’s_ four engines were whooping it up asthe greaseballs warmed them.

  “That’s real music!” Fred Marmon shouted to Barry. “If they run assweetly as that today, no storm’s going to worry us.”

  “She’s bombed up. I saw to that last night,” said Chick Enders atBarry’s elbow. “They’re all half-ton babies. If we should spot a Japconvoy, we’ll be set to slam it.”

  “If!” repeated Curly Levitt, the navigator. “It’s a pretty big ‘if,’even granting that there is a convoy at sea. There won’t be many holesin this cloud ceiling, I’m afraid....”

  His voice faded out beneath the thunder of five thousand horses, as_Rosy O’Grady_ strained at her braked wheels. The engine roar died downsuddenly, a moment later, and the mechanics slid out of the hatch. Thesergeant in charge made a circle with his thumb and finger, indicating“Okay!” Barry Blake nodded, and plunged into _Rosy’s_ dim interior.

  The runway was a vaguely lighter strip down the center of the field asthey took off. It dropped away, as lightly as a streak of fog. HapNewton touched the lever that raised the wheels. Suddenly theblanketing mist closed them in completely.

  For the first hour Barry flew by instruments. Then, just off thewestern tip of New Britain, the air about them cleared. No loom ofArabia ever wove such gorgeous colors as the rising sun now spread overthe cloud rug below _Rosy’s_ broad wings. Among deep blue shadows therolling vapors gleamed with gold and pink.

  In the bomber’s transparent nose, Chick Enders gazed at the scene,open-mouthed.

  “Fellows,” he said in a voice of wonder. “That’s a sight worth anyflier’s life. It’s Heaven’s art work, fresh from the hand of God!”

  Nobody else spoke. Chick Enders had expressed the feeling of every manin the plane who had a view of the colors below. Soon, however, thecloud painting changed, the gold growing whiter and more brilliant, theblue and pink fading out.

  Fifty miles farther on a gap appeared, and through it the white-cappedocean. For nearly an hour the water remained in sight. A hundred milesfrom Rabaul the ceiling closed again, and Barry turned his Fortressback on the second leg of a big triangle.

  No more breaks appeared until they were halfway to the AdmiraltyIslands. Here the clouds were higher, with small gaps in them thatopened and closed as the winds whipped the masses of vapor along. Belowthem the ceiling seemed to be several hundred feet above the sea.

  “I’m going down, Hap,” Barry Blake announced. “We won’t be able to seeas far as we’d like to, but we’re doing no good up here above theceiling. Besides, I have a hunch....”

  “Play it, then,” Hap Newton advised. “In this game a bit of a hunch issometimes worth a barrel of reasoning. Chick, be ready with thatbombsight! We might come out right over a Jap battlewagon!”

  The bomber sank through the fluffy cloud mass like a swooping eagle.For a moment her pilots could see nothing outside. Barry kept his eyesglued to the altimeter: a thousand feet, nine hundred, eighthundred—Suddenly they were through, with the rolling ocean so nearthat its white-topped waves seemed to reach up for them.

  Hastily Barry pulled out of his shallow dive, and climbed for theclouds. His hunch had been right, as the shouts of Hap Newton and Chickattested. Spread out over a twenty mile area were a dozen large vessels.

  “The Jap convoy!” Hap cried. “No doubt about it—they’re headingsouthwest toward New Guinea. Let’s give ’em all we’ve got—”

  CRANG!

  The blast of a small-caliber shell inside _Rosy’s_ fuselage shocked hercrew into grim alertness. Two seconds later her top turret gunschattered. Empty shell cases tumbled smoking to the floor behind Barry,as he zoomed the Fortress into the nearest mass of clouds.

  “Where is he, Soapy?” the young pilot asked through clenched teeth.

  “Right on the other side of this cloud, last I saw of him,” replied theradioman-gunner. “He’s a big Jap twin-float bomber ... looks like an_Aichi_ T98.”

  “Two 20-mm. cannon and four fixed wing guns,” stated Barry, recallingwhat he had learned of the T98’s armament. “Unless he gets in somelucky shots our .50-calibers ought to be a match for him. We’re goingafter that baby, and blast him out of the air!”

  The broken clouds opened out suddenly, revealing the two planes flyingalmost abreast, and barely a stone’s throw apart. They opened firetogether. Now it was _Rosy O’Grady’s_ full broadside that came intoplay—nose, tail and side guns, spitting bullets that could chew chunksout of railroad tracks.

  Rows of holes like stitching appeared here and there in the _Aichi’s_fuselage, but the “greenhouse” of the Jap plane appeared bulletproof._Rosy’s_ slugs struck it and bounced away at right angles. Inside couldbe seen the Jap gunners, hunched over their weapons, their faces drawnand tense. Smoke drifted from the hot muzzles of their cannon.

  _Rosy O’Grady_ was taking punishment. Her fin and rudder looked like aslice of Swiss cheese. Shell holes gaped in her fuselage. Shellfragments were whizzing about her interior—thin, jagged bits of steelwith cutting edges. Every gunner was nicked and bleeding, yet all stuckby their guns.

  The Jap was catching plenty of trouble, too. His left hand engine wassmoking, and his forward cannon appeared to be damaged or jammed. Hemade a swift, left hand turn, trying to escape _Rosy’s_ broadside.

  Barry saw the _Aichi’s_ play, and countered it. The huge Fortressseemed to pivot inside the Jap’s half circle. The strain of that suddenturn would have broken anything but a fighter or a Fortress in two, but_Rosy_ took it. Her deadly broadside kept hammering the now-frightenedJap.

  The _Aichi_ nosed up, disappearing behind a long streak of cloud. Theshuddering racket of _Rosy’s_ .50-calibers stopped. Barry Blake wipedthe blood off his forehead, where a ricocheting shell fragment had cuthim. He winked at Hap Newton, who smiled back despite a sliced cheek.

  “Ball turret from pilot,” he said into the interphone. “Watch out for atrick. That Jap might try to dive below us and rip at our belly...._There he goes now!_.”

  _Shell Fragments Whizzed About the Plane’s Interior_]

  “I see him, sir!” said Cracker Jackson, as his bottom guns opened up.

  Barry shoved the wheel forward sharply, diving after the Jap. Smokefrom the _Aichi’s_ left engine was drifting back to blend with thepowder smoke of her rear cannon. A sh
ell slammed into Chick Enders’left gun with a crack that resounded through the plane.

  Chick lost balance as Barry pulled out of the dive, barely two hundredfeet above the water. The little bombardier shook his numbed fingers,grabbed the right-hand machine gun and swung it broadside. Again thetwo planes were flying side by side, but the Jap was licked.

  Flame burst from his crippled engine. A front panel of his “greenhouse”collapsed. He swerved wildly, nosed downward, and struck the water witha terrific splash.

  Barry zoomed his ship as steeply as he dared. In that last minute ofdogfighting he had flown within two thousand yards of a Jap cruiser.Tracer shells from the warship were streaking the air about him.

  In a tight climbing turn the big Fortress dodged, heading for theprotecting overcast of clouds. If one of those five-inch naval shellshit her, she would be a dead duck, and every man aboard her knew it.

  Chick Enders was not satisfied with mere escape. He turned to his pilotwith a pleading expression.

  “Give me one crack at that warship, Barry,” he begged. “What’s the useof coming out with a full bomb load if we’ve got to take it all back?”

  Barry banked his plane, and climbed again. The clouds enfolded thebattle-torn Fortress like soft fleece.

  “All right, Chick,” he consented. “I’ll give you a crack at something,but not when they’ve got us pinned to the wall. It’s more important toget the report of this convoy back to headquarters than to sink a ship.Soapy, get on the air and let me talk to the base.”

  Circling at reduced speed within the sheltering cloud blanket, Barryradioed a brief report of the convoy’s location, direction, andprobable size.

  “Shot down twin-float _Aichi_ T98 that attacked us,” he concluded.“We’re going back to leave a few calling cards on the Jap’s decks.”

  Roaring down through the ceiling, Barry spotted the circle of flamethat still marked the grave of the _Aichi_. Two vessels of the convoywere steaming past it on either side. The nearer was a big,troop-carrying destroyer. The farther was a cargo vessel of sixthousand tons.

  “We’ll take the destroyer first,” yelped Chick Enders, cuddling hisbombsight.

  They were so near that the Jap gunners had no time to swing theirheavier guns. The shots that they aimed flew wild. Already thedestroyer’s deck was almost beneath. From stern to bow _Rosy O’Grady’s_shadow swept over the doomed warship.

  The thousand-pound bomb went through her deck as through paper, andexploded in her bowels. The destroyer broke in two, spewing into thewaves shapeless things that had been men and machinery.

  “Now for that cargo tub!” cried Chick, his voice high pitched withexcitement.

  Barry banked around and came at the Jap freighter head-on. It was adangerous maneuver, for a cruiser scarcely a mile away had opened fire.Flak was coming near enough to make the air bumpy, and there was nochance to dodge while making a bombing run. Barry hugged tight to theceiling at a scant thousand feet.

  “I’ll go over at eight hundred, Chick,” he said quickly. “They’reshooting too close.”

  Before he had finished speaking, Chick’s fingers were busy at thebombsight’s knobs, compensating for the intended drop. The Fortressdipped abruptly. The freighter’s deck flashed beneath. Two hundred feetabove, the cruiser’s shells burst—where _Rosy_ would have been, hadnot Barry changed his altitude at the right instant.

  The shock of them was almost simultaneous with the wallop of the bombblast. Chick had laid his half-ton “egg” on the freighter’s stern,blowing it clean off. As the vessel settled in the water a column ofsmoke and flame poured upward from the torn deck.

  “Good boy, Chick!” said Barry quietly. “And now we’ll take thatsomewhat despised but highly appropriate action known as _scramming_.The whole task force will be gunning for us now—not to mentionwhatever planes the Jap cruiser may try to launch.”

  Hap Newton turned and waved mockingly astern.

  “Don’t worry, Tojo—we’ll be back, with plenty of company,” he said.“You’re going to be honorable shark-meat about twenty-four hours fromnow!”

  _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ plunged into the clouds and leveled off for MauRiver, three hundred miles away. The wet mist whipped through hergaping wounds. The torn edges of her metal skin hummed and shrieked inthe wind, but her four mighty engines thundered in unbroken harmony.She was still fit to fight.

  “Speaking of shark-meat,” Fred Marmon’s voice came over the interphone,“would somebody be kind enough to slap a bandage on my back? It feelslike a cubed steak.”

  “I’ll do it, Fred, if you’ll tie up my right shoulder,” Curly Levittresponded. “I’ve got the first-aid kit here.... Anybody else needpatching up?”

  “My ear feels like something the cat brought in,” came Tony Romani’svoice from the tail turret. “I think there’s some shrapnel sticking inmy ribs, too, but that can wait. You fellows fix yourselves up first.”

  All of the crew had some wounds, but none of them were dangerous._Rosy’s_ pilots had escaped with scratches. Chick Enders had a bruisedhand and a cut on his leg. Their hurts were just enough to get them“warmed up for a real fight,” as Hap Newton put it.

  “When we land, we’ll stick with _Rosy_ until she’s bombed and servicedfor another run,” Chick suggested. “Only the pilots need to report toColonel Bullock, and he won’t ground them for a couple of scratchedfaces. That way, we can take off with the other planes for the all-outattack.”

  The plan was unanimously approved, but it was doomed to failure. _RosyO’Grady_ made a three-point landing, like the perfect lady she was, butas she rolled to a stop, Chick Enders groaned.

  “There’s Colonel Bullock coming out to us in the jeep!” he exclaimed.“He’ll never let us take off without a real inspection. And that meanswe’ll miss the big fight!”

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