Of the five stories of World War II air combat that Clifford D. Simak wrote during the war era, this was the fourth—and the first to be written after the United States entered that war. And whereas the earlier ones all took place in the European theater, this one, as well as the one that followed, featured Americans in action against the Japanese. This story was sent to American Eagle in October 1942 (following a hiatus caused at least in part by Cliff’s short-lived job with an American intelligence organization), but it would first appear in a magazine called Air War, in fall 1943.
The issue had a ten-cent cover price, and it was a good deal thinner than most pulp magazines, most likely the result of wartime paper shortages, but the issue carried reassuring notices that although changes in the customary typography and layout made the magazine look smaller, it had the normal content.
—dww
Mason saw the Zeroes first and spoke to Foster through the phones.
“Three rat cages high up, Steve. Getting ready to gang us.”
The pilot craned his neck and looked, finally spotted the dots far overhead.
“O.K.,” he said. “Let them think we haven’t seen them. They’ll come sliding in for a kill. We’ll nail them then.”
Mason hunkered down behind his gun and waited, watching the planes with eyes narrowed against the setting sun. Up ahead, Foster drove the throbbing Avenger along its serene way. Off to the right was the shoreline of Guadalcanal, a mass of jungle green, with a strip of white sand between the green and the darkening blue of the ocean.
“The Old Man has the right hunch, all right,” Foster said quietly. “Those yellow rats have a hidden base somewhere on the island. Otherwise those planes of theirs couldn’t make such quick appearances and then disappear as completely as they do. Those babies up there probably are from that very field.”
Mason wasn’t too interested in conversation. The Zeroes were edging in closer.
One of them slid off in a knifelike power dive.
“Here they come,” yelped Mason, getting braced.
For what seemed an eternity, Foster held the Avenger on course. The second Zero was diving now and the third was wheeling over. Mason huddled grimly, waiting. He knew the Avenger wouldn’t keep sailing along like this until Jap slugs reached out for it.
Any minute now …
Suddenly the Avenger came to life, snapped skyward, stood on its tail and climbed, the Wright Cyclone shrieking a challenge to the diving enemy.
The leading Zero twisted desperately to follow the American plane, skidding a sharp angle that almost tore it apart. Calmly Mason lined his sights with the pool of light that was the Jap’s propeller as the plane came about, pressed the trips.
Fifty calibre slugs slammed into that pool of whirling steel and the Zero came unstuck.
The wash of light disappeared in an explosion of shattered metal. Long strips peeled off the cowling and the plexiglass that housed the pilot disappeared in shreds of flying debris that glinted in the sun.
For a split second something was punching holes along the Avenger’s left wing as the second Zero flashed past, guns still smoking.
Then the wing guns of the Grumman opened up and Mason flipped his turret around.
The Avenger still was climbing and the wing guns were stabbing out at the third Jap, storming straight down upon them.
The red mouths of the Zero’s guns flickered at them wickedly and the Avenger shuddered slightly as bullets struck home.
Ducking, Mason got behind his sights and swung his guns to bear, but even as he did, there was a thudding wham, the Grumman bucked to the recoil of the cannon in its nose and then rolled over, tumbling out of the Zero’s way.
The Jap ship shook for a moment in the sky, seemed to stall in its downward dive, then slowly fell apart. One wing came off and tumbled seaward. The plane sideslipped and started screaming down, whirling and twisting, heaving wreckage as it fell, part of the second wing, the tail assembly, the motor, wrenched from the mountings, falling free.
But Mason did not watch it. There was other business at hand.
“Where is the other one?” he yelled at Foster.
Apparently Foster didn’t know, for there was no answer.
There was not long to wonder.
Mason straightened up to sweep the sky and a moment later a hurricane of slashing, ripping steel caught the American ship—just a brief two second burst, but one that slivered chunks of metal off the wings, that shattered the plexiglass, that punched the tail full of gaping holes.
The Jap had attacked from below, even now was swinging up on the side of them, motor full out to make his getaway.
Mason whipped the guns around, got set as the Jap climbed into view. It was sheer luck, of course, that the Zero happened to climb straight into his sights.
Mason took advantage of that luck. He pressed the trips and kept them down.
The 50 calibres raked the rat cage from prop to tail, chewed it into a sieve-like hulk.
It went on climbing for a moment, faltered, wobbled for a second, then slid in a long slanting dive down toward the water.
Mason rubbed his hands gleefully.
“Well, that’s that,” he announced, but even before the words were out of his mouth he knew something was wrong. Something wrong with the throbbing of the Cyclone. As if the motor had the hiccoughs.
“Steve,” he yelled. “Steve! Are you all right?”
“I’m all right,” said Foster, “but the motor isn’t. Acts like it can’t get gas.”
“Feed-line,” suggested Mason.
“Yeah,” agreed Foster. “That last monkey must have messed us up a bit.”
“Nothing,” said Mason, “like we messed him up.”
Foster was craning his head over the side, trying to figure something out. The motor was choking and gasping.
“How does that beach down there look to you?” asked Foster.
Mason studied it carefully. “Ought to get her down. Might smack into a boulder or a hole or something. Never can tell.”
“There’s nothing else we can do,” said Foster. “Hang onto your hat and cross your fingers. Here we go.”
The motor gasped one last time and stopped, the prop circling idly, then hanging dead. The silence was terrifying. Wind whistled eerily along the ship’s metal skin and they were going fast.
Mason, fascinated, watched and tried to relax. Mentally he made bets with himself whether they would make it.
The sea was coming up at them. The beach was off to the right. They would never make it …
And then they were above the beach, Foster fighting to keep the ship level. The Avenger struck the sand with a force that jarred Mason’s teeth, leaped and struck again, threatening to nose over, then was rolling free, gliding to a stop.
Foster stood up, took off his helmet, wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He looked at Mason and grinned. “What are we going to do now?” asked the gunner.
“Take a look. Maybe we can patch her up.”
It was the feed-line, all right. Sliced in two and not too hard to patch, but that wasn’t all.
Foster, stepping back in the ship, switched on the ignition, stared at the gauges for a while and then snapped it off again.
“What’s wrong now?” demanded Mason.
“The gas,” said the pilot. “We lost practically all of it.”
He snapped the ignition on again. The needle on the fuel gauge barely quivered.
“About two cups full,” moaned Foster.
“We can call the base,” said Mason. “One of the boys will be down in half an hour with enough to get us home.”
“Not with this radio.” Foster snapped the switch. There was no hum.
Mason groaned.
“We might just as well start matching now,” he said, “to see which one of us hikes back to let them know the fix we’re in.”
Foster stared up and down the beach.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right at that, Hank. We’ll have to be careful, though. Sun’ll be down in a while and one of us can start. Have to stick to the shadows as much as we can. Some Jap patrols are apt to be gum-shoeing around.”
Feet crunched on the sand and Mason leaped from the wing, gun half out of his holster.
It wasn’t a Jap, however. It was a native.
The man, apparently, had slipped from the jungle without them noticing him.
He stared at Mason for a moment, then stabbed a thumb at his own naked chest.
“Me N’Goni,” he announced. “Me mission boy.”
Mason grinned. “Me Hank,” he said. “Him Steve. Americans.”
N’Goni gestured at the Avenger. “Machine that fly, him haywire?”
“No gas,” Mason explained. “You know him, gas?”
“Know him,” declared the native. “Water make machine go put-put.”
“Know where we can get any?” demanded Foster, impatient at the pidgin conversation.
N’Goni considered. “Jap maybe have him.”
“Jap!” yelled Foster.
“Jap here,” N’Goni told him. “In the hills. Not far.”
“Sure, I know all that,” said Foster. “Patrols sneaking around.”
N’Goni shook his head. “Many Japs. Machine that fly. Gas.”
The two Yanks looked at one another. N’Goni scraped his feet in the sand.
“The Old Man was right,” said Foster. “Those dirty rats do have a field right on this island. Maybe more than one. Sending in supplies and reinforcements at night, trying to build them up.”
He whirled on the native. “Can you show us where?” he demanded.
N’Goni grinned viciously. “Make go bang boom?” he asked.
“You’re darn right we’ll make them go bang boom,” promised Foster.
“Me show,” said the native, apparently satisfied.
He started off up the beach, but they called him back.
“Not yet,” explained Mason. “Go big American village first time. Tell big chief. Many machine that fly come. Bigger bang boom.”
N’Goni’s grin widened. “Me show big American village,” he offered.
“Gee,” said Foster, “that guy knows everything.”
“Mission boy,” N’Goni explained patiently.
“All right,” said Mason. “You show short way. We know long way.”
“Short way,” agreed N’Goni.
Mason turned to Foster, waiting for his decision. Foster wrinkled his brow.
“By rights,” he said, “we both should go. Blow up the ship before we leave.”
“Blow up the ship!” yelled Mason. “Steve, you ain’t in your right mind. That ship’s all right.”
“We can’t allow the Japs to get hold of one,” snapped Foster. “You know that as well as I do. It’s too new a job. Once those monkeys got their claws on one, they’d be making them.”
“One of us could stay and guard it while the other went,” argued Mason. “The Japs would never know it was here. You just can’t blow up a perfectly good ship. Cripes, those bombs might make a bunch of Japs say uncle.”
In the end Mason won. They flipped to see who’d go and the coin turned heads for Foster.
Mason, sitting in the sand, leaned back against a palm and watched the ocean.
For a change, it wasn’t raining and a brilliant tropical moon made the beach almost as light as day.
The Avenger was hidden in a coconut grove, where Foster had taxied it before he left and everything was peaceful. Too peaceful, Mason thought, leaving against the palm, trying to keep his eyes open. Waves charged upon the beach and foamed in silver spray. The wind sang in the palms and back in the jungle a monkey scolded.
Mason dozed, jerked himself awake guiltily. It was his job to watch the plane. He couldn’t sleep.
The monkey was chattering again, down the beach somewhere. A muted chatter that Mason suddenly realized was no monkey chatter at all.
He sat bolt upright and listened intently. A breeze swept the sound away for a moment and then it came back again.
The gunner got to his feet, slid back into the shadows, still listening intently. He was sure he couldn’t be mistaken. There were men down on that beach.
Moving swiftly, but keeping in the shadows, he hurried toward the sounds.
Rounding a rocky point that thrust out into the water, he saw the beach alive with men, small men who scurried about and carried rifles on their back. Off shore stood a ship and beyond it a couple of more ships, riding without lights, like gray ghosts in the moonlight. Boats were coming in through the surf and the men were busy unloading small steel drums.
Lying flat among the rocks, Mason watched eagerly. There was gasoline in those drums, he knew. Gasoline for the few planes the Japs were operating out of their hidden base up in the hills.
And, Lord, what beautiful targets they were, working away in the moonlight. Just about the right range, too.
Common sense tried to reason with him. “You haven’t got a chance,” he said. “You’re just one man against them all.”
“But,” Hank told Common Sense, “think of the fun it’d be. Boy, could I scatter those babies!”
A truck rumbled out of the jungle, backed up to the pile of drums.
Stealthily, Mason crept from the rocks, slipped into the shadows and ran. Back at the plane, he dismounted the gun in the turret, looped his shoulders with belts of ammo and staggered at a bent-kneed gallop down the beach again.
The Japs still were there. The last of the drums were being rolled up on the truck and the little brown men, chattering like apes, were clustered around the machine. The boats had left the shore, were going back to the ship.
Softly, gingerly, Mason swung the gun off his shoulder, rested it on top of a flat rock. Carefully he laid out the ammo belts.
Waiting for a second to catch his breath, he slid behind the gun, trained it carefully. Slowly his finger squeezed the trip and suddenly the gun was jabbering.
Tracers ripped across the sand and tore into the soldiers standing at the tail of the truck. The group seemed to explode into dozens of screaming men. Others did not run, but lay still where the gun had chopped them down.
Coldly, precisely, Mason picked off the running groups. A rifle cracked and a bullet clicked against a rock nearby and went whining into space. Another rifle spat out of the shadows and Mason heard the bullet drone overhead.
The men had disappeared. More rifles were beginning to talk, bullets spatted close. The ammo belt ran clear. Mason jerked up another, slammed it home, pointed the gun at the loaded truck and let drive. He heard the 50 calibres spanging into the drums and suddenly the truck exploded in a gush of blue and yellow flame that paled out the moonlight and lighted beach and jungle with a garish glow.
More men were running now and Mason picked them off. Several had leaped from under the truck when the first bullets drove into the drums, but the sheet of flame had reached out, caught them before they could get away.
The burning gasoline snaked steadily into the sky now, lighting every boulder and tree upon the beach. But the Japs had disappeared.
With the last of his belt, Mason sprayed the beach, then leaped from the rocks and turned to run. But as he wheeled about he almost collided with three charging Japs. With a shout, he heaved the empty gun at the first one. It caught the little yellow man full in the stomach and bowled him over.
The second Jap was bearing down, however, bayonet gleaming.
Snatching free his .45, Mason shot from the hip and brought him down. The third man halted momentarily, lifting his rifle. The pistol barked angrily and the Jap collapsed, clutching his stomach, making choking noises.
Mason ran, ran with all the power that drove his legs, diving for the shadows. And as he reached them, a figure rose from behind a boulder, smashed a rifle butt down upon his head.
“This way,” said N’Goni. “Leave ocean now. Take to hills.”
Foster nodded wearily. “How much farther?” he asked.
“Not so much,” the native said, and Foster suspected he was lying.
“Let’s rest a minute,” the pilot suggested.
N’Goni squatted on the sand and Foster sat down.
“Guns,” N’Goni said calmly.
“What do you mean? Guns?”
“Guns,” insisted the native, sweeping a hand the way they had come.
Foster tried to still the roaring in his head, strained his ears.
But it was several seconds before he heard the far-off chatter of a machine gun and the less frequent popping of rifles.
Walking softly, still straining his ears, he stared back down the beach. The faint chatter of the guns was muffled by a thudding roar and the distant sky was lighted with a sudden puff of brilliance.
“They found Hank!” Foster yelled at N’Goni. “They found him and he blew up the ship.”
He was running and marveled that he had it in him.
“N’Goni,” he yelled, but there was no answer. Stopping, he looked back. The native had disappeared.
The guns were still going, but he lost the sound of them as he resumed his run. The run dwindled to a trot, the trot to a determined slog. When next he stopped to listen, there were no guns, although a flickering brilliance still glowed ahead.
“They got him,” he told himself. “They got Hank!”
And the thought became a drum that beat through his brain, a marching song that kept his feet moving down the sand.
He cursed himself that he had left Hank behind. He should have insisted on the gunner coming with him. They should have destroyed the ship in the first place. That really was what they were supposed to do.
It was near dawn as he drew near the point where they had left the Avenger and from there on he moved cautiously. The moon had sunk several hours before, but the beach still was lighted by the wash of stars that spangled the tropic sky.
The Avenger, he saw with a start, still was there, half hidden in the clump of palms. The explosion, then, hadn’t been the ship, but something else.
Hope welled within him as he lay stretched flat in a jungle thicket and watched. Hank might still be there, out there watching the plane. The explosion might have been something else, maybe miles away. It would have been hard to estimate distances out there on the beach last night.
A figure moved near the plane and Foster caught his breath, half raised himself, a shout welling in his throat. But the shout died and he hugged the earth again. The figure wore a battle helmet and carried a rifle on its shoulder.
In the half light of the waning stars, he saw the first figure meet a second one, saw the two wheel about and continue their patrol. There was no question now. The Japanese had found the ship and were guarding it.
That meant that Hank was dead.
Tired, baffled rage shook Foster as he lay there, watching. Finally he moved, crawling and running at a crouch, stalking. One fact drummed in his brain. The Japs must never keep that ship!
He reached the palm thicket, slid belly-flat through the scanty undergrowth, stopping and lying like one dead when the Jap sentry was in sight, moving swiftly, but cautiously when the opportunity presented itself.
Crouching in a thicket, he waited. One of the Japs was coming. Foster listened to the steady tramp, the methodical drill-field tread. The Jap was opposite him now, was moving on.
The American pilot was a silent wraith that rose out of the bushes almost at the Jap’s side, the hands that moved to the Jap’s throat were death itself.
The guard opened his mouth to cry out, but the sound died in his throat and he was lifted from his feet and iron-like fingers bit into his neck. He dropped his rifle and it thudded on the damp ground, but that was the only sound. He kicked his feet and thrashed his arms, but the fingers did not relax. When Foster laid him down, the Jap was dead.
Back in his bushes, Foster waited.
The second guard ended his beat, stopped uncertainly when he did not meet the first one. Half turning to resume his march, he hesitated, moved softly, almost like a cat, down the side of the ship where his missing companion should have been.
Rigid, Foster kept his eyes on him, saw him stop when he sighted the limp figure on the ground.
For a long time the Jap stood there, staring, rifle at the ready, occasionally glancing about, sharp, quick glances as if he might surprise someone.
He came closer, thought better of it. Plainly he was afraid of a trap, afraid that what had struck down his companion might strike him down as well.
Foster could have shot him as he stood there, but that would have meant the sound of a shot; would have aroused any enemy within earshot.
Quickly, as if he made a swift decision, the Jap turned about and started to run. Foster rose silently, gripping his revolver by its barrel. He threw it with all his might and it glittered in the fading starlight as it tumbled toward the Jap, twirling end over end. It caught the little man in the small of the back, knocked him sprawling.
With a rush, Foster was on him, pinning him to earth, crushing his face to the ground to prevent an outcry. But the man twisted under him like a greased eel and thick-fingered hands clawed at the American.
Foster chopped at the man’s chin with an awkward right, for there was no room to swing. The Jap’s fingers found the pilot’s throat, failed to get a grip, clawed viciously at his face, leaving painful gashes on the cheek.
A knee came up viciously, slugged into Foster’s stomach, knocking the wind half from him.
In a blind haze of rage, the American reached the Jap’s throat with one hand, dragged him forward. His other clutching hand closed on a leg. Slowly, fighting with all this strength, Foster rose to his knees, struggled to his feet, lifted the squirming Jap above his head. Lifted him and threw him, with all his strength, against the Avenger’s metal side.
The Jap screamed shortly before he crashed against the plane, before he flopped into a grotesque rag-doll bundle, head twisted at an angle that said his neck was broken.
Foster leaned weakly against the ship, stared dully out to sea, where the first pale streamers of the sun were lighting a new day.
Minutes later, he walked over to pick up his revolver. Then he dragged the two dead Japs into the brush and staggered down the beach.
There, behind a spur of rock, he found the machine gun from the Avenger and on the rock a belt of ammo and many empty cases.
On the beach beyond was the burned skeleton of a truck and bursted steel drums. There also were dark spots in the sand … spots where men had died.
Legs braced wide, his body drooping with the punishment it had taken, Foster stared at the tracks of the truck leading out of the jungle, shifted his gaze to the climbing jungle, black and green with the coming dawn.
Up there somewhere was the Jap air base. Up there was a job to do.
And there was the Avenger to be destroyed and bombs that could be used.
Another thing, too. Hank was dead. That called for some sort of fitting gesture, some sort of rough tribute.
Steve Foster stood, stiff-legged, and stared at the hills.
But Hank Mason wasn’t dead.
He sat on the edge of a bed fashioned of poles and held his head in his hands. His head ached. No wonder, he thought, after the clout he’d got with that rifle butt.
The jungle bowl in which lay the Jap base swam with sullen heat.
A Japanese guard lounged against the hut’s door and looking past him Mason could see the air field, small but good enough for small planes and pilots that didn’t care whether they lived or died. Taking off and landing would be tricky in such a place, but it had the advantage of being well hidden, hard to find. The only way it could be spotted, Mason knew, was by a plane flying directly over it.
Great drums of fuel were stacked along the field and a line of planes rested under a flimsy camouflage. A group of natives were toiling on the field, wrestling stones and stumps, while Jap guards kept close watch, shrilling sharp words at any who might lag.
Mason took his left hand down from his head and looked at his wrist watch. It was almost 10 o’clock. By this time Foster and his native guide would have reached the American base. Soon a plane or two would be roaring out to rescue the stranded Avenger. If there was only some way to let them know. N’Goni, of course, would have told them of the Jap base, but there was the problem of finding it. Unless a plane flew directly overhead, it would be hard to spot.
If there were only some way—
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the fuel drums. There might be a way, after all. If only he just knew when those planes would be around.
He shifted his gaze to the guard. The fellow watched him closely with shiny black eyes. Something was sticking out of the man’s pocket…a long handle and a bulge in the pocket. Mason gulped. Unless he was mistaken, it was a hand grenade, one of those potato-masher affairs.
“American feel so bad,” suggested the guard, hopefully.
“Shut up,” snarled Mason.
The Jap’s face darkened and his eyes grew brighter, if that were possible.
“You no talk to me like that,” he said. “Me good as you are. Better maybe.”
“Like heck, you say,” said Mason.
The guard jerked his gun down toward Mason.
“Me tickle you up a bit, maybe. Talk different, then.”
Mason stared at the bayonet. “You keep that thing out of my reach, Joe,” he warned, “or I’ll take it away from you and slit your gizzard with it.”
“Commander see you in little while. Talk with you. Then we take you out, kill you.” The Jap squinted his eyes to see how Mason took it.
“You scummy little buzzards get a big kick out of killing people, don’t you?” said Mason.
“You talk too much,” hissed the Jap.
“Sez you!” said Mason.
The guard stepped inside the hut, moved closer, bayonetted rifle held stiffly in front of him.
“Me mess you up a bit,” he decided.
“The commander won’t like that,” Mason warned.
“Commander won’t care. Just so not too much.”
He advanced with mincing steps, pushing the pointed steel closer and closer. Mason watched it idly, but the blood was pounding in his throat. This baiting of the guard was taking a chance, an awful chance.
The Jap danced nearer, eyes sparkling.
The bayonet was no more than six inches away when Mason moved…moved like an unwinding coil spring. With a single motion he slapped the bayonet aside, rose to his feet and hit the Jap with his fist. The swing was a round-house blow, coming almost from the floor. It caught the Jap on the chin even before he could look surprised, lifted him off the floor, slammed him against the wall.
Glassy-eyed, the man sagged to the floor.
Grunting in satisfaction, Mason picked up the fallen rifle, used the bayonet, then bent above the erstwhile guard and took the long-handled thing from his pocket. It was a grenade, all right.
Clutching it in his hand, he walked to the door of the hut, stuck out his head, glanced cautiously up and down. There seemed to be Japs everywhere, but none of them were looking in his direction.
There was, he decided, only one way to do it. If he ran, they’d notice him, be on him in a minute, sure he was making a break. But if he walked he might not attract attention. They might be puzzled, but they might think it was all right, give him the time he needed.
Regretfully, he leaned the rifle against the wall, slipped the grenade in his belt and sauntered out into the open.
Walking slowly, he had gone a hundred feet when someone yelled at him. Stifling a desire to run, he kept on unhurriedly. The yell was not repeated.
Another hundred feet. Those fuel barrels were nearer now, much nearer. Just a few more steps and in a pinch he could reach them.
Another shout. A chorus of shouts and the patter of running feet.
Mason jerked the grenade from his belt, snapped out the pin and heaved. Then he ducked and ran. Rifles cracked and chugging things kicked up dust at his feet and in front of him.
He doubled behind a hut, ran full tilt into a startled soldier. From the field came the roar of the grenade, the gushy sigh of rushing flame.
The impact had knocked the soldier off his balance and, as he staggered, Mason reached out and snatched away his rifle.
A rocky hillside lay just ahead. He sprinted for it. Something tugged at his side and a sharp jab of pain went through him.
Behind him an oil drum exploded with a hollow boom. He snatched a quick glance over his shoulder. Black smoke was mushrooming far above the field.
Also, and more important, at least a dozen Japs were on his heels.
He swung around and snapped the rifle up. The mechanism was unfamiliar, but he got in two shots. Both counted. Then he was running again, stumbling as something smacked into his shoulder.
A roaring filled his head and he went down on hands and knees. This was the end, he knew. They’d get him now. He’d be cold meat for the Japs and no mistake.
But the roaring wasn’t all in his head. There was another roar. The throaty roar of a motor sweeping down into the bowl. And then another sound. The chattering of guns, a wicked, vicious sound, a snarling crescendo that seemed to sweep down upon him, then snapped off.
He flopped over and sat down, stared into the sky.
Climbing over the field was a ship—a ship he’d know anywhere. The Avenger he’d left back on the beach!
The camp was in pandemonium. Shrieking Japs were running. In front of him lay five of them, where they had been mowed down by the strafing guns. “Steve,” he yelled. “Give it to ’em, Steve!”
As if in answer, a black object leaped from the belly of the plane and streaked earthward. Earth and dust billowed up in a flash of fire and rolling smoke. Another bomb was falling and again the hills echoed with the thud of a five-hundred-pounder.
The camouflaged planes were gone, fire licking through them.
Painfully, hopefully, Mason got back on his hands and knees and crawled. Maybe if he got up that hillside when nobody was noticing him, he might have a chance.
Another bomb shook the earth and Mason counted: “Three.” There was one left.
The explosion came. That was all there was.
An anti-aircraft cut loose and the Avenger howled in answer, howled, then stuttered with fiendish gunbursts.
Feet pattered behind Mason and someone bent to lift him.
“Me carry,” said N’Goni.
“N’Goni,” yelled Mason. “What are you doing here?”
But he didn’t wait for the answer, for, even as he spoke, a sound came that chilled his heart. The coughing of the Avenger’s motor.
Then he remembered. There had been only a little gas. Now that was used up. The ship would fall.
He struggled to his feet and watched, with a dull ache in his heart. The Grumman, prop barely turning over, was wheeling toward the very hillside where he stood. Plunging at them, faster and faster.
“Is that Steve?” shouted Mason at N’Goni. “Is that Steve in there?”
“Maybe,” said N’Goni. “Him go back. Hear guns. So him go.”
So Steve had come back. Had heard guns and had come back. Figuring he’d keep his gunner out of trouble, get him out of a mess.
The Avenger lifted its nose slightly as it hit the up-currents of the hillside, seemed for a moment almost to stall and then crashed no more than a hundred yards above them.
N’Goni was loping up the hill, eating up the distance, while Mason limped behind.
Down below the Jap base was ablaze, thick columns of smoke standing in the air. The parked planes were burning, gas dumps were belching thick black clouds.
A new sound stopped Mason in his tracks. The distant hum of many motors. A hum that grew until it was a roar and then a shriek
Streaming over the lip of the bowl was a formation of American bombers, bombers that howled down upon the Japs with blazing guns and a roar of bombs. Blindly Mason stumbled up the hillside.
N’Goni was helping Foster out of the Avenger and, through the blood that streamed from a cut across his forehead, the pilot grinned at Mason.
“You O.K.”” gasped Mason.
“Right as rain,” said Foster.
“But N’Goni, how did the Americans know? You couldn’t have gotten there and got back this soon.”
“Me send brother,” N’Goni explained. “Remember got to work for Jap. No work, Jap mad. Kill family, maybe. So send brother. Tell him what to say.”
“So that’s why you ran out on me,” said Foster.
N’Goni grinned. “Me remember quick. Mad Jap, bad Jap.”
“They aren’t mad now,” said Foster. “They’re just plain scared to death.”
The base was a froth of smoke and flame and bellowing motors as the Yank planes crossed and criss-crossed it, sowing destruction. With guns and bombs, the Japs were being wiped out. “You sit,” said N’Goni. “You watch. Me, too.”
He hunkered down, grinning.
“Grand stand seat,” said Foster.