“All I want is a juicy beefsteak,” he told them. “And mashed spuds and apple pie and—”
“You’ll have to be satisfied with pork chops,” Barry interrupted. “Beef won’t be on the menu until we’re back at Mau River. The same goes for potatoes. Dinner tonight will be roast wild pig, palm cabbage, and cocoanut milk—with a vitamin pill for dessert.”
Ravenous appetites made the jungle dinner a success, even though Tony dropped off to sleep in the middle of it. The others literally cleaned the bones of their little roast porker. There was no campfire to enjoy, however: the light would have betrayed them to any scouting Jap plane within twenty miles. The moment the sun set, they kicked sand over the coals and finished their meal in the dark.
Contact with Mau River was made quickly by radio. A brief message, not likely to mean much to listening Japs, gave their location. Barry added a request for supplies, and arranged radio and ground signals to guide the approaching planes to a moonlight landing.
“The next thing,” Barry announced, “is to camouflage Rosy so that she’ll be invisible from the air. As soon as the moon rises, we’ll begin cutting vines and leafy bushes. With only four pocket knives, it may take us most of the night, but that just can’t be helped.”
Ravenous Appetites Made the Dinner a Success
“There’s the moon coming up now!” Hap Newton exclaimed, pointing to a glow on the eastern horizon. “Out with those toadstabbers, gentlemen! We’ll cut out a new green dress for Sweet Rosy O’Grady—or fall asleep trying!”
The camouflage was only half completed when the first supply plane arrived. It was a big Coronado flying boat, altered for extra cargo space. It brought enough gasoline in cans to feed Rosy’s big engines on the trip home, and it took Tony Romani back to the field hospital. The next two planes brought bundles of steel mats for the beginning of a long, straight runway.
Three days later Rosy O’Grady’s sunburned crew had lost ten or fifteen pounds apiece, but the roadway of perforated steel was completed. One end of it was under water, owing to the curve of the beach. An incoming wave might cause the huge bomber to ground-loop at the moment of her take-off, but that was a chance that had to be taken.