Suddenly a tracer shell streaked past the bomber’s nose.
“Look out!” yelped Mickey Rourke. “One of them bloody Aichi float planes has opened up on us....”
WHANG!
A rending explosion in the empty bomb bay punctuated the little tail gunner’s warning. Barry banked so sharply that his right wing nearly touched the water. He hopped over a Kawanishi and kept the big flying boat between him and the Aichi’s shells.
“If nobody objects,” he remarked drily, “we’re getting out of here while we’re still in one piece.... Anybody hurt back there?”
“I’ve got some shrapnel bites in my legs,” Fred Marmon replied. “How about you, Soapy? That shell burst right behind us.”
“Are you telling me, Fred?” the radioman returned. “I won’t be able to sit down in the presence of my betters for a couple of weeks, anyway. I feel as if I’d squatted on a red hot stove. When this plane quits jumping like a bee with St. Vitus’ dance, you’ll have to look and see what happened to my south end.”
Reassured that neither of his two sergeants was seriously hurt, Barry cut straight across the Hitu Peninsula, dodging between the hills. From far behind came the muffled WHUMP, WHUMP, of block busters falling on Amboina and the Lata airfield. There were no Zeros over the hills as yet. Those which had managed to take off had more trouble than they could handle in the harbor itself.
Suddenly a line of white surf stretched across the Marauder’s course. Skimming low above the waves she headed for the low fog bank that lay three miles out from shore. A single shore battery opened fire, but the shells burst well behind her. Seconds later she was safe inside the wall of vapor.
“How’s the gas, Barry?” Curly Levitt asked. “If we have to set down before we reach Darwin, I want to have my island picked out. We might not happen on a perfect beach like Tana Luva’s, but any land is better than a rubber raft.”