“Everybody out and swing her around!” he cried, unfastening his safety belt. “Maybe we won’t have to take off in a hurry, but we’re going to be prepared.”
Glenn Crayle and his six team mates were standing rather gloomily beside their ship. Evidently they had been laying full blame for their predicament on the pilot. Crayle’s sulky, handsome face was flushed with anger as he glared at the newly arrived crew.
“Couldn’t you find a beach of your own to set down on?” he snarled. “Or did you just want to be chummy? If you came to bum gas, you’re out of luck, Blake. Our tanks are dry.”
Barry ignored him. With a pleasant nod of greeting he spoke to the other crew’s navigator, a blond, worried-looking chap.
“We came down to ask if you fellows wanted a ride home,” he said. “Of course, if you had any gas left it would help, but I think we still have enough left to take both crews back to base. What do you say?”
The other’s worried frown vanished.
“What can we say, except ‘Thanks?’” he answered heartily. “It’s pretty swell of you to risk a landing on this beach just to pick us up.”
“That’s right!” the co-pilot agreed. “This island is enemy territory. You could have just gone on and reported us forced down here. Why you didn’t do that, after what happened an hour ago, I can’t understand.”
“Forget it!” smiled Barry Blake. “Help us turn our plane around, and pile in. We don’t want to hang around here till some Jap patrol plane finds us.... Coming, Crayle?”
“No!” blurted the other pilot furiously. “Tonight there’ll be a chance to find a Jap boat or plane along shore and transfer its gas. If none of my crew has the nerve to take that chance with me, I’ll do it alone.”