Barry did not wait for the explosion. With his jaw set like a rock, he headed his B-26 for the enemy. The bomb’s blast barely jolted the air about him.
“Catch the Nip before he loses himself in the clouds!” Chick Enders muttered, reaching for a new belt of ammunition. “He’s trying to run from us, and that’s his only chance.”
“He won’t make it, Chick,” Barry replied through clenched teeth. “We’re more than a hundred miles faster.... You boys in the turret—start ripping that Mitsu’s belly. Now!”
The turret guns chattered. A second later, Chick’s bow gun joined them. The Marauder was overtaking her enemy as if he were anchored.
Smoke burst from the Jap’s fuselage. Flame licked at his left engine. He staggered like a wing-shot goose under the slashing American fire. His guns were still talking back, but their aim was nervous and poor.
All at once a great ball of flame appeared just behind the Jap’s wings, and his nose dropped seaward. Swathed in fire, he plummeted into the water.
Barry banked sharply, turning back toward the island. The bombed B-26 was blazing on the beach. At the jungle’s edge a lone figure lay motionless.
“They’re all dead, Skipper,” Hap Newton muttered. “Let’s go home before the Nips send out a flock of Zeros to shoot us up....”
“Wait!” Barry Blake exclaimed sharply. “That bird on the beach isn’t dead yet. I saw him move.”
Barry swung away in a big circle and came in toward the end of the beach. The others of his team realized what he intended; he was going to land, regardless of risk, to save the neck of a coward who had deserted his fighting crew-mates. At best it meant that they all would fail to reach Port Darwin on the gas that would be left. At worst, the Zeros from Tanimbar would catch and strafe them on the beach.