He broke off as a distant hum of engines grew on the air.
“Planes coming!” he yelled. “Take cover!”
Dropping their tools, the little crowd staggered into the sheltering bush. As they flung themselves down, a squadron of Mitsubishis sailed into view. At twenty-thousand feet, they looked like small silver flying fish.
Probably, Barry thought, they were scanning the island for signs of enemy activity. He wondered if they would notice the smooth strip at the edge of the bomb-pocked field.
He was not left long in doubt. Three of the bombers peeled off and circled down in wide, slow spirals. They were wary, those Jap pilots, of another Guadalcanal-style occupation. The newly smoothed runway strip must have looked to them exceedingly suspicious.
A shout from Nanu at the other end of the runway rang above the droning of enemy engines. There was alarm in it, and pain. A cry from Dora Wilcox echoed it.
Barry sprang to his feet and raced through the bush, in the direction of the planes. Behind him he could hear his crew panting.
Their progress was maddeningly slow, yet they dared not leave the bush. Once the enemy planes guessed their identity bullets would fly, and bombs would fall.
“Crayle’s grabbed the tommy-gun, I’ll bet,” Chick Enders gasped as he fought to keep up with Barry. “The idiot would pick a time like this. Oh-oh! There he is—in the—uh—Kawasaki!”
The bomber’s team halted as Crayle saw them and swung his sub-machine gun to cover them.