“I don’t know,” replied Barry with a forced grin. “Somehow it doesn’t seem quite real, being shot at by your own ground forces. The trouble is that those shells would hurt just as much as Jap flak.”
“Radio’s Okay, Sir!” Came Soapy Babbitt’s Voice
“Radio’s okay, sir!” came Soapy Babbitt’s voice. “What’ll I send?”
“Identification signals first,” the Old Man replied. “Explain what happened to our radio and lights. Then tell ’em to switch on the floodlights, so we can land before the oil from that cracked engine cylinder drowns us.”
Soapy was still talking into his radio when the searchlights behind them switched off. O’Grady nosed down. In a moment floodlights lighted up the field a few miles distant. The Rosy landed lightly for all her massiveness, and braked to a smooth stop.
“Yahoo! Me for some hot coffee!” whooped her Old Man, reaching for the entrance hatch. “Last man to the office buys for the whole bunch!”
Six days were spent in Trinidad, replacing the cracked cylinder and repairing the lightning’s damage to the electrical system. On the seventh day Rosy hopped off on her long trip across the Atlantic to Freetown, Africa.
This time she carried a few bombs. It was Sergeant Hale’s hope that they might sight a Nazi U-boat on the crossing. The chance, of course, was one in a million. However, watching for a target would help to dispel the monotony of the trip.
The weather was perfect—not a single bump in the air. With “George,” the automatic gyro, taking care of their flying, the pilots had little to do. By turns, they napped, lunched, listened to the radio, played games with the others of the crew. Even Fred Marmon had a soft snap, for Rosy’s hungry “quadruplets” were sucking their gas without a whimper.