WHOOM! BR-ROOM!
As the Fortress zoomed sharply, the two bomb explosions buffeted her. She staggered, gained altitude, banked, and turned.
WHAMM! A torpedo had struck. Flame blossomed from the sides of the freighter. Another ship was dodging the second “tin fish.”
Searching the water for the submarines’ shadows, Barry spotted one, but it looked misshapen, seen through the spreading ring of the bomb burst. Then he found the other. It was less distinct, evidently diving at top speed. That was the next target.
Between it and the convoy, a destroyer was circling like an excited hound. She was waiting, Barry realized, for Rosy’s next run. The corvettes were threading their way through the mass of slower freighters, to be in at the kill.
“Steady, Blake—here we go again!” warned Captain O’Grady. “If that Hun is too deep for our bombs to hurt him, the explosion will spot his dive for the destroyer. Her depth charges will get him for sure.”
WHR-R-ROOM! BOOM!
The Rosy’s second run was still lower. The explosions made her aluminum skin crackle like an empty oil can. Suddenly Barry glimpsed the mast of a freighter spearing up at the bomber’s nose. He gave her full throttle. The mast flashed beneath—seemingly with mere inches of clearance.
“Upstairs” again, the fortress’s crew had a grandstand view of the submarine’s finish. The destroyer raced toward the mark left by Rosy’s last bombs. She dumped a depth charge off her stem. Her Y-guns pitched two more “ash cans,” bracketing the spot. A fourth and last depth charge completed the square.
Behind her, the corvettes darted to the oil slick that now spread over Sergeant Hale’s first target, and dropped two more charges for good measure.