An antiaircraft burst rocked the big bomber like a cradle. Her right inboard engine sputtered and quit. Looking out at the wing, Barry glimpsed a jagged shrapnel hole in the cowling. He glanced to the left. Another Fortress had been hit. She was falling out of formation.
“Never mind, boys, Rosy O’Grady can toddle home all right on three engines,” the Old Man declared. “All you’ve got to do is to smack down every Zero you see....”
“Here come three of ’em, straight down at us!” yelped Soapy Babbitt from the jammed top turret. “If only I could aim these guns!”
“Maybe a Jap will cross your sights, Soapy!” the Old Man grunted, as he reefed back on the wheel. “I’ll try to give Hale a shot.”
Rosy’s nose came up. Her forward guns cut loose at the trio of diving planes. One spun away, smoking; another changed direction. The third kept coming, with his tracer bullets feeling for the Flying Fortress. When they touched her the Jap pilot pulled the trigger of his cannon.
A stunning blast threw Barry hard against his safety belt. Something—it felt like a hard-thrown baseball—struck his head. He felt himself falling into a black void.
Someone was shaking him, none too gently. A voice, Curly Levitt’s, pierced through his dulled consciousness.
“Wake up, Barry! Wake up and take over these controls before I have to,” the navigator was repeating in his ear. “The Old Man is out cold—ripped by that shell.”
Barry made a desperate effort. It was like struggling against gravity, but he won. His eyes cleared. The plane was flying on a fairly level keel, thanks to Curly’s hand on the wheel, but something was very wrong. The Old Man....
One look at O’Grady’s crumpled form drove the last of the fog out of Barry’s head. The captain’s left arm was missing below the elbow. A handkerchief tourniquet had stopped the worst bleeding, but there were other wounds on his left side and leg. He was mercifully unconscious.