CHAPTER TWELVE
NEW GUINEA GARDENS
Reporting for duty at the Queensland repair base, Barry ran into surprises still more bewildering. The first was the news that he was promoted to first lieutenant; the second, that he would be given command immediately of a Flying Fortress. The ship and crew, he was told, were now waiting for him on the runway.
Wondering if it were all some crazy delusion, Barry hurried to the airport. For a moment it seemed that he must be back in Seattle, looking at Sweet Rosy O’Grady for the first time. For there she sat, with her inboard props turning slowly in the sun, and her name painted clear on the fuselage.
There was even a tall, wide-shouldered figure in flying togs, leaning against the plane’s tail. He looked like Captain O’Grady from a distance. But he couldn’t be!
Barry wiped his hand across his eyes, and walked toward the ship. The tall fellow looked up. He wasn’t the Old Man—he was Hap Newton!
Hap let out a whoop like a locomotive and charged down upon Barry Blake. The two friends proceeded to do a war-dance, bombarding each other with questions. The surprise was entirely mutual. Hap had been based in another part of the South Pacific until recently. His B-26 Marauder had run out of gas near the northern tip of Queensland one night, and its crew had bailed out. Only Hap and the bombardier-gunner had made shore. Just this morning Hap had been assigned to the Rosy O’Grady as co-pilot.
“And now you are my skipper!” he exclaimed. “It’s such a wild coincidence that I can’t believe it yet.... But just wait, Barry—the shocks aren’t over. Step inside and meet the rest of us.”
Barry turned to the open hatch, but he had no chance to enter. Men were boiling out of it as if the ship were too hot for them. In five seconds they were all around him. Fred Marmon, Cracker Jackson, Tony Romani, Curly Levitt, and Soapy Babbitt, with his broken shoulder still a little stiff, but useable.