“That flak missed the turret, sir,” Tony Romani answered. “But I can see daylight through the fuselage just behind me.”
“The rudder and elevators still work,” Barry told his crew. “That’s as near a hit as I want, though. Let’s get this job done.”
On his next run Chick Enders accomplished the nearly-impossible. His bomb plunged down the transport’s stack and exploded in her bowels. The Jap ship simply crumpled up and sank, like an old tin can.
The one ship left afloat was burning fiercely from stem to stern. No boats or barges had been lowered. Those Japs who had survived the flames were now swimming in the shark-infested water.
“Here come three of our forts from Mau River!” Hap Newton cried, pointing to the east. “Boy! Will they be sore when they see what we’ve left!”
“Just a few bones on a broken platter!” Barry exulted. “We had all the cold turkey and cranberry sauce. Switch over to the radio and let’s hear what they’re saying, Soapy!”
Few of the other crew’s comments were cheerful, but Barry soothed their disappointment.
“You might possibly find a force of Jap warships farther up the coast, sir,” he told the commanding officer, Major Browne. “My guess is that they were landing troops for a night attack on our airport. In that case they’d be expecting some naval units to come after dark and ‘soften up’ the field for them with shell fire.”
“That’s good reasoning, Lieutenant Blake,” the major agreed. “We’ll search the coast toward Point D’Urville. Sweet Rosy O’Grady looks to me as if she needs a little patching before she goes hunting more trouble.”
“Rosy needs bombs, too,” Chick Enders remarked, as they headed for home. “She’s had a pretty good day’s hunting, even if she didn’t finish her patrol. By the way—how do you think those Japs rigged their camouflage, Skipper?”