“You’d think there wasn’t even a war going on out here!” McFee complained. “Don’t the Nips have any ships in these waters?”
“Not in the waters we’ve been sailing on, anyway,” Stan Bigelow replied. “I feel cross-eyed from looking so hard for the last four hours.”
The bright sun sent them under the water again, but only to periscope depth so that a constant lookout could be maintained. Still—late afternoon found them filled with discouragement, waiting for the patrol plane. The patrol had found nothing.
“Maybe one of the others—” March suggested, but Larry shook his head.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I think we’re in the best spot. We’re furthest west of the whole bunch. That’s certainly the most likely route for the convoy, keeping as close to the Philippines, to land protection, as possible. If they were attacked they’d have support from land-based planes there for quite a while. If anything, I think they may even be further west than our route.”
March and Larry talked as they stood on the bridge waiting for their patrol plane to come out of the west. Suddenly the lookout shouted, “Plane coming out of the sun!”
“Can’t be ours!” Larry shouted. “Rig for dive, March.”
As March barked out the orders to take the ship down, the lookout reported that the plane was a two-motored flying boat.
“Must be a Jap all right,” Larry said. They all knew that their own plane was four-motored, one of the longest-ranged flying boats in the world.
