Then he wondered if fifty-caliber machine-gun bullets could possibly sink a submarine.
“Probably not,” he told himself. “But they could pick off quite a few officers and men. And then if the rest decided to come and get me, I’d get quite a few more on their way in.”
Suddenly the Diesels on the submarine roared into life, and quickly settled down to a steady purr.
“Charging batteries is right,” Scoot told himself. “That’s just enough sound to keep them from hearing me try to get a gun out of my plane. Of course, they’ve probably got their own machine gun unlimbered up there. Usually do when they’re surfaced like this. But—well, I’ll see what I can do.”
Scoot crawled over to his plane and started to work. Taking off the engine cowling seemed to him to make a terrific noise and he stopped to listen, wondering if he had been heard. The sound from the Diesels seemed very low. And then he heard something—something that made his heart leap.
“Car—reee me back to old Virginnneee!” sang a high tenor voice. The lookout was indulging in his favorite sport. Scoot leaped out on the shore.
“Yippeeee!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
On the bridge of the submarine, March whirled around at the sound of the strange cry from the tiny island. Without a word one of the enlisted men had leaped to the machine gun and now he poured a round of shots at the shore. Then there was silence for a moment. From behind a palm tree came a voice.
“Say—have a heart!” Scoot cried. “I’m an American!”
“How do we know?” demanded March over the sound of the Diesels. He would like to have shut them off so he could hear better, but he wanted to keep them running for a quick getaway in case there was any sort of Jap force on that tiny atoll. The sound of the American voice sounded genuine, but you could never be sure. Too many Japs who had lived in America went back home to fight in Jap armies. They spoke English fairly well, some of them, and they had used it to trick trusting Americans too many times.