Dave Dawson at Singapore

by Robert Sidney Bowen

"Maybe," Dave said with a shrug. "But it still doesn't make sense. Why was the guy signalling to us?"

"Maybe he wasn't signalling to us," Freddy Farmer ventured.

Dave snorted and made a little gesture with his free hand.

"Then who was he signalling to?" he demanded. "The man in the moon above us? I took a good look, Freddy. I'll swear on a ten foot stack of bibles that we're the only plane aloft in these parts. No, that underwater boat was signalling to us, and...."

He left the rest hanging in midair as he suddenly saw the moving shadow of the submarine grow clearer and clearer as it rose to the surface. A moment later the surface of the blue water boiled white and the conning tower mast and hatch rose up into view. Another moment and the whole bridge and decks were awash. Like a man in a dream Dave blinked his eyes at the strange sight. It was a submarine sure enough, but it was of a type he had never seen in his life. And what was even more astonishing, it was painted a dull greenish blue to make it blend in well nigh perfectly with the surrounding waters.

"Good Lord!" Freddy Farmer gasped. "What is it? Nazi, or one of our new types? And look at those two bow guns, Dave. And.... Dave! Look at those seamen spill out of that opened conning tower hatch! They're coming out like blasted rabbits. Get closer to the thing. It's like something out of a fairy story book."

Dave Dawson only half heard his friend's exclamations, for all of his attention and his eyes were fixed on the strange craft just off and below the left wings. Just as Freddy Farmer had said, the figures of seamen were popping out of the opened conning tower hatch like rabbits out of a hat. They looked neither German nor English. They were all short and stocky, and they moved about as though operated by strings held by invisible hands.

Wide eyed, Dave stared at them; watched them pop out and go scrambling down the bridge ladder and forward toward the bow. And then things happened so fast that both Dave and Freddy were too stunned and paralyzed to even think, let alone move. The two forward guns were swung around toward them, covers were ripped off, and in the next instant the muzzle of each gun belched out smoke and flame, and the Swordfish heeled over drunkenly on the opposite wings as though it had crashed full out into an invisible brick wall suspended in the sky.

A thousand steel fists hammered against Dave's body and his brain became filled with flashing white light. As though from a million miles away he heard the wild, excited yells from Freddy Farmer's lips. He heard also the scream of the Bristol Pegasus engine over-revving. And, although he was not conscious of doing so, he reached out and cut the ignition and hauled back the throttle with a single movement of his hand.

Then, just as suddenly as the flashing white light had filled his brain, the light disappeared, and he realized that the plane was cutting crazily down sidewise toward the rolling blue swells that were now perilously close. The engine cowling looked as though it had been hit by a twenty-ton tank. The metal was hanging in gleaming ribbons. And as for the engine itself, one whole side of the powerful radial engine was just so much mangled junk.