Dave Dawson at Truk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

"No, don't go, Freddy, I ..." Dave stopped short, gasped, and stared at his pal wide-eyed. "Hey! Wait a minute!" he cried. "Where am I, and how the heck did I get here?"

"You're in the Trenton's sick bay," Freddy Farmer said. "And a cruiser seaplane brought you back the day before yesterday. Brought us both back, as a matter of fact."

"Both?" Dawson echoed in amazement. "You, too? But ... Oh! You ran out of gas and dropped into the drink, huh? And a scouting sea plane found us both? Practically within spitting distance of Truk?"

"Well, it wasn't exactly like that, Dave," Freddy Farmer said, and a faint flush seeped into his cheeks. "The truth of the matter is that when I saw you parachute down to the water and float around in your Mae West ... and you can thank it for keeping your face out of water ... I decided that it was only fair for me to share what I had with you. So I landed as close to you as I dared, got out my rubber life raft and paddled over and pulled you aboard. The next morning the carrier force planes all came over, and a cruiser seaplane was good enough to land and carry us both back here. Sturdy planes those seaplanes to carry two extra passengers. The observer and I had quite a job holding onto you, but we made it, as you can see."

"Old Freddy, the Dawson lifesaver!" Dave breathed as a warm glow stole through him. "How many times has it been, Freddy? Twenty-nine or sixty-nine times that you've cheated death for me?"

"Rot!" young Farmer snorted. "After all, I didn't have the gas to get back. I had to sit down. I'd have shared my life raft with any poor devil the same as I did with you. I ... Oh, blast it! I'd feel frightfully lost without you around, old thing, you know."

"Yeah, I can guess," Dawson grinned. Then the grin faded as he said soberly, "I wonder if that Nazi rat went down with his plane, or if he bailed out, too, and maybe got picked up by some Japs."

"No, the Japs didn't pick him up," Freddy Farmer said evenly. "I was close enough to see that you were the only one who fell clear of that wreckage, and opened your parachute. And even if he had got clear and gone down by 'chute, the Japs at Truk were too busy the next day to bother picking him up."

"So I did pull my rip cord ring," Dawson breathed, as memory of those weird crazy moments between life and death came back to him. "Yanked the ring, and didn't even realize I was doing it. It sure is funny how ... Hey! What did you say, Freddy? The Japs at Truk were too busy next day?"

"Certainly," Freddy Farmer said. "This carrier force. Remember? They hit against Truk that next day, and the next. That's how a scouting seaplane happened to spot us and take us aboard. Why, I understand that one pilot was shot down right inside the Truk coral reef and picked up by a cruiser seaplane. Stout fellows, those cruiser seaplane pilots and observers. A lot of the dirty work, and no credit to speak of. But the Truk show was wonderful, Dave. I got in one flight there, myself, as a gunner on a torpedo plane. Think I even got me a Jap plane, but I'm not sure. But it was a marvelous victory. We sank nineteen of their ships, is the report. And the number of Jap planes shot down has been placed, at two hundred and one for the two-day show. Imagine! And all the raid cost us was seventeen planes. Not one of our ships was damaged. The Navy chaps certainly gave Hirohito and Tojo a lot to cry about this time!"