Dave Dawson on Convoy Patrol

by Robert Sidney Bowen

The English youth didn't finish the rest. He didn't for the plain reason that an invisible express train seemed to come roaring out of nowhere and crash into the right wing. The flying boat heeled over drunkenly to that side, shivered and shook from stem to stern, and then tried to drop by the nose and plunge madly seaward. Dave's face paled and the cords of his neck stood out like taut steel cables as he battled with the controls, and by sheer strength fought the flying boat up onto even keel.

"And that's the starter!" he panted. "Just a puff of air compared to what's coming. But I'm going straight in to the middle and then down as low as we dare. We may find a hole underneath that will give us enough visibility. When we find it, keep your eyes open. Don't close them for a second. And keep working that radio for all it's worth. Try every darn code in the book, including the emergency one. The instant you get a definite contact let me know."

"I'll let you know, never fear!" Freddy Farmer bellowed as a sudden roaring sound closed in from all sides to make the thunder of the engines little more than a murmur. "I'll let you know ... but it may be in the next world!"

Dave hardly heard the last, and he didn't bother to make any comment. He had no strength to waste trying to yell above the world of sound into which they had plunged. Every ounce of strength was needed to hold the controls firm, and keep the crazy crisscross tornado of wind from spinning the huge Catalina up on wingtip as though it were bit of torn paper in the air. The sun was now gone, swallowed up behind them, and the flying boat was rocking, and bucking, and pitching through a swirling world of slate grey and eerie shades of purple. Every so often the roaring of the wind would die away as though by magic. There would be only the powerful roar of their sturdy engines. And the craft would tear forward without so much as a tremor in either wingtip.

And then just as suddenly a coal black mass of cloud would zoom up straight in front of the nose of the hull, and the fury of the weather gods would crash in on them with terrifying force. A wall of slashing rain would fall down upon them, and it would be impossible to see an inch ahead or in any direction. The nose of the hull, where the forward gunner ordinarily sat, would disappear from their view completely. Tossed and heaved this way and that, they would hurtle onward completely blind.

A hundred times the flying boat would give a sharp lurch and Dave's heart would stop cold in fear that something had given way, and that the Catalina was breaking up in midair. Or a hundred times the engine instrument needles would go on a crazy rampage about the dials, and either the starboard or port engine would cough and sputter for a second or two that was a whole lifetime to Dave Dawson's jangling nerves. But always, no matter what, the Catalina kept on valiantly fighting its way toward the center of the storm.

Finally a sudden calm and a flood of grey light told Dave that they had hit the center. He winked sweat from his eyes, sweat that had streamed down off his forehead, and took a look below. He saw an expanse of thin fleecy cloud that was traveling in a slow circle as the result of the whirling movement at the core of the storm. He shot a quick hopeful glance at Freddy, but the English youth had phones clamped to his ears and was working frantically at the radio. His face was grim and set, but there was a dull, defeated look in his eyes.

Dave turned front, throttled the engines slightly and nosed the flying boat down toward the layer of fleecy cloud. He could see gobs of black cloud underneath, but the stuff was not solid, and hope zoomed high in his breast. There were bound to be holes in the stuff. Holes through which he could look down into the calm area under the center of the storm. There, if any place, would be the raider. Stealing along in the calm center while the real fury of the storm protected her on all sides.

Would she be there? Would she be heading in the right direction? For a brief moment Dave was filled with the crazy desire to pull up out of his dive and ride on through the other side of the storm without so much as taking a single look for the raider. Crazy, insane? Sure! But if he did go on down, and the raider was nowhere to be seen, the bitter defeat might be more than his already singing nerves could take.

"Cut it, you dope!" he grated at himself. "If she isn't there, then she isn't there. What are you, anyway? A low down dirty quitter? No nerve to stick your chin out, and take it? Get down there, Dawson, and get down darn fast!"