Dave Dawson on Convoy Patrol

by Robert Sidney Bowen

Even as the English youth screamed the words Dave was staring downward at the raider. Though still plowing sluggishly forward, the raider didn't look much like a surface ship any more. She looked little more than a narrow stream of fire that bulged out slightly in the middle. About her sides water boiled and foamed white. And in the next instant there was a blast of red and a sheet of flame up toward the bow. The raider seemed to stop dead and rear up by the prow. She settled back almost immediately and continued to stagger onward like some wounded beast of prey half lurching and half walking toward its hole.

"The U-Boats!" Dave heard his own voice cry out hoarsely. "Look! They're starting to scatter. They're quitting the raider cold. Running away from her like so many rats. And we haven't any more bombs left. Darn those rats! If only there were British planes around to give us a hand. If only...."

At that exact instant came the mighty blast of worlds colliding. Red fire and clouds of smoke seemed to completely envelop Dave and blot out all else. The Catalina lurched drunkenly off onto the left wing. In the next instant it seemed to roll completely over. Instinct and instinct alone caused Dave to grab the controls with both hands and fight to get the craft back onto even keel. Yet, no matter which way he moved the Dep wheel and control column, the Catalina continued to roll over like a huge tired bird.

Then, as though by magic, the red fire and the smoke cleared away, and they both saw the jagged hole in the hull nose. Hole? There just wasn't any hull nose left! And as Dave looked out to the left he saw the left wingtip let go and go sailing off into oblivion. With a part of its lifting surface gone, the Catalina began to lurch and stagger crazily about in the air. No matter what Dave did with the controls it just didn't seem to make any difference.

"A direct hit on us!" he heard his own voice faintly. "The bums. They had to get in one last lucky shot!"

"The raider's stern gun!" came Freddy Farmer's voice through the terrible din of sound that still raged on all sides. "I saw the flash just before it hit us. We're sunk!"

"We will be darn soon!" Dave panted and struggled with the controls to counteract the flying boat's crazy maneuvers.

However, for all the good it did him, he might just as well have walked out on the wing and patched up the damaged tip. The Catalina just wasn't flyable any more and she was flip flopping seaward at an alarming rate.

"Cold meat for those Jerry planes!" Dave said savagely. "They'll have great sport picking us off like a helpless clay pigeon, now. Okay, do your darnedest, you vultures. We got some of you first, and your raider is junk ticketed for the bottom of the Atlantic. Go on and...."

Dave cut himself off short, gasped and hunched forward to gape down at the water. It looked as though a couple of dozen subterranean volcanoes had let go and were belching their fury up to the surface of the Atlantic. The area covered by the crippled raider and her wolf-pack of U-boats was virtually alive with mounting columns of water and flame. Even as Dave gaped downward the raider disappeared completely in a mighty geyser of foaming water and flame and smoke. An instant later when he saw it again the raider was broken in two pieces and plunging down under the waves.