"It's land, Dave!" Freddy replied in an excited voice. "Land, just as sure as you're alive. And if these charts and maps they gave us at Pearl Harbor are correct, we've hit it right on the nose. That land is the Catanduanes Islands just north of Legaspi. We'll know for sure in another ten minutes!"
Another ten minutes? In ten minutes nations have fallen into the dust. In ten minutes half the world has changed face. In ten minutes a million and one things can happen which normally should take months or years to come to pass. And so, at the end of ten minutes, Dawson and Farmer were suddenly "treated" to a sight that chilled their blood, and sent their hearts dropping down into their boots.
In the pale light of early dawn they saw a flock of birds come sweeping up from that bit of the Philippines known as Legaspi. Only it wasn't a flock of birds. It was a flock of war birds. A flock of Jap Zeros up on early dawn patrol. True, they had half expected to see at least a Jap plane or two, but to see them come up from the ground on Legaspi was like a mule's kick in the stomach. There was no need to wonder, or to ask each other unanswerable questions. There was only to observe, and realize the terrible truth. The truth that Legaspi had fallen to the Japs during the last forty-eight hours, and that the Yank emergency airfield was unquestionably in enemy hands.
And, as though to add a final touch to horrible reality, the port outboard engine of the B-Twenty-Five began to cough and sputter from the lack of fuel in the tanks. And a couple of seconds later the starboard engine took up that soul-chilling song that no pilot ever wants to hear.
"Would you care to get out and walk the rest of the way, sir?" Dawson asked in a strained voice that belied the crooked grin on his lips.
"No thanks," Freddy Farmer came right back at him, with an equal attempt to crack wise. "Just turn about and take me back to Honolulu, please!"
[CHAPTER TWELVE]
Eagles Can't Die
As a sort of signal to confirm the fast approaching end of the B-Twenty-Five's flight, the starboard engine coughed its rasping note for the last time, and joined the port engine in silence. Dave had already eased the nose down a hair or two to prevent a stall, and like a statue of stone he sat there hunched over the control wheel with his worried eyes fixed first on the Jap Zeros mounting higher into the sky, and then on the stretches of ground below.
The gods had at least been a little kind. The B-Twenty-Five had the necessary height to reach land in a long flat glide. However, there would be little picking and choosing of a suitable place to land. And if the Zeros came tearing in, it would be decidedly a one-sided combat. True, Freddy could work the top turret guns, and he could smack away with the nose guns. But with so much of the bomber left unguarded, it wouldn't be long before Jap bullets and air cannon shells would rip home and pull down the curtain.