Dave Dawson with the Flying Tigers

by Robert Sidney Bowen

Suddenly, though, as he strained his eyes at the twisted mass of jungle growth, he saw something move no more than thirty-five yards from where he crouched. Had he not been peering intently he would automatically have taken it for a tree branch or jungle plant leaf being stirred by a puff of air. However, being on the alert both mentally and physically, he told himself at once that there could be no puffs of air in the thick of the jungle. Only heavy pungent smells that hung motionless in space. And then an instant later his eyes picked out the head and shoulders of a Jap. The little brown man was facing off to the left, and his face was in only one quarter profile. But Dave could see the man's jaws champing up and down on the dry rice he had stuffed into his mouth. And by straightening up just a little, Dawson could make out the butt of the deadly sub-machine gun that the Jap held in the crook of his right arm, ready to whip it up and fire at an instant's notice.

For a long minute Dawson studied the "picture", as a hundred and one conflicting thoughts raced through his brain. Was that Jap simply manning his guard post located close to the field? Or had that Oriental discovered that nobody was aboard the crashed B-Twenty-Five, and was that Jap up ahead but one of many posted here and there to be on the look-out for the survivors of the crash? Those two main questions tormented Dawson's brain, for the simple reason that he could only guess at the answers. But one thing was very certain, though. There stood an armed Jap between them and an enemy flying field ahead. If they were to get closer to the airfield ahead, that armed Jap had to be put out of the war for keeps.

That fact uppermost in his mind, Dawson took his gaze off the munching Jap and looked at Freddy. The English youth returned his look, grinned, tight-lipped, and nodded.

"Remember that Commando show in Occupied France, Dave?" he whispered. "Well, Jap or Jerry, it shouldn't make any difference, eh?"[2]

"Same thing, pal!" Dawson chuckled softly, and slowly closed the fingers of one hand into a rock hard fist. "Let's see if we've forgotten any of that sweet technique. Okay, kid!"

With a grin and a nod for emphasis, Dawson twisted around and started along the path again. Compared with their "travel" now, they had been making a noise akin to that of a herd of elephants on the rampage. Like blending shadows, and twice as silent, they eeled and snaked their way forward. Each leaf, or twig, or plant stem was moved cautiously to the side, and held there until they had slid their bodies past. Then, another few inches forward, and another few. Bit by bit creeping closer to the armed Jap, and with no more sound than that caused by the pounding of their hearts.

However, though they advanced completely wrapped in a blanket of silence, the Jap was perhaps possessed of that premonition of danger that science has named the sixth sense. Or perhaps his Nipponese ears were tuned to thumping human hearts. At any rate, when Dawson and Freddy Farmer were but a scant two yards in back of him, the Jap spun around and threw up his sub-machine gun. He was fast, lightning fast, but those two air aces had been trained to throttle lightning on the loose. They both moved even faster.

Dawson's outflung arm was like an iron rod with a ball of steel on the end of it. And that "ball of steel" flew straight to the Jap's Adam's apple to cut off his wind, and paralyze the nerve center at the base of his brain. However, that one blow alone would not have been sufficient, and neither Dave nor Freddy Farmer were counting on it to do the trick. At the same time Dawson slashed down with his gun hand and knocked the sub-machine gun downward. And while that was taking place, Freddy Farmer's flying body caught the Jap across the knees. On the football field that little bit of blocking would have caused the penalty of plenty of yardage. But this wasn't the football field. It was a jungle battle field. And the player to be "taken out" was a ruthless, butchering little brown rat of Hirohito's brood.

And he was taken out, and very definitely so. When Dawson and Freddy got quickly up onto their feet again, and Dave even had the sub-machine gun in his own hands, there was no need to give the Jap more than a passing glance. He was out! He was not only out of the war, but he was out of his heathen world as well. A broken neck is a broken neck, whether it belongs to a Jap or anybody else!

Dawson looked at Freddy, but didn't say anything. Whatever might be said was said with their eyes. They simply exchanged looks, nodded grimly, and then stared once more along the winding path with ears tuned to the rumbling murmur ahead that grew louder and more pronounced with every foot forward they advanced. And so it was that at the end of ten or twelve minutes of cautious advancing, they finally reached a point where the jungle stopped, and flat, sun-baked ground began.