The pair stopped just a few feet inside the jungle and peered silently out at the sight ahead. It was one that caused wild hope to blossom within them. But it was also a sight that weighed down their hearts with bitterness and angry helplessness. Though Dawson had been suspecting it all along, it was not until he stared out onto that triangular-shaped patch of sun-baked ground that he knew definitely that Freddy and he had finally reached what had no more than forty-eight hours before been a Yank and Filipino-held emergency airfield.
But it was all Jap now. And the only traces that it had once been Yank-Filipino were the fire and bomb-marked wrecks of American planes caught on the ground by overwhelming Jap bombers, and the gutted hangars and buildings that lined one side of the field. And that it was all Jap, now, was obvious from the Nipponese planes of all types that were lined up on the other two sides. Planes, and Jap pilots and mechanics, and ground troops strutting about. A sight to make any Christian's heart weep blood. And the bitterest touch of all to Dawson and Freddy Farmer was the way the planes were lined up. They were not even dispersed about the field. And that could mean but one thing. That there were no more Yank bombers left in the Philippines to roar back and give those little slant-eyed brown men a taste of their own kind of war. No, the bombers that would some day do that little thing were thousands and thousands of miles away. And a great number of them were still just working blueprints in American aircraft factories!
Yes, a sight to make Christians weep, but also a sight to fan the flickering spark of hope and determination into a mounting flame!
[CHAPTER FOURTEEN]
Beware The Sharks!
"The dirty swine! Blast their rotten hearts! Gosh! What I'd give to lead a patrol of bombers right now! Dash it all! I'd even be willing to settle for Hawker Hurricanes!"
The words spilled softly and tonelessly off Freddy Farmer's lips. His eyes fixed on the captured field were bright and brittle, and he was unconsciously thumping one clenched fist into the palm of the other hand. Dawson glanced sidewise at him, grinned, and nudged his arm.
"Check, and double check, pal!" he whispered. "But wishing for the impossible won't help a bit. Besides, we haven't got time to jaw around on such things. Take a look at that spread of Jap planes, Freddy. Which one do you figure should be our baby, when we get it?"
"If we get it!" the English youth muttered grimly. "Of course, I'd much prefer one of those Zeros. But we couldn't both ride in the same plane. Besides, they don't even carry enough gas to get us across the China Sea, to say nothing of up to Chungking."
"Not a chance in a Zero," Dawson grunted with a shake of his head. "And those Mitsubishi bombers over there are out, too. Take too long to get one of them off. So that brings up the important fact, pal."