Dave Dawson with the Pacific Fleet

by Robert Sidney Bowen

"But we've got to do something, Dave!" Freddy Farmer screamed in his ear. "Satan himself must have saved them. And look, Dave! That leading cruiser! She's shot one of her scouting planes off the forward catapult. A seaplane! They're going to land and try to pick them up, sure as you're born. That means they know perfectly well who those two beggars are, and what they've got."

Dave nodded grimly, but didn't bother to make any reply for the moment. Icy fingers were once again coiling about his heart. He knew that Freddy Farmer had spoken the truth, if the truth had ever been spoken by anyone. Yes, it was certain that the commanders of those two Jap cruisers knew that the two U. S. Naval Aviation clad figures floating slowly down toward the water possessed the information that the entire Jap Navy had been waiting to receive.

Word of what had happened aboard the Indian in San Diego harbor a few weeks before had of course leaked ashore. Axis Fifth Columnists had gathered up that news and passed it on higher up. It was a dead certainty that the instant the Indian had weighed anchor and sailed out of San Diego harbor, word had been flashed to the Japanese Navy command, and from there to all of the Nipponese sea units on patrol. True, they probably didn't know where the Indian was bound, or what she would do when she reached her destination. Dave felt very sure that the secret of the surprise attack on the Marshall Island group was something the Japs still didn't know, or even suspect. However, it was equally certain that they knew that two of their spies were aboard the Indian. And, also, that they possessed information that was worth a major naval victory to the Japanese. For that reason every unit of the Jap Navy was on the lookout for the Indian. And every one of its brown-skinned rats, from the admirals down, had been waiting with savage expectancy for the spies to make some kind of contact.

That contact was now close to being made. It was unquestionably luck that had sent the bogus Miller and Kaufman off on this particular patrol. And it was undoubtedly luck that had placed these two Jap cruisers just a little north of the end of the plotted patrol course. However, war without luck, and miracles happening left and right, just isn't war. And now there were the two Axis spies floating down toward the water, and there were the two Nipponese cruisers. And one of them had already catapulted one of its scouting seaplanes to land and pick up the two airmen.

All that, and more, whizzed through Dave's brain in nothing flat. Then he tore his eyes off the two men going down by parachute and fastened them on the Jap cruiser's seaplane skimming along the surface of the water. One look, and then he went into action again.

"That's their mistake!" he shouted, and slammed the Devastator's nose down. "Like picking off clay ducks in a shooting gallery. But those rat Japs are asking for it. So they get it!"

Dave emphasized the last with a savage nod of his head and slid his finger over the trigger button. By then the Jap seaplane pilot saw what was going to happen. He hauled the nose of his plane up as though to give battle. Almost immediately, though, he got cold feet and went cartwheeling around toward the east. But it didn't do him any good. He might just as well have tried to zoom up and hide behind the setting sun. Dave had him cold in his sights, and the Jap was caught like a rat in a trap.

One long burst from Dave's wing guns. Another long burst from Freddy Farmer's guns, as Dave banked off and gave his pal an aim, and that was that. The slow Jap seaplane came apart as though it had flown full tilt into a brick wall. It seemed to explode all over the place and hit the water in a shower of small pieces. Dave instantly nosed up and twisted around for another look at the steaming cruisers still a considerable distance away. Even as he spotted them, he saw tongues of flame stab out from their forward decks, and the air about him was filled with a roar akin to that of an express train racing into the yawning mouth of a tunnel. A blood-chilling roar, and then the Pacific sky was splotched with bursting anti-aircraft shells that glowed red and orange and yellow all at the same time.

Dave grinned, tight-lipped, and instantly nosed down. It had been a pretty rotten bit of shooting, even for Jap gunners. But maybe they weren't to blame. Dave's Devastator was too low for their angle of fire, and the shells exploded well above the Devastator. Just the same it was no cause for great joy. On the contrary it was an advanced warning of what the Jap cruiser commanders intended to do. A ten-year-old child could guess what it was, too.

Realizing that it was useless to pick up the two parachutists by seaplane, the Japs were going to hold Dave and Freddy at bay by the sheer power of their concentrated fire, and steam alongside the two spies, who were no longer floating down through the air, but had hit the water and were floating around in their orange-colored life jackets. Dave cast a quick glance down at those two gobs of orange in the water, and groaned in bitter exasperation. How simple if Freddy and he were fighting on Adolf Hitler's and Hirohito's side! All he would have to do would be to stick the nose down at those two orange spots in the water and no more than brush his finger across the trigger button of his guns. Just a short burst and two rats would be dead, never to reveal what they knew. How simple, how easy it would be to do it that way!