“Bull’s-eye!” he shouted. But the torpedo acted strangely. It leaped into the air, then dove like a playing porpoise. At last it reached the side of a cargo ship.
“Now!” Stew breathed.
But there came no sound. “Oh!” Jack exclaimed, as he saw the torpedo speed away beyond the ship. “It went right under her! What a—”
He did not finish, for suddenly a mighty explosion fairly tore the sky.
“Did you see that!” Stew exclaimed. “The second torpedo took that ship right on the beam! And did she explode! Must have been loaded with TNT.”
Jack had not seen. What he did see was a tower of black smoke and pieces of debris falling over the sea. And he saw the second ship, attacked by the last torpedo plane, meet the same fate.
All this had happened in the space of seconds, and all the time their disabled plane was chugging its way toward three small islands that stood out like green stones set in a field of blue.
“I hope they raise chickens on those islands,” said Stew.
“Chickens and no Japs,” Jack agreed. At that moment his eyes swept the sky for the Zeros. “Gone,” he murmured at last. “I guess they’ve seen enough for one day.”
After that Jack was silent for a time. He was thinking: Those ships were loaded with ammunition intended for Japs on some island. If they had gone through safely, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of our Marines and Army men might have died. We got them. A feeling of pride in a job well done, a task in which he and Stew had played a large part, coursed through his being.