“And terrible!” Sally added with a sigh.
Soon from all sides there came the roar of bombs, the pom-pom-pom of antiaircraft fire, and all the time Sally was thinking: “Danny! Oh, Danny!”
And what of Danny? Having been told the course he should take, he had gone gliding straight away toward his supposed objective. Nor did he miss it. Feeling safe in their false security, the eight enemy submarines on the surface had come gliding silently toward the apparently defenseless convoy.
At the sound of Danny’s roaring motor, the sub he had been sent to destroy crashdived, but too late. Swooping low, Danny released a bomb with unerring accuracy. It missed them by feet, but when it exploded it brought the sub to the surface with a rush and roar of foam.
By the time Danny could swing back, three of the enemy had manned an antiaircraft gun, but, nothing daunted, Danny again swung low and this time he did not miss. His bomb fell squarely on the ill-fated craft and it exploded with a terrific roar.
But before this could happen, the antiaircraft gun had put a shell squarely through the body of Danny’s plane, ripping the radio away, damaging the plane’s controls, and missing sending Danny to oblivion by only a foot or two.
“That,” said Danny, as if talking of someone other than himself, “was your closest miss. Another time, they’d get you. But that other time won’t be—ever. So how about getting back to the ship?” Yes, how? His motor was missing, and his controls stuck at every turn.
In the meantime three planes came zooming back. Anxiously Sally waited as the landing crews made them fast. Danny’s plane was not among them.
One plane, a two-seated dive-bomber, had been shot up. Its pilot was wounded. Mrs. Duke went away to care for him.