The P–40’s went down over the guns belching fire on the ground. They came clipping in over the trees, nosed some more and opened up. Their guns raked the artillery men below and many of the cannon ceased firing. The fighters swept on, smashing grounded planes and zooming up when there was nothing more to blast. Up they went and over and down again.
The Hudsons had vanished and Stan nosed along over the jungle. He sighted a bomber which had been wheeled away from the others, did a tight turn and flipped over to go down on it. As he went he pressed his gun button. Nothing happened. He was out of ammunition. He shot out over the village teeming with terrified natives. He hoped Niva was among them. If she was back in the temple grounds she could hardly have escaped injury, possibly death.
Stan began calling his war birds together. They came up and joined him. As they fell into formation, he checked them over. He had sent two cripples home. One plane had gone down. He watched O’Malley drop into place, then saw Allison take his position. He was glad they were there. It was always good to see them come sliding in after a fight. He wondered who had been lost.
“Going home, fast!” he called.
The P–40’s headed for their base and roared away. They came down out of the sky and landed with the boys shouting at each other as they eased in. Twenty-one Tigers piled out and headed for the briefing room. Stan gave orders to have the ships spread out and made ready for instant use.
He stamped into the briefing room and grinned at his boys. They grinned back and he briefly complimented them on their work. The boy from Texas stepped up to Stan and saluted.
“You were sure right about Munson. He turned out to be a rat.”
“Who got him?” Stan asked. “I had hoped he would be mine, but I never got close to him.”
“Sure, an’ I dived for him,” O’Malley said.
“You jumped the gun, Irisher, and got in my way,” the boy from Texas complained.