Then he saw that fire was licking at the forward tanks. He pawed an extinguisher from its clamp and worked his way toward the leaking tank. The spray from his pump blanketed the blue flame forking up from the hole. The flame wavered, then went out.
Stan went back and cut in his radio. He got Rangoon and heard a cool voice talking to a bomber flight. Stan broke in:
“Hudson, Flight Three out of Singapore attacked by flight of Karigane fighters. Hudson, Flight Three calling. Do you hear me?”
The cool voice came right back at him. “Hudson, Flight Three, I hear you loud and clear. Give your location.”
Stan looked out and down. He had no idea where they were. He did not know how long he had slept. Below spread a placid sea, but he did not know whether it was the Gulf of Siam or the Bay of Bengal.
“I will check location and call back,” he said.
“Better fight it out and then come in. We have no planes to send,” the cool voice said.
Now the Hudson was going up, hammering toward a layer of clouds. The Karigane fighters did not want the bomber to reach those clouds. Three of them came screaming in from a head-on position. Stan heard O’Malley open up. One of the fighters sheared off, turned over and went down in flames, its silver belly gleaming.
Stan realized that it was not dark yet, though the sun had set. He wondered how long the light would hang on. Then he forgot to worry about the light as a stream of bullets ripped across the port wing, causing the Hudson to swerve and stagger. But she went on up.
Stan shouted into the intercommunication phone to Allison. “How is it up there? This is Stan.”