Tom was hit in the shoulder and had a bad gash. He had struck his head when he fell and the blow had knocked him out. Stan bound his shoulder wound and stopped the flow of blood. He regained consciousness and sat up blinking weakly.
“Can you take the ship in?” he asked. “Every ship is badly needed.”
“Sure we’ll take her in,” Stan assured him, “but she’ll be laid up for repairs for a while.”
“You take over the radio. I’ll go back and pilot the Major in,” Tom said.
Stan helped him up to the seat beside Allison, then he went back to the radio. After a few minutes he picked up Rangoon. Allison and Tom got their bearings and they headed in, still keeping to the cloud layer.
Over Rangoon they broke out of the clouds and began drifting in. They saw below a calm sea and a green jungle. A beacon began to flash and Stan contacted the field. They slid in over blue markers and down on a long runway. As they bumped to a halt, it seemed as if they had landed at one of the airfields in England. Only the ground men who rushed forward were American mechanics, not British.
They climbed down, Nick Munson getting out last. He stood looking at the Hudson, his eyes moving over the damage done by the encounter with the Japs. Without a word he turned away.
“That bird tried to get a ship of his own for the trip up here,” Stan said. “I figure the Japs were tipped off and that Munson didn’t care to be riding with us.”
“Don’t go off half-cocked,” Allison warned.
They arrived at the flight office in time to see a United States Army major warmly shaking Nick Munson’s hand.