The moment that Barry’s wheels touched the wave-packed sand, he knew he had made no mistake. The beach was hard and smooth enough for a take-off. Best of all, its length at low tide made a runway as perfect as could be wished.

A hundred feet from Crayle’s bomber, Barry stopped his plane.

“Everybody out and swing her around!” he cried, unfastening his safety belt. “Maybe we won’t have to take off in a hurry, but we’re going to be prepared.”

Glenn Crayle and his six team mates were standing rather gloomily beside their ship. Evidently they had been laying full blame for their predicament on the pilot. Crayle’s sulky, handsome face was flushed with anger as he glared at the newly arrived crew.

“Couldn’t you find a beach of your own to set down on?” he snarled. “Or did you just want to be chummy? If you came to bum gas, you’re out of luck, Blake. Our tanks are dry.”

Barry ignored him. With a pleasant nod of greeting he spoke to the other crew’s navigator, a blond, worried-looking chap.

“We came down to ask if you fellows wanted a ride home,” he said. “Of course, if you had any gas left it would help, but I think we still have enough left to take both crews back to base. What do you say?”

The other’s worried frown vanished.

“What can we say, except ‘Thanks?’” he answered heartily. “It’s pretty swell of you to risk a landing on this beach just to pick us up.”

“That’s right!” the co-pilot agreed. “This island is enemy territory. You could have just gone on and reported us forced down here. Why you didn’t do that, after what happened an hour ago, I can’t understand.”

“Forget it!” smiled Barry Blake. “Help us turn our plane around, and pile in. We don’t want to hang around here till some Jap patrol plane finds us.... Coming, Crayle?”

“No!” blurted the other pilot furiously. “Tonight there’ll be a chance to find a Jap boat or plane along shore and transfer its gas. If none of my crew has the nerve to take that chance with me, I’ll do it alone.”

There was no answering such a crack-brained statement. Crayle’s proposition hadn’t one chance in ten thousand of accomplishment, even with a full crew to help him. Barry turned away with a shrug.

Crayle’s crew followed him. The combined teams lifted the tail of Barry’s plane and walked it around. Now the bomber was facing in the direction from which she had come. As Barry Blake stooped to crawl through the belly hatch, Crayle’s co-pilot, Ted Landis, halted him.

“Wait a minute, Skipper,” he said. “Crayle was lying when he told you our tanks were dry. We have nowhere near enough gas to reach Port Darwin, thanks to his stunting, but if we put it with yours, we’d all be sure of getting home. Shall we get it now?”

Barry hesitated. What Ted Landis proposed was common sense. On the other hand, Crayle would certainly prefer charges of mutiny, assault and everything else he could contrive if they drained the tank of his plane against his orders.

“All right, Landis,” the young Fortress skipper decided. “We’ll do that. And we’ll take Crayle along whether he wants to come or not. We can all testify that he is not behaving like a sane man. Drain off that gas, Mister, and let’s get away from here the minute it’s transferred to our tanks.”

The crew of the stranded bomber hurried back to it at Landis’ heels. Ignoring Crayle, the co-pilot and his engineer dived into the open hatch. The others stood beside it, blocking their furious skipper’s way.

“I’ll have you all court-martialed!” Crayle shouted, completely beside himself. “Stand away from that hatch—”

“Look out!” yelled a member of his crew. “Here come the Japs—they’re on to us!”

The droning of airplane engines swelled to a snarling roar. Over the treetops came a twin-engined Mitsubishi bomber, but she was not heading toward the two B-26’s. Evidently she had just taken off from Tanimbar on patrol, with no idea that enemy planes were so near. Her Jap crewmen were probably more surprised than the Americans. Swerving, she opened fire with her bow and belly weapons as she started her climb.

“Man those guns!” yelped Crayle. “That Jap will be back for us. Inside with you!”

Without a second’s hesitation the team obeyed. A moment before they had defied his orders, but this was different. In a fight they’d stand by their skipper, crazy or not.

Barry’s team was already inside. His Marauder’s engines bellowed. Like a startled seagull she swept down the long, straight beach. As Barry lifted her into the air he saw the Mitsubishi coming back.

“Good grief!” he gasped. “She’s going over Crayle’s plane at a thousand feet.... She’s going to bomb as well as strafe it!”

Climbing as he turned, he was still too far from the Jap for his .50-calibers to take effect. In a matter of seconds the Mitsubishi would drop her bomb at point blank range. The stranded Marauder’s crew wouldn’t have a chance!

Evidently one member of Crayle’s team had realized this and decided to save his own skin. He was running for dear life toward the jungle. As tracer bullets began streaking past him he flung himself flat.

Leaning hard on the controls, Barry fairly whipped his plane around. Already Chick Enders was firing his bow gun. The two weapons in the top turret were raving.

“Riddle the Jap!” Barry shouted. “Don’t let him drop that egg—Oh-h-h!”

The slender, deadly shape of a falling bomb had caught his eye. To the agonized nerves of the watchers its descent seemed as slow as a falling leaf’s. Deliberately its pointed end dipped downward, aiming straight at Crayle’s doomed plane.

Barry did not wait for the explosion. With his jaw set like a rock, he headed his B-26 for the enemy. The bomb’s blast barely jolted the air about him.

“Catch the Nip before he loses himself in the clouds!” Chick Enders muttered, reaching for a new belt of ammunition. “He’s trying to run from us, and that’s his only chance.”

“He won’t make it, Chick,” Barry replied through clenched teeth. “We’re more than a hundred miles faster.... You boys in the turret—start ripping that Mitsu’s belly. Now!”

The turret guns chattered. A second later, Chick’s bow gun joined them. The Marauder was overtaking her enemy as if he were anchored.

Smoke burst from the Jap’s fuselage. Flame licked at his left engine. He staggered like a wing-shot goose under the slashing American fire. His guns were still talking back, but their aim was nervous and poor.

All at once a great ball of flame appeared just behind the Jap’s wings, and his nose dropped seaward. Swathed in fire, he plummeted into the water.

Barry banked sharply, turning back toward the island. The bombed B-26 was blazing on the beach. At the jungle’s edge a lone figure lay motionless.

“They’re all dead, Skipper,” Hap Newton muttered. “Let’s go home before the Nips send out a flock of Zeros to shoot us up....”

“Wait!” Barry Blake exclaimed sharply. “That bird on the beach isn’t dead yet. I saw him move.”

Barry swung away in a big circle and came in toward the end of the beach. The others of his team realized what he intended; he was going to land, regardless of risk, to save the neck of a coward who had deserted his fighting crew-mates. At best it meant that they all would fail to reach Port Darwin on the gas that would be left. At worst, the Zeros from Tanimbar would catch and strafe them on the beach.

Yet not a man questioned their skipper’s decision. Each one was ready to back up Barry’s judgment with his life. The crew of Sweet Rosy O’Grady would remain a smoothly functioning unit as long as it existed.

Barry’s second landing was as careful as his first. Rolling as near to the burning bomber as he dared, he set the brakes, and followed Hap Newton through the hatch. The man they had come to rescue was sitting up about fifty yards away.

“It’s Crayle, the yellow pup!” Hap grated.

“It would be!” Chick bitterly exclaimed. “I always knew a hot pilot of his stripe would be a quitter when the real test came.”

Barry Blake said nothing as he helped his crew turn the plane around for a quick take-off. He was wondering whether Crayle’s dazed manner was real or faked. A trickle of blood from the pilot’s forehead suggested a head wound. The man was mumbling unintelligibly when they reached him.

Barry’s fingers quickly explored the gash in the injured man’s scalp. Crayle winced but voiced no protest. The wound, Barry found, was no more than a shallow cut. Nowhere else on Crayle’s clothing did he see any sign of blood.

“Shell-shocked,” was the young skipper’s verdict. “His mind has snapped, fellows. Maybe he’ll get over it shortly, but just now we’ll have to treat him like a baby. Help me carry him back to the plane, Hap.”

“Let me, Skipper!” Fred Marmon said, taking Barry’s place. “I’ve been feeling useless ever since that Mitsubishi torched down.”

Despite their awkward burden, they broke into a run, conscious that any second might bring the snarling of Zero engines overhead, and a hail of tracer bullets. Barry, first into the belly hatch, turned to lift Crayle’s shoulders through the low door. Mickey Rourke, the last man, glanced up before ducking inside.

“Here they come, sir!” he cried, as he dived through the opening. “Five Zeros, flying low from Tanimbar.”

The bomber’s engine pulled her down the runway like a scared shadow. Her guns were spitting before she was in the air. One Jap exploded above her, and the others scattered briefly. As the B-26 climbed, they came in from all angles, stabbing at her with their tracers.

Again and again Barry’s plane was needled by bullets. Twice she received shell hits as she roared up toward the sheltering cloud ceiling. A second Zero fell away with his engine smoking. Then a shell hit Mickey Rourke’s tail gun.

Barry heard the little Irishman’s yell over the intercom, and guessed its meaning. He zoomed sharply—the last thing that the pursuing Jap expected. Fred Marmon’s gun blasted the Nip plane an instant before the B-26 plunged into the clouds.

“We’ll just stay here for a while,” Barry declared. “The Jap bullets missed my instrument panel. We can fly in any direction we choose as long as our gas lasts. What’s your suggestion, Curly?”

“Wait till I glance at my chart,” replied the navigator. “There’s a mass of little islands at the southwest of us—part of the Babar group. We might set down there unobserved, especially if the ceiling is low. Of course, we’ll take big chances on finding a place to land.”

A moment later he gave the compass course. Barry, who was flying due southwest, made the necessary correction.

“How far is the island we’re aiming at?” he asked.

“About a hundred miles,” Curly told him. “It’s not one island, but a nest of little ones. The Japs are less likely to have them guarded.”

“Good reasoning,” Barry commented. “I’m flying at a steady two hundred m.p.h. Figure out just when we’ll be six or eight miles from the nearest island, and let me know. I’m setting down on the water. If this crate fills and sinks too quickly, we’ll drown with her, but it’s worth the risk. We’ll probably be able to reach our rubber boats. In that case we can keep out of sight of Jap shore patrols until dark, and then paddle to land.”

“Skipper,” said Hap Newton solemnly, “I wish I had half of your brains. In your place, I’d probably have tried to land. Of course, the Japs would spot the plane sooner or later, and the hunt would be on. This way we’ll have a swell chance of foxing them.”

“We’ll still be three hundred miles from Port Darwin,” Chick Enders spoke up. “Maybe we can swipe a Jap motor launch some night—”

“Don’t be so modest,” Hap broke in. “Why not a plane while we’re about it? I’d rather take a chance of getting shot down by our own fighters than be potted like a sitting duck on the water by Jap Zeros.”

“Hold it down, fellows!” Barry Blake ordered brusquely. “We’re hitting the pond in a very few minutes. Get out of your parachute harness, and grab a brace. Fred, you and Soapy Babbitt loosen the topside hatch so it won’t jam when we come down. Mickey Rourke will come forward so he won’t be trapped in the tail if things go wrong. Hap, stand by those levers that spring the rubber rafts. Curly, the minute you give the signal, we’ll cut the engines and nose down.”

There were no more wisecracks. Barry’s crew obeyed orders without wasting a motion, and waited quietly for the next development. Only Hap Newton spoke during those last minutes of flight.

“I’ll take care of Crayle, Skipper,” he said. “He’ll be easy to handle, dazed as he is. I’ll inflate his lifejacket and boost him through the hatch.”

“Ready, Skipper,” Curly’s warning came a few moments later. “Time to go downstairs.”

Hap Newton cut the throttles. As the engines’ roar died out the plane’s nose dipped seaward. When they broke through the low ceiling the water rolled barely a thousand feet beneath.

The ocean, Barry noted with thankfulness, was calm, except for a long, smooth ground swell. He must time his landing so as to set his ship down in the middle of a watery valley. Thus he could kill her forward motion against the waning slope of the swell ahead, and the shell-torn bomber might float for a good many seconds. If he should miscalculate and strike a crest, his plane would dive like a fish.

One glance only he spared for the island that lay nearest, a full six miles away. It was tiny—little larger than a city park. The Japs might have posted a guard or two on it, but at this distance they could easily fail to notice a bomber landing on the water with a dead stick.

The long, oily swells now swept along barely a hundred feet below him. Barry picked the valley where he must try to set down.

“This is it, fellows!” he warned.

Every man in the plane except Crayle held his breath. The next seconds seemed age-long. Then came the shock.

Fixtures flew from the bulkhead above the radio panel. Green water poured in through the shell holes in the bomb bay. It roused the half-stunned men to desperate action.

Hap Newton had already sprung the rubber life rafts. These were now floating on either side of the plane, attached to it by light lines. Soapy Babbitt and Fred Marmon were first through the topside hatch, by Barry’s orders. Next came Mickey Rourke, the little tail gunner. Before climbing out, Mickey tossed a queer-looking bundle to the men outside. It was a long, oilskin covered parcel wrapped in a Mae West lifejacket.

“Don’t let it get away from yez,” he grunted, as he pulled himself up. “That bundle may be worth the lives of all of us before we’re through.”

Chick Enders was the fourth man out, Curly Levitt the fifth. They crouched on the slippery, rolling fuselage, and reached down to take Crayle’s limp weight from Hap Newton and Barry.

“Hurry, you two!” Chick shouted. “This crate’s sinking fast.”

Salt water was already three feet deep in the cockpit, as Barry turned sharply on his co-pilot.

“Up with you, Mister!” he snapped. “I’m last!”

For the first and only time, Hap Newton was guilty of an act of mutiny. He seized Barry in a gorilla-like grip and literally hurled him through the opening overhead.

“You’re worth three of me, Skipper,” he panted, “in everything but pounds!”

On top of the waterlogged plane, Barry twisted himself around like a cat, to face the hatch. Hap’s head and shoulders were over the edge as the bomber’s nose dipped suddenly.

“Quick, you idiot!” the young skipper cried. “She’s going under! What’s holding you, Hap!”

“My feet!” the co-pilot gasped. “They’re tangled in a parachute harness or something. Don’t wait for me, Skipper!”

Barry grabbed the bigger man beneath the arms. His feet found a purchase on the hatch combing. With every muscle of his body straining, he added his strength to Hap Newton’s.

“Now,” the thought wrenched at his brain, “something’s got to give way!”

It did. Like a cork from a bottle Hap’s big body popped out of the hatch. Both men went under water. Breathless, stroking for dear life, they fought to reach the surface. The water seemed like a living enemy, clutching them, pulling them down. Their lungs were on fire.

They broke surface together, gasping, not far from one of the rafts. Fred Marmon’s whoop of joy blended with the splash of paddles.

“The plane—where’d it go?” Hap Newton gulped.

“To Davy Jones’s locker!” Fred answered as he reached past Crayle to grasp the co-pilot’s hand. “We thought it had sucked you and the Skipper down with it.”