Flanked by two cruisers and four destroyers, the big flat-top plowed through rain and fog across the Arafura Sea. Her speed was low, since the weather front was moving slowly. She must stay behind its dark curtain until the moment came for her planes to take the air.

Since the B-26 bombers were not fitted to return to her decks, there could be no practice take-offs. However, everything possible was rehearsed. A special catapult had been built to insure each bomber flying speed before it reached the end of the flight deck. The engines were checked and tested and tuned until their engineers could swear to their perfect condition. The new bomb releases were objects of especial care. At the last crucial second as they swept toward the target, nothing must go wrong.

Just thirty-two hours from the time he had boarded the carrier, Barry Blake sat at the controls of the first “flying bomb” to be launched at Amboina. Hidden in mist, the carrier had approached within forty miles of the island. The B-26 was already in the catapult; her Double Wasp radial motors were roaring at full throttle. Every man on board was braced for the launching.

The shock came, jerking the pilots’ heads back as their seats pushed them suddenly. The heavily loaded Martin Marauder literally shot along the carrier’s fog-swathed deck. Barry eased back on the stick, and felt the deck drop away.

“We’re flying!” Hap Newton said hoarsely. “I never was so jittery taking off from a bomb-pitted jungle strip. I’d been wondering whether that catapult would boost us into the air or into the sea. How does she handle, Barry?”

“Like a lady!” replied the young skipper. “I can feel the double bomb load, but it’s balanced perfectly. We’ll have no trouble with it.”

Barry glanced at his climbing altimeter. When it showed a thousand feet he leveled off, heading due north. An instant later the surrounding fog fell away like torn gauze. The carrier had been keeping just within its edge until the moment her warhawks were released.

Amboina Island rose like a deep purple cloud on the northern horizon. In less than fifteen minutes it would be directly beneath, Jap flak would be bursting; tracer shells and bullets would be criss-crossing the air. Already the Jap defenses must be seething like hornet nests. Their plane detectors had probably caught the first hum of Barry’s engines—now multiplied by ten or twelve as the catapult launchings proceeded.

“Pilot from tail gunner,” Mickey Rourke’s voice sounded on the interphone. “I can see four of our planes jist comin’ out of the fog.”

“They’ll scatter when they reach the harbor,” Barry remarked. “That will keep the Jap guns from concentrating on any group of them.”

“Yeah, but how about us?” Chick Enders asked. “We’ll get to our target before the others are even in range.”

“So what?” retorted Hap Newton. “The Japs will still be blinking the sleep out of their eyes when we slam ’em. And once we’re rid of this bomb load, Barry’s going to make us mighty hard to hit. That right, Skipper?”

“I’m not going to wait for that,” Barry told him. “Do you see that fog layer hanging close to the water? It reaches almost to the tip of Nusanive Point. We’ll duck into it and fool any gunners that might spot us too soon in clear air.”

A long, shallow dive took them into the fog layer two hundred feet above the water. And there, for the next thirty miles, they stayed. When at last the mist thinned to a few wispy streamers the swift little B-26 fairly hugged the water. Her target, the Nusanive radio tower, loomed just ahead.

The shore batteries had spotted her now, but she was flying too low and too fast for them. The ack-ack was bursting far above and behind her. Some of it was aimed at her sister bombers who were now scattering over Amboina Bay.

“Listen, Chick!” cried Barry. “I’m going in low—just clearing the roof of that radio station.”

“Can’t miss it, Skipper!” the little bombardier replied. “I’ll lay this two-ton egg right on their breakfast table. Boy! Look at that gun crew duck for cover.... Bombs away!”

Barry reefed back sharply, gaining altitude in the few precious seconds before the delayed action blast arrived. Without it he might find himself knocked out of the air by the concussion.

The plane jumped—like a baseball struck by a giant’s bat. Her nose went down. With all his might, Barry pulled back the control post. At three hundred feet he leveled off, turning sharp right, to skirt the steep slope of Mt. Kapal.

“Tail gunner from pilot,” he called. “What happened to that radio station?”

“Everything, sir,” Mickey Rourke’s answer came back. “The last I saw of the tower, it was headin’ for the moon, with a few bits of the station roof taggin’ along behind. Your bomb must have landed in the cellar.”

“Keep your eyes peeled for Zero fighters when we start shooting up the seaplane anchorage,” Barry warned him. “We’re moving too fast for them now.”

“You’ve got the best seat in the whole show, Rourke,” put in Fred Marmon. “Babbitt and I are missing all the fun, with our heads stuck into this two-gun top turret. If we were flying Sweet Rosy O’Grady now, we could see something of the countryside.”

“The countryside,” said Chick Enders from his perch in the nose, “is going by too fast for me to see much of it. Oh-oh! That ack-ack battery just ahead has spotted us—”

WHAMMM!

BRRRRRRRRRR!

The explosion of a Jap shell just above the hedgehopping Marauder was answered by a two-second burst of Chick’s gun.

“That crew is out of action,” he said grimly as the gun emplacement swept beneath him. “They came a little too near to spotting us. Better keep below the treetops where you can, Barry.”

Entering the little valley behind Hauisa Point, the B-26 fairly skimmed the bushes. At the base of Mt. Horiel she turned north, dodged behind Mt. Sirimau and cut across the broad base of Latimore Peninsula. Behind her now lay the Amboina docks and naval station, the target of bombers that were still on the way. To the left appeared the tiny villages of Halong and Lateri, Barry’s landmarks.

He hopped over the little rise between them and found himself above his next objective—between forty and fifty Jap seaplanes. Nearly half of these were big three- and four-motored flying boats, Kawanishis and Mitsubishis. A few Aichi T98’s and a number of single engined Nakajimas made up the rest.

“Burn ’em up, Chick,” Barry Blake ordered curtly. “Between you and Rourke we ought to account for plenty of these babies.”

The chatter of Chick’s machine gun answered him. Barry swept over five of the huge Kawanishis, while Chick Enders and Mickey Rourke ripped at their engine cowlings, floats and keels. He swung over a line of little Nakajimas, climbed swiftly, and came back to strafe a string of Mitsubishi boats.

Suddenly a tracer shell streaked past the bomber’s nose.

“Look out!” yelped Mickey Rourke. “One of them bloody Aichi float planes has opened up on us....”

WHANG!

A rending explosion in the empty bomb bay punctuated the little tail gunner’s warning. Barry banked so sharply that his right wing nearly touched the water. He hopped over a Kawanishi and kept the big flying boat between him and the Aichi’s shells.

“If nobody objects,” he remarked drily, “we’re getting out of here while we’re still in one piece.... Anybody hurt back there?”

“I’ve got some shrapnel bites in my legs,” Fred Marmon replied. “How about you, Soapy? That shell burst right behind us.”

“Are you telling me, Fred?” the radioman returned. “I won’t be able to sit down in the presence of my betters for a couple of weeks, anyway. I feel as if I’d squatted on a red hot stove. When this plane quits jumping like a bee with St. Vitus’ dance, you’ll have to look and see what happened to my south end.”

Reassured that neither of his two sergeants was seriously hurt, Barry cut straight across the Hitu Peninsula, dodging between the hills. From far behind came the muffled WHUMP, WHUMP, of block busters falling on Amboina and the Lata airfield. There were no Zeros over the hills as yet. Those which had managed to take off had more trouble than they could handle in the harbor itself.

Suddenly a line of white surf stretched across the Marauder’s course. Skimming low above the waves she headed for the low fog bank that lay three miles out from shore. A single shore battery opened fire, but the shells burst well behind her. Seconds later she was safe inside the wall of vapor.

“How’s the gas, Barry?” Curly Levitt asked. “If we have to set down before we reach Darwin, I want to have my island picked out. We might not happen on a perfect beach like Tana Luva’s, but any land is better than a rubber raft.”

“We’ll make it to the mainland, I think,” the young skipper said, after a glance at the fuel gauge. “We haven’t a lot to spare, though, after fooling around the harbor with those seaplanes. I’ll go upstairs and cut the engines down to bare flying speed, Curly. That ought to save enough gas to bring us home safely.”

The Marauder climbed easily now, with no bomb load and nearly empty fuel tanks. At ten thousand feet she looked down on a world of rolling clouds still dyed with sunrise colors. The air at that altitude was clear and almost windless.

“Course is southwest by south,” Curly Levitt’s voice came over the phone. “As long as we stay above the ceiling, I can make corrections by shooting the sun.”

“Good!” Barry answered. “I’m cutting speed to one hundred fifty m.p.h. We’ll try to hold her there for the rest of the trip. How are your shell-torn heroes doing back there in the waist?”

“Say, Lieutenant,” came Fred Marmon’s reply, “did you ever try to bandage a man’s seat with a roll of one-inch gauze? I might do it if Soapy would hold still, but he’s wiggling like a worm on a fishhook.... Stand still, you jitterbug!”

“Aw, don’t try to be funny!” Soapy’s aggrieved voice answered. “That iodine you sloshed on me burns like fire. Just wait till I start operating on your legs, wise guy!”

A chorus of chuckles bubbled over the intercommunication system. Everyone began ribbing Soapy and Fred, until the two sergeants were forced to join in the laughter at their expense.

As the merriment died down, Mickey Rourke reported another B-26 bomber overtaking them. It was flying at top speed, heading for Barry’s plane as straight as a bullet.

“Hold her steady, Lieutenant,” the little Irishman warned. “That crackpot pilot is intendin’ to give us a scare if he can. I wish he wuz a bloody Jap and I could let him have it—yeow!”

The oncoming bomber had dived at the last moment under Barry’s ship. Her vertical fin had actually ticked Mickey’s tail position, sending a slight shock through the whole plane. An instant later she was nosing ahead, still perilously close to the belly of the slower flying craft.

“Look out, Barry!” Chick Enders yelled. “The crazy galoot is going to zoom right under our nose ... and I’m a dodo if it isn’t Glenn Crayle!”

Barry gritted his teeth as Crayle’s fuselage rose up just ahead of his greenhouse.

“Cut the engines, Hap!” he ordered. “I’ll try to hold our nose up till that fool is clear. If only we had a trifle more airspeed....”

Hap was muttering savagely under his breath. Chick Enders was gripping his gun, obviously yearning to pour bullets into Crayle’s back. Abruptly, however, the little bombardier relaxed. Crayle’s tail assembly was pulling clear—and Chick had just caught a glimpse of the rear gunner’s scared face.

“Slap on the coal, Hap!” Barry cried, as his plane’s nose tilted sharply upward. “We’re going into a spin.”

The twin engines bellowed. Hap “revved” them up to the limit, but the spin continued. Instantly there flashed through Barry’s mind all his instructor at Randolph had told him to do in such a situation. His hands and feet now moved automatically, applying just the right control at the right moment.

Four thousand feet above sea level he pulled out and leveled off on the compass course.

“Okay—take over, will you, Hap,” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “I’m tired out.”

His big co-pilot was gazing upward through the plastic window. Hap’s face was a deep red.

“Wait till that cockeyed ape gets out of sight, can you, Barry?” he asked in a choked voice. “He’s stunting now—and waggling his wings at us. If I took over nothing could keep me from giving him a dose of his own medicine. I’d probably crash us both.”

Though his face was still damp with perspiration, Barry smiled.

“All right, Hap,” he said quietly. “I’ll give you a chance to cool off. But you’ve really no reason to lose your head because Glenn Crayle is a nut. You’re playing his game when you let him burn you up. He’s already punished himself, and incidentally his crew, by using up his gas with that monkey business. If they get home at all it will be on a raft.”

“Say!” exclaimed Hap, his face brightening. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Apparently Crayle, or someone aboard his plane, thought of it now for the first time. The stunting ship straightened out abruptly and headed for home. Her distance from Barry’s craft, however, remained unchanged.

“He’s reduced speed!” Chick Enders cried. “It’s too late, though. We’ve still enough to get home, and he hasn’t. Let’s fly past and give him the merry ha-ha, Barry.”

“I’ll take over now, Skipper,” Hap chimed in cheerfully. “It’ll be swell fun pulling up close to his wing tip and giving him the old ‘thumbs down’ signal.”

“You’re taking the controls but you’re keeping the interval exactly as it is, fella,” Barry Blake declared. “Those are my orders. We’re following Glenn Crayle as far as he goes; and when he sets down, on land or water, we’ll at least be able to report his position.”

An unhappy silence fell upon the Marauder’s crew. They knew that their skipper was wholly in the right and they loved him for it. But their anger at Crayle was not easily bottled up. The appearance of a Flying Fortress squadron high overhead furnished a welcome change of thought.

“Wish we were going back with them!” Chick Enders exclaimed. “Dropping one egg and skedaddling like a scared sparrow isn’t my idea of fun. If we’d come out in Rosy, we could have hung around Amboina picking our targets and making a real party of it.”

“That’s the trouble, Chick,” spoke up Curly Levitt. “Sweet Rosy O’Grady had been attending too many such parties. She’s all shot to junk. I don’t imagine that squadron of forts will hang around after they’ve reached their target area. They’ll drop their loads where they’ll do the most good, and head for home.”

“Here comes a bunch of Liberators!” cried Hap Newton. “Oh, boy, are those Japs due for a royal pasting! They’ll probably send in a few squadrons of Australian Havocs and North American Mitchells with regular bomb loads to mop up the shipping in the main harbor. That place will be a shambles.”

Hap’s guess was correct. Half an hour later three large formations of Australian attack bombers and B-25’s swept over, headed for the Jap base. The soldiers of Hirohito were going to get their teeth knocked loose before this day was over!

For the next hour Barry watched his fuel gauge as a mother watches her sick infant. From time to time he asked Curly to check their position by dead reckoning. Finally he asked his navigator to shoot the sun and make an accurate check.

“Either there’s a difference between our compass and the one on that other plane,” he said, “or Crayle is away off course. He could be heading for one of the Jap-held islands to make his forced landing. In any case, I want to know exactly where we are.”

Curly Levitt stepped up to the top gun turret with his octant and took his shot. For a few minutes he figured rapidly.

“You’re right, Skipper,” he said in a shocked tone. “We’re heading straight toward the Tanimbar group of islands. If it weren’t for the cloud rug below us we could probably see them from here. There’s a good-sized Jap base on the biggest island, and probably a holding force of soldiers on most of the little ones. Any Allied plane that lands in this area is sure to be bombed or captured....”

“He’s going down!” yelped Hap Newton. “Shall we follow him, Skipper? There may be a low ceiling under these clouds.”

“I’ll take over,” Barry answered. “No telling what we’ll run into below!”

He shoved the bomber’s nose down into the cloud scuff. Eyes fixed on the altimeter, he held her in a power dive, past five thousand, four thousand, three thousand....

At two thousand feet they broke through the ceiling into a thin drizzle of rain. Visibility was fair. Crayle’s ship was about the same distance ahead as before, flying low toward a small land mass three miles away. Beyond the small island loomed the dim bulk of Tanimbar.

Barry dropped his plane quickly toward the water. If no Japs on Tanimbar had already spotted the two bombers, the little island’s mass would hide them from the larger one. There might still be a chance to rescue Crayle’s crew. Yes! There was a smooth, straight beach, now exposed at low tide.

Circling just offshore, Barry watched the other plane land. The tricycle gear touched the hard packed sand lightly and rolled to a smooth stop.

“Neat work!” Barry applauded. “I hope I do as well. Of course a nearly empty B-26 wouldn’t plow up wet beach sand like a fortress....”

“Hey! What’s the idea, Skipper?” Hap blurted in alarm. “You’re not going to maroon us too on that beach? Isn’t losing one perfectly good plane enough to suit you?”

“Keep your shirt on, Hap—and everybody!” Barry replied. “We may have to abandon one plane, but there’s nothing to stop us from picking up Crayle and his team and taking them home with us in ours. I have an idea they’ll jump at the chance, too!”