The safe return of Barry Blake and his crew to Mau River was celebrated the following night at supper. The meal was the nearest thing to a banquet that the army cooks could turn out. There was a sort of program, too, mostly humorous. It recalled the never-to-be-forgotten days at Randolph Field.

Barry himself was heralded as the “Big Dog” at the moment of his entrance into the mess tent. Colonel Bullock, as master of ceremonies, announced:

“The Big Dog is coming in to land.... The Big Dog is rolling down his flaps.... The Big Dog has landed.... The Big Dog is waiting to be serviced!”

Between each announcement, the second lieutenants softly chorused: “Woof, woof! Woof, woof!” When Barry lifted a large baked potato from the serving dish it was announced that “The Big Dog is getting bombed up.”

At this point an exuberant woofer from Texas lost control. Tilting his head far back, he gave tongue to a genuine coyote howl that raised the hair on the necks of more than one “effete Easterner.” The bumptious ex-cowboy was penalized by being made to sing “Deep in the Heart of Texas” with his mouth full of olives.

Following that there were speeches in praise of Sweet Rosy O’Grady and every member of her crew. Tony Romani and Cracker Jackson received their full share of glory, as wounded heroes. Finally Rosy herself was described as the plane that “sighted convoy, sank same, and retired to a desert island, where she became a sort of Empress Jones, too proud to come home and associate with her sister Fortresses.”

After the celebration, Colonel Bullock asked Lieutenant Blake and three other pilots to report to his tent for a brief conference. Arriving a moment after the rest, Barry noted that he was the only Fortress skipper present. The others were twin-engine pilots, who had made fine bombing records during the recent slaughter of the Jap convoy. They were Captain Rand Bartlett, Lieutenant Thurman Smith, and Lieutenant Ben Haskins.

The four young officers sprang to their feet and saluted as the colonel appeared. Bullock waved them to canvas-bottomed chairs.

“I’ve been asked to supply four of my best bomber crews,” he told them, “for a secret and difficult mission. What that mission is I don’t know myself, but you are to fly B-26 planes. The orders from headquarters stressed a high record of bombing hits. You’re to take off before daylight tomorrow and fly to Port Darwin. There you will doubtless learn more details. Have you any questions, gentlemen? You are at perfect liberty to pass up the job—in which case I’ll choose some other crew.”

Barry Blake was the first to break the ensuing silence.

“I think we all feel alike about it, sir,” he said quietly. “It’s a big honor to be chosen by you under these circumstances. But as Fortress men, my crew and I might not measure up to the best B-26 performance. Those Martin bombers are sweet little ships, but they handle differently from a Boeing. We wouldn’t want to let you down, sir—”

“I know all that, Blake,” Colonel Bullock interrupted with a smile. “I chose you and your crew after a good deal of thought, just as I picked Haskins and Bartlett and Smith. You’ve flown twin-engined planes in Advanced Training School and you’ll get the hang of your new B-26 on the way to Darwin. I’ll supply you with a first-class tail gunner to take the place of Tony Romani.... Now, gentlemen, for the last time, do you want the job?”

“Yes, sir!” chorused the four pilots.

The C.O. arose. One after the other he gripped their hands and wished them good hunting. In that moment he seemed more like a proud parent than their superior officer. The four young officers knew that they had found a lifelong friend in Colonel Bullock.

Rosy O’Grady’s crew, all except Tony and Cracker Jackson, were overjoyed at their new assignment. They lay awake talking it over until Barry curtly ordered them to “drive it into the hangar and get some sleep.”

“Rosy will be laid up for a couple of weeks’ repairs anyway,” Chick added in a loud whisper, “and so will Tony and Cracker. We’ll probably be back by that time. Nobody’s got any kick coming, so far as I can see—unless it’s the Japs!”

Out on the runway at five o’clock Barry’s crew found their new ship waiting, complete with tail gunner. The latter was a little bulldog of a man with the map of Ireland jutting fiercely out of his helmet. He was Sergeant Mickey Rourke from South Boston. He greeted each of his new crew mates with an undershot smile and a brief “Pleased to meet yiz!”

Later Rosy’s crew found out that Mickey was the lone survivor of a B-26 that had been sliced in two by a diving Zero fighter. Mickey had bailed out of his severed tail section unharmed and had swum ashore. After two weeks in the New Guinea bush he had walked into the Mau River base and calmly reported for duty.

The four Martin bombers took off by moonlight and promptly headed southwest. Barry found The Colonel’s Lady as Hap had named their new craft, strangely quick and light on the controls, compared with her big sister Rosy. Flying in formation with the other three Marauders soon cured his tendency to over-control, however.

As the sun rose, tinting the peaks of New Guinea’s high backbone ahead of them, he turned over the controls to Hap Newton.

“Easy on the stick, Mister,” he warned his big co-pilot. “Those crowbar wrists of yours work swell at the wheel of a Fortress, but this little lady won’t stand for rough handling.”

“Finger-tip control!” chuckled Hap as he took over. “I may be rough, but I can be oh, so gentle, too, Skipper! Just watch me take her upstairs.”

The bomber formation was climbing steadily, to top the 16,000-foot range ahead. A bitter chill seeped into the plane. The crew found themselves breathing faster to get enough air. Automatically they reached for their oxygen masks. Those things were lifesavers when you got up above 20,000. Even at somewhat lower altitudes they helped keep your head clear and your stomach in place.

At 18,000 the air was bumpy. The flight leader, Captain Bartlett, took his bombers up to 20,000, where it was colder but smoother. Beneath them the great range was spread out like a relief map, with patches of white cloud here and there showing local rains.

An hour later the immense blue bowl of the Arafura Sea rose up to enclose them with its rim of endless horizon.

“We’re like four tiny flies buzzing across a giant’s washbowl,” Barry thought. “And yet this Arafura Sea is just a little spot on God’s Footstool. Most high school students never knew where it was before the war. A flier certainly comes to feel his smallness in time and space!”

The four planes loafed along at about 200 m.p.h., to conserve gas. They dodged a thunder storm just north of the Gulf of Carpenteria and swung back to the southwest. At noon they were over Port Darwin, Australia, with a heavy overcast obscuring sea and land. Barry took over the controls in preparation for landing.

“Ceiling one thousand feet and dropping fast,” came the airfield’s radioed report. “You arrived just in time. In another hour we’ll be closed in.”

“This weather may postpone our mission, whatever it is,” Chick Enders remarked as they went down through the wet cloud rug. “Looks like a general storm coming over the coast.”

“That’s something for the brass hats to worry about, Chick,” Barry Blake replied. “We haven’t the haziest notion yet what we’ve come here to do—There’s the field, Hap! It looks a lot better than the one we left this morning.”

Though his B-26 was still a bit unfamiliar to the young Fortress pilot, he set her down without a bounce. The field was hard and smooth, with only a few patches showing where Jap bombs had recently dropped. The lowering clouds, Barry remarked, would probably keep enemy raiders at a distance for the next few days.

Reporting to the Operations Building, the Marauders’ four young officers were told to return immediately after mess for instructions. The general himself would be present, with other high-ranking officers. All further information would be given at that time.

Mess call sounded as they left the place. In the camouflaged mess tent, they found a number of flying officers already gathered around rough tables. Most of these greeted the newcomers with cordial smiles, but there was one outstanding exception. A rather handsome, sleek-haired second lieutenant stared at them insultingly, then turned his back and moved to a farther table.

“Glenn Crayle!” exclaimed Hap Newton. “The same swell-headed hot pilot that he was at Randolph! Did you get that ‘dirt-under-my-feet’ look he gave us?”

“Hold it down, Hap!” Barry whispered. “No use in stirring up more hard feelings. The whole room heard you. After all, Crayle’s a fellow officer.”

“He’s just as much of a sorehead as he ever was,” muttered Chick Enders. “I’d hate to fly in formation with him, for fear he’d pull some spite trick and crash both of us.”

“You’d probably get ‘jeep jitters’ and scare the life out of him if you were at the joy-stick,” Hap Newton laughed under his breath. “Here come the brass hats! We’d better take places at this table, near the wall.”

They saw no more of Glenn Crayle than his neatly uniformed back until the meal was over and the B-26 bomber officers assembled in the briefing room. There, after another dirty look, the sulky pilot whispered behind his hand to a hard-eyed acquaintance. The pair of them glanced toward Barry’s group and laughed. Whatever “crack” Crayle had made was certainly not to the Fortress crew’s credit.

The briefing room filled quickly, until the space between the long table and the walls was filled with the officers of four bomber squadrons. Facing them stood the general and a rear admiral of the Navy. As the former raised his hand, absolute silence fell on the group.

“Gentlemen,” the general said quietly, “this talk will be very brief and, I trust, to the point. You are to leave sometime tonight on a mission of high strategical importance. Your objective is the Japanese-held harbor of Amboina. As you know, this is the enemy’s strongest East Indian base. We cannot at this moment tell you why its demolition is so important to our war strategy. Your orders are simply to destroy every plane, ship and installation that you can, cripple its defenses. Leave it helpless to resist the regular bombardment forces that will follow up your attack.”

He paused impressively. In the silence Barry could feel a rising tide of unspoken questions filling the room. How, for instance, could four squadrons of medium bombers effect such a complete destruction as the general had described? Why not use Fortresses and Liberators, such as were even now smashing the U-boat pens at Lorient and Wilhelmshaven?

“You, gentlemen,” the officer continued, “have been picked from several bomber commands for a task of utmost difficulty and danger. The planes you will fly are B-26 bombers that have been altered to carry twice their normal bomb load, and about one fourth of their regular supply of fuel. Each plane will lay a two-ton, delayed action bomb directly on an assigned target, from mast-head height. You will then go on to strafe the Jap aircraft in the seaplane anchorage at the head of Amboina Bay. By that time you will have just enough gas left to fly the six hundred thirty miles back to Port Darwin—providing you meet no interference on the way.”

“Are there any questions, up to this point?”

Captain Bartlett was the first pilot to speak.

“You mentioned that we should carry about one fourth of our usual gas supply, sir,” he said in a puzzled tone. “But the B-26’s greatest range with a one-ton load is only twenty-four hundred miles. To fly six hundred thirty miles to Amboina and back again would use up more than half of it.”

For the first time a slight smile crossed the general’s face.

“You are quite correct, Captain,” he answered. “However, I didn’t say that you were to fly from here to Amboina. That is the little surprise we are preparing for our enemies. Your three squadrons of Martin bombers are already loaded on an aircraft carrier which you will board tonight. Under cover of the weather front that is moving northwest we hope to approach within fifty miles of Amboina. The flight deck of this carrier is quite long enough for medium bombers. You’ll need a bit of verbal instruction regarding the take-off, however. Am I right, Admiral?”

The naval officer cleared his throat.

“We’ll take care of that after we’re at sea,” he said to the assembled fliers. “You won’t have to worry about finding and landing on your flat-top in the fog, as the Navy pilots would. Once you leave our flight deck it’s good-by—until we see you back in port.”

“And now,” added the general, “we’ll turn to the matter of targets. Here’s a map of Amboina Harbor, with all the important installations marked. As you receive your assignments, please note them down, gentlemen. With a limited number of bombs, we must have no duplication.”

The target assigned to Barry’s crew was the radio station at the extreme tip of Nusanive Point. Captain Bartlett, Lieutenant Haskins, and Thurman Smith were given the heavy coastal fortifications just beyond. Other crews received the airfields across the bay at Hatu and Lata and the antiaircraft batteries mounted in the hills along shore.

Amboina City, with its piers, its big coaling station and its naval installations, offered the biggest group of targets. A whole squadron was assigned to hammer it with two-ton block-busters.

At supper time the study of contour maps, targets and enemy gun positions was still in progress. Nobody had been permitted to leave the briefing room. So great was the secrecy with which the whole venture was surrounded that guards had been posted several yards from the building, to keep anybody without a pass from approaching it. Not until ten o’clock was the order given to dismiss; but the evening was not over.

A dozen army trucks pulled up near the door. The fliers piled in, and the vehicles roared away toward the docks. There a number of speedy PT boats were waiting. In these the hundred-odd flying officers were rushed through the spray-filled darkness to a point offshore which the steersmen seemed to find by instinct.

There lay the carrier, a long, dim shape that grew rapidly huger until the speedboat paused close to her towering side. Ship’s ladders had been lowered already. Each boatload of airmen climbed hurriedly to the dark port that opened into the ship’s bowels. Behind them the PT boats roared away into the surrounding blackness.

Young Navy fliers of the carrier’s own company came forward to greet the Army men and conduct them to their mess. They were cordial chaps, perhaps a little more formal than the Army fliers. They stood treat for the newcomers with soft drinks and there was a lot of pleasant small-talk. Finally they got around to showing the bomber group their temporary quarters.

The enlisted members of the B-26 crews were already on board, bunking forward with the petty officers. In the morning they’d all get together and each crew would be assigned a plane. From then until the moment of take-off they’d be responsible for its care.

Barry’s team took four bunks in a corner of the large room assigned to the Army group. For the first time in many hours they had a chance to talk quietly together about the mission on which they had embarked.

“It’s a smarter stunt than any of the Japs have pulled off,” Hap Newton declared. “B-25’s and 26’s are usually considered too big to take off from a carrier’s deck. I still don’t see how we can do it with a double load, but the experts must have figured it out. Each ship will be practically a flying bomb.”

“Flying Fortresses could do the same job from a land base and do it better,” Chick Enders remarked. “We’ve done skip-bombing with Rosy O’Grady. The trouble is that she’s too big a target, and she cost a quarter of a million dollars to build.”

“Not only that,” Barry Blake put in, “but all the forts that can be spared for this job will be coming right in after us to hammer the Jap gun emplacements in the hills. That’ll be high-altitude bombing, if the weather is right.”

“The weather,” agreed Curly Levitt, “is the big risk. There has to be enough fog or low-hanging cloud ceiling to hide the carrier from Jap patrol planes, right up to the last minute. But over the island itself our forts and Liberators will need visibility unlimited. If the meteorologists have guessed wrong, it will be just too bad.”

That was true enough, Barry thought, but it didn’t worry him. The brass hats who had planned this secret attack so painstakingly must know what sort of weather they could count on. Meteorology was almost an exact science nowadays.

He caught sight of Glenn Crayle talking with his co-pilot at the other side of the room. Barry could not hear what they were saying, but Crayle’s cocksure manner suggested his familiar, boastful line. Probably the sleek-haired pilot was thinking of this Amboina job as offering a splendid chance to make the news headlines. At any rate, thought Barry, the fellow must be a first-rate pilot, or he’d never have been picked for such a mission.