the plane rattled, sputtered, and roared. stew threw back the hood, climbed out to the wings to see what, if anything, might be done to keep her aloft. then he threw back his seat to drop flat on his stomach and poke around in the fuselage. his hand touched jack’s violin. he shoved this forward within easy reach.
“jack can play for the birds, the lizards, and the land crabs on our island,” he said to himself with a grim laugh.
there was not much he could do. the main trouble was with the motor. it had taken a slug or two, and was beginning to smoke.
alternately they gained and lost altitude. each time they lost more than they had gained.
“there’s a zero!” stew exclaimed, righting his seat and gripping his gun.
the zero kept poking its nose in and out of the rain squall that was moving slowly toward them.
41
“scouting for their lost cargo ships,” said jack.
the three destroyers, now robbed of their charges, were beginning to slip from sight. “going to that other fight,” jack thought. he and stew were leaving the fight behind, and under the circumstances he was not sorry. it seemed less violent now. had their comrades won or lost? had the jap carrier been put out of action? he did not know the answer.
his motor coughed hoarsely, then was silent. they lost altitude rapidly.
“get ready to bail out!” he snapped.
the motor coughed, rumbled, then thundered afresh.
they climbed once more, then slowly sank.
the islands were much closer now. “we’d better head for the middle one,” jack said. “it’s the largest. got quite a peak in the middle of it.”
“must be several hundred feet high,” stew said. “there’s sure to be good, fresh water there. natives too. there’s an island around here somewhere, they say, where the natives eat shipwrecked chinamen, or used to.”
“well, we’re not chinamen!” jack’s laugh was a bit doubtful.
“could be they’re not choosy.” stew’s laugh was doubtful too.
42
“have to take a chance, that’s all war is after all—just one risk after another. we—”
the motor went dead again. one more struggle, one more victory.
twice more this was repeated. the last time they were not much more than ten miles from the islands.
“that’s all she’ll do,” jack decided. “get ready to tumble out if we land too hard. we’re going down.”
gripping the half-inflated lifeboat, stew shoved back the hood, and stood there, with the wind in his eyes, as they circled downward.
the time was surprisingly short. they hit the water hard, bounced, struck again—then with a final splash, the plane almost nosed over into the sea.
stew had the life raft ready in a twinkling—none too soon at that, for their left wing was all but torn away.
stew was on the life raft, with paddle in hand. jack was prepared to drop down onto the raft when he stopped suddenly.
“wait a second,” he said, climbing into the plane again.
he came back after a while with the violin. “after what ted did for us today,” he confided, “i couldn’t leave it.” and they paddled away toward the middle island.
43
“that ted must be a real guy,” was stew’s comment.
“you don’t know the half of it. i’ll tell you about it some time.” jack settled back against the circular side of the raft. “boy! am i tired!”
“take it easy,” stew advised.
“we’ll have to paddle ten miles at least. a jap plane may spot us on the way.”
“we don’t really need to paddle at all,” stew said. “there’s a strong current running toward the islands.”
“how do you know?” jack sat up.
“while you went back for the violin i threw a stick into the water. it started right for the island.”
“that,” said jack, “was my whittling stick.”
“too bad!” stew said. “but then, there must be a million sticks on our island. seems to be covered with trees.”
the current was not all that stew had hoped for. it carried them along at no more than two miles an hour. and the distance was far greater than they had imagined. for several hours they were obliged to paddle beneath hot, tropical skies. finally, when the sun had gone to rest and the moon had taken up its watch, they found themselves listening to the easy wash of the surf against the mysterious shore.
44
as they came close it seemed that the island’s one mountain leaned over like a vast giant for a look at them.
“be just our luck to land close to a native village.” stew shuddered as they neared the shadowy shores. the moon still was low.
“they might have chickens,” jack suggested.
“i’ll be content with emergency rations,” stew decided.
once stew imagined that he caught a glimpse of a flicker of light along the shore. “cannibals,” he whispered.
“might be worse.” jack fingered his automatic. “could be japs.”
and then, a long, sweeping wave picked up their small raft with startling suddenness and they found themselves on a gravel beach. before the next wave arrived they had dragged the raft to safety.
“that’s service!” jack exclaimed. “now let’s have a look.” he snapped on a small flashlight.
they discovered the beach to be very narrow. back of it were tumbled piles of massive rocks, and behind these, a solid, stone wall.
“look!” stew pointed to tangled masses of logs, seaweed, and broken palms that lay on the rocks far above their heads. “some storm to do that!”
“yes, and another storm may do the same to us. we’d better ramble.”
45
to the right the beach ended abruptly in a stone wall, but to the left it broadened. tramping over the rocks for a quarter of a mile, they came at last to a spot where the land sloped away, offering enough soil to support coconut palms and other tropical trees.
“this will do,” jack decided.
climbing up the slope, stew gathered ripe coconuts from the ground. after striking off the husks, he bored holes through the eyes with his sheath knife and drank the milk.
“um-m-m!” he breathed. “not bad.”
when they had drained four coconuts dry, they turned their attention to other matters.
they broke open their rations and ate sparingly. they cracked a coconut and ate its meat. then they stretched out side by side on the rubber raft, pillowed their heads against the round outside, drew a mosquito-bar canopy over themselves, and lay there looking at the stars.
“if we were on the shore of lake superior,” jack sighed, “i could like this for a long time.”
“i suppose it’s great,” said stew. “i’ve never been there.”
46
“great’s the word, all right!” jack became enthusiastic. “we used to have a regular gang, half a dozen fellows and more girls. campfire parties, canoeing in the moonlight, sings—all that....” his voice trailed off. then, “patsy was up there once.”
“who’s patsy?” stew asked.
“just a girl i used to know. we grew up together.”
“uh-huh,” stew drawled.
“ted took her away from me at last, or at least i think he did.”
“our ted?” stew sat up. “the one who came out today to help us fight the japs? the ted who saved our lives? hm-m-m! sounds a little bit queer.”
“yes, but we practically saved his life too. that might also seem strange. it’s that way in war. war changes a lot of things.”
“you see,” jack said, sitting up, “ted and i were rivals. he was what the girls call ‘smooth’. i wasn’t. you know how i am.”
“oh sure.”
“he beat me in some things, and i beat him in others. then he went after patsy.”
“but you weren’t smooth?” stew drawled.
“that’s what i said.”
“then how come you’re pals now?”
“we’re not really, you see. ted and i both joined the navy air force. we went to different training bases. i never saw him again until we met on board the black bee. then he dragged me off to one side and said—”
47
“listen!” stew’s voice was tense. “there’s that screaming again! it’s coming this way like the wind.”
jack listened with all his might. how weird it was, that screech coming in out of the silence of the night. “some witch riding a broomstick.” he laughed uncertainly.
“some jap trick,” stew muttered.
“i’m not so sure,” jack said thoughtfully. “i’ve got a brand new notion about that thing.”
“what’s that?”
“i’ll tell you later.”
“makes one want to be in an air-raid shelter.”
“well, you won’t. we haven’t even got a cave. but there’s no need really. it’s got the whole island to strike, and it must be five miles long. the law of averages gives us one chance in a million of being hit.”
at that stew settled back.
“that law of averages is mighty comforting sometimes,” jack went on. “take this war. we’ve eleven million men in uniform. how many do you think will get killed?”
“maybe a million.”
“not half that many, i’ll bet. that gives you and me one chance out of twenty-two of getting home alive. but maybe only a quarter of a million will be killed.”
48
“forget that, can’t you?” stew begged. “death and that infernal howl don’t go so hot together.”
by this time the screech filled the air.
then all of a sudden it dropped to become a mere whisper. “say! that’s funny!” jack exclaimed softly.
“i’ll say!” stew drew a deep breath.
the voice of the unknown rose again, but this time the sound rose and fell.
“something like the sound of a plane circling for a landing,” jack told himself.
then suddenly there was no sound at all. and though he wasn’t sure, jack thought he caught a glimpse of a dark shadow darting low over the water some distance away.
