Lt. Wheeler chuckled forcefully, tilting his head behind them toward the rising sun. “It has to be the light.”
“Are we flyin’ through that?” came Pike’s crackly, unhappy voice over the interphone. The switchbox in the cockpit had been damaged, and Frazee had to re-wire the interphone so everyone was on the same circuit. Peering through his blister, Pike would see what brooded ahead as well as anyone.
“What the hell is that?” came Sanford’s higher-pitched query. “We aren’t going into that!”
“Shut up, you, or I’ll shut you up!” Pike snapped.
“Everybody shut up!” roared Nev Garza in his narrow engineer’s space up under the wing. Like Frazee, still in the radio compartment, he probably barely saw the weird squall.
“Right, keep the jabber down,” Wheeler said, pulling slightly back on the wheel. The one in front of Mike moved too. “We’ll see if we can get over it.” He paused. “Look, fellas, let’s keep it together. We have one job left, then we can look out for ourselves. Most of what’s left of ABDAfloat is heading south to Australia, and the rest is making for the Sunda Strait and Ceylon. We’ll take a quick look to see if the strait’s clear, then we’re off to Ceylon too. We’ll finally be done with all this.”
“Why do we even have to look?” Sanford whined. “The dope is the Japs’re already in the strait and sank the Houston there last night. Why stick our necks out for a couple of Limey ships? They don’t give a damn about us!”
“I heard that rumor too, and it might be true. That’s why we have to check,” Wheeler explained through clenched teeth. “And the British ships, Exeter and Encounter, have three of ours along: Pope, Walker and Mahan.” Wheeler’s voice turned sharper than Mike had ever heard it. “But I don’t care if they’re American, British, Australian, or Dutch. We’ve all been on the same bush-league team out here, and run through the same Jap wringer, so I don’t want to hear any more of that ‘us and them’ crap.” He sighed. “Finding out if the Japs’re there or not is our last mission for the Asiatic Fleet. Probably Patwing 10, too. Now cut the chatter,” he added harshly.
Immediately, somewhat hesitantly, Pike spoke up. “Ah, sir? There’s a ship down there, almost right below.”
“Have a look, Mike,” Wheeler said, waiting until Mike raised his binoculars, then banking to the right.
The movement and vibration of the big plane made the binoculars difficult to focus, but Mike saw well enough. “Mid-size auxiliary freighter, single stack, crates on deck, making for Tjilatjap…That’s the old Santa Catalina, carrying P-40 fighters in for the Army,” he declared, then shook his head. “Too late. They’ll never…Wow! Damn! Jap planes’re working her over. Big bomb splash, close aboard!”
“What kind of planes?” Wheeler demanded.
“Carrier dive bombers. Maybe Vals.”
Wheeler hesitated, probably tempted to swoop among the bombers to break up their attacks. He’d done it before, when Big Boobs was healthier and had a full crew of experienced gunners, even for the tunnel gun “stinger” aft. Finally, he shook his head and leveled out. The peculiar green squall was closer now, and he hadn’t climbed over it yet. “Nothing we can do,” he said grudgingly, “and we have a final chore. Everybody keep your eyes peeled. Carrier bombers will have fighters around. Frazee, get down in the nose. We might need you on the gun.”
The dark-haired radioman reluctantly left his communications gear and squeezed between Mike and Wheeler. Going down on all fours, Frazee slithered under the dual control column and instrument panel to crawl behind the .30 caliber machine gun in the Plexiglas-enclosed turret in front of the cockpit. He was just in time. An instant later, Big Boobs was jolted by a stream of 7.7mm and 20mm projectiles, punching bright holes in one side of the compartment Frazee just left, and out the other, blowing confetti-like pieces of shredded paper and aluminum fragments all the way into the cockpit. Mike caught a glimpse of the gray-white belly and red “meatballs” of a Japanese fighter flashing over them from left to right.
“Damn it, Sanford! That one came from your side!” Wheeler bellowed. “If you aren’t going to shoot at them, at least call them out so someone else can!”
Sanford didn’t reply.
“He can’t do shit, curled up on the goddamn deck!” Pike called back in disgust. “Useless bastard!”
“There’s another one coming in on the right!” shouted Garza, with only his little window to see. Big Boobs shuddered again, from the combination of Pike’s .50 caliber firing, and more savage bullet and shell impacts tearing through the fuselage. Frazee’s nose gun clattered when the plane roared past, but his tracers followed way behind. “They’re eatin’ us alive, Skipper,” Garza’s voice continued, sounding strained. He coughed. “An’ they chewed up the port fuel tank, at least. Fuel’s sprayin’ out like crazy.”
Wheeler craned his head around to see, but couldn’t.
“He’s right, Lieutenant,” Pike confirmed. “I just shut the port blister. It was sucking fuel into the plane—an’ Sanford’s not usin’ the gun anyway,” he added with a snarl.
Mike watched Wheeler do the mental calculations; at least two fighters, three times as fast and infinitely more agile, had already shot them up pretty bad. And they only had one gunner they could count on. Their attackers had probably figured that out and would simply approach from another quarter. If Wheeler didn’t do something fast, they’d soon be falling, burning to the sea.
“Duck into the squall!” Mike urged. “Even if they chase us in, they’ll never see us.”
Wheeler looked at the looming storm, now almost directly ahead. Regardless of the jam they were in, he hesitated. Mike understood, since he couldn’t escape a foreboding sense that the greenish squall was somehow worse. All the same, it took Wheeler less than three seconds to push the steering column forward. The big plane dove, gathering speed as it plummeted down, aiming at a point about halfway up the towering wall of water.
Only one enemy plane came after them, and its pursuit was half-hearted. The PBYs angle was such that it would enter the squall before the Japanese pilot was close enough for a certain kill, and aerial combat simply couldn’t proceed when canopies turned opaque from pounding rain. That didn’t stop the enemy flyer from sending them some parting gifts. Big Boobs shook and clattered again when a long burst of machine gun and cannon fire marched up her spine. The fusillade walked across the middle of her wing between the engines, blowing through and making big holes in the hull when the misshapen projectiles exited. Even so, Mike doubted the noise of destruction would compare to the booming thunder of the squall. And he was right—but not like he’d expected. In the instant before Big Boobs roared into the greenish, now almost phosphorescent curtain, he got the distinct impression the raindrops weren’t really falling, but just hanging…suspended. He assured himself it was because they were still diving, falling as fast as the rain, and then Big Boobs rumbled when she hit it.
For a moment, except for the swirling darkness smeared across the windscreen, blotting out all visibility, everything seemed as it should, and a surge of relief flooded the young ensign while excited voices crowded the interphone. Pike was yelling triumphantly that he’d winged their attacker as it peeled away, and Frazee was shouting that he’d never been so glad to see rain in his life, before urgently requesting to return to his post behind the cockpit. Sanford contributed nothing, of course, but Mike was surprised not to hear Garza—or Lieutenant Wheeler—tell everyone to pipe down after the first celebratory moment. Looking at their pilot, he was stunned to see Wheeler staring wide-eyed and ashen-faced at the instruments in front of him. That’s when Mike realized not only were the instruments going crazy, they were covered with blood.
For an instant he was too stunned by his first discovery for the second to really register. The altimeter needle was spinning like a prop and the turn and bank indicator was doing stuff Mike would feel if the plane did them too. The magnetic compass was rolling erratically and the gyro compass had simply quit,
but every gauge that relied on air pressure for any reason was rising fast. He did feel that, and gasped when it seemed like his eyes were being mashed into his head and he convulsively retched in the gap between him and Lieutenant Wheeler—right on top of Radioman Frazee, who in his own obvious misery, was crawling back to the space he considered “his.”
“Help the Skipper,” Mike managed to shout at Frazee. “I think he’s hit.” On top of whatever other injuries he’d sustained, Wheeler was feeling the same…other discomforts, and as soon as his co-pilot grasped the somewhat flat-topped, oval-shaped wheel, Wheeler groaned and let go, slouching back in his seat.
“I gotta try to straighten us out,” Mike hissed at Frazee, who was practically climbing the pilot to look him over, even while retching himself. But controlling the plane in zero visibility without any instruments would be virtually impossible for anyone, even Wheeler. Mike later thought there’d been other unusual phenomena, like a keening, screeching sound right inside his head, but he was so focused on what he was doing, he decided it was just somebody screaming. Maybe him. He also dismissed the sudden, violently upward lurch he felt, but terrified and flying blind, he might’ve done that himself as well. He had no idea how long he flew like that, fighting the torrent and the bucking, damaged plane, occasionally risking glimpses at Wheeler as Frazee frantically described and tried to patch his wounds. It felt like hours, but was probably only minutes before the battered, staggering plane exploded into sunlight, streaming a rainbow of water mixed with leaking fuel.
“What the hell was that?” demanded Pike over the interphone, his normally gruff, somewhat belligerent voice several octaves higher than usual.
“Damned if I know,” Mike barked back. “Worst weather I ever flew through.” That wasn’t saying much, considering his inexperience.
“You flew…where’s the skipper?”
“He’s hit,” Mike replied, looking nervously at Wheeler, “but he’s okay,” he added, as if wishing would make it so. “Keep your eyes peeled for Japs.” He had a sudden thought. “And send Sanford to check on Garza.” There hadn’t been a word from the flight engineer. He only heard one side of the bitter exchange that followed, but eventually Pike reported “He’s going.”
“How’s Mr. Wheeler?” Mike asked Frazee.
“I’m okay,” Wheeler replied himself, voice a little wispy.
“No bullets hit him,” Frazee reported. “Some chunks of what they threw around messed up his right arm and shoulder pretty bad, though. And he lost a lot of blood before I plugged the leaks.”
“Thanks Frazee,” Wheeler said with a weak smile. “Go check your radio gear, and help Sanford with Garza.” He looked at Mike and nodded sheepishly at his useless arm. “You got her?”
“I got her, Skipper,” Mike confirmed, wrapping his fingers more tightly around the vibrating wheel.
“Garza’s dead,” Sanford practically shouted over the flight engineer’s microphone, his voice uncharacteristically animated. “Boy is he dead! Couple of Jap cannon shells blew him all over the place!”
“Well…get him out of his seat and tell me what his instruments say,” Wheeler ordered, some of his old forcefulness returning.
“No! Hey! That’s not my job! I don’t know what any of those gizmos mean, and there’s blood all over the place!”
“There’s blood in here too!” Mike snapped, more annoyed than usual by Sanford’s complaints.
“You don’t have to do anything,” Wheeler assured. “Not yet, at least,” he added cryptically. “But we’re losing fuel, maybe a lot, and I need you to tell me how much.” The flight engineer of a PBY-4 had numerous duties in flight, some of which could only be performed in his isolated, elevated position. Many of his gauges mirrored those in the pilot’s compartment, but he could also monitor how much engine oil was in the tanks and send it where it needed to go, as well as the temperature of every cylinder of both Pratt & Whitney R-1830-72 Twin Wasp engines. He controlled the cowl flaps and air intake to the carburetors, and fine-tuned the rough mixture settings the pilot made for best efficiency. Perhaps most important of all, only the flight engineer could monitor the fuel level in both tanks by means of a pair of sight glass gauges—and the wing floats had to be raised and lowered from his compartment. With a new surge of alarm, Mike suspected that was something Wheeler might have to ask the reluctant gunner to do.
Sanford didn’t reply, but directly they felt more than heard the heavy thud of Garza’s unstrapped corpse striking the deck two compartments back. A moment later, Sanford’s surly voice complained there was blood all over the headset he put on.
“What’s our fuel level?” Wheeler asked, calm but strained.
“It’s…let me see, it’s dark up there and the light’s…shit! It’s gone! We’re out of gas!”
“That’s impossible!” Pike snapped over the interphone. “We had full tanks, and as much as we’re losing, it ain’t that much!”
“Come look for yourself! We’re out of gas!”
“Let me look,” Mike suggested.
Wheeler shook his head and winced at his shoulder again. “No. If he’s right, we’ll have to set down in a hurry and I can’t do it.”
“I can’t either!” Mike protested. “I’ve only done it once, and nearly cracked us up!” Just as the scattered instrument and control layout of a PBY Catalina implied that their designers never imagined they’d lose the services of a competent flight engineer, the Navy must’ve never supposed the pilot might also be incapacitated. Co-pilots were generally trained to fly—something else—and sent to PBYs to learn on the job. Unfortunately, due to the specific and unique skills required to operate the big planes, especially when landing and taking off, a co-pilot’s education in those areas might be unusually prolonged. Particularly after American planes of any sort in the region had become so rare and precious. Mike felt comfortable holding Big Boobs straight and level while his skipper took a catnap, but that was about it.
“Sure you can,” Wheeler assured him unconvincingly. “And it doesn’t matter if you bang her up a little, this time, as long as you get her down in one piece,” he added with a touch of sadness.
“The dumb shit’s right,” Pike confirmed somberly, obviously having gone to see for himself. “Sanford, I mean,” he hastened to add. “We are out of fuel, or almost. There’s a little more in the starboard tank than port, but we better start looking for a place to land.”
“Fine,” Wheeler snapped back, “now get back where you belong and watch for Japs!” Mike couldn’t tell if Wheeler was angrier that Pike left his post, or that Sanford’s incompetence, belligerent idleness—whatever it was—had caused him to think he had to.
Frazee stuck his head up between the two pilots.
“Nothing on the horn but static, now,” the radio operator said. “Maybe the radio got shot up too? Doesn’t look like it at a glance. Maybe the aerial’s gone.”
Before they were attacked there’d been constant, desperate appeals for aid, mostly from merchant ships trying to escape the Dutch East Indies and falling prey to the Japanese. Frazee displayed a folded map. “But I might have a place we can go to roost. “
Mike looked where he pointed; Wheeler seemed to be having trouble focusing his eyes. “Panaitan Island? That’s right in the middle of the Sunda Strait. If the Japs really are there, they’ll snap us up for sure.”
Frazee shook his head. “All the dope had the Japs up around Bantam Bay—if they did get Houston and Perth last night. That’s more than a hundred miles to the northeast. And if they’re landing on Java, that’s where they’ll be. Why would they care about a crummy island on the other side of the strait?” He shrugged. “Besides, if the rumors were hogwash after all, and the guys we were scouting for make it through, we might signal them to pick us up.”
It sounded reasonable. It sounded like a chance. But if the Japanese were in the strait and did sink the two Allied cruisers, the wounded British Exeter and her four destroyer escorts were doomed as we
ll. Especially in daylight.
The port engine gasped and sputtered a moment and the battered seaplane bucked. “How far?” Wheeler asked tensely.
“About twenty miles,” Frazee replied, tone less confident than before.
Wheeler looked at Mike. “Ok, that’s what we’ll do. It makes sense. The Dutch’ll fight. Our guys too. It’ll take a while for the Japs to crawl all over Java and they probably won’t much care about an isolated island. We’ll head for there. Any planes?” he called back to the waist.
“Nothing, sir, not a speck.” Pike’s voice sounded vaguely surprised. “Maybe the ones that jumped us were low on fuel and had to turn back.”
“Doesn’t mean there won’t be more,” Mike warned. “Keep looking.”
The engine coughed again.
“Are we going to crash?” demanded Sanford.
“No,” Wheeler said definitively, glancing meaningfully up at the mixture controls next to the throttle levers overhead. He couldn’t adjust them with his mangled arm. Mike pursed his lips and leaned the engines out as far as he dared. They started to pop and clatter, but when he looked at Wheeler, the other man only nodded and made a “take her down” motion. At barely a thousand feet, the air was thicker and the engine really started to struggle. Mike figured the cylinder head temperatures were going through the roof, and Wheeler nodded back at the mixture control. Mike fed the engines a little more fuel and they flew like that for ten or fifteen minutes, laboring low above a jutting peninsula on the far west coast of Java. Back over the sea once more, all eyes—except maybe Sanford’s—scanning the sky for trouble, Frazee pointed ahead at a low-lying, jungle-darkened shape about the same size as the peninsula they’d just overflown.
“Still no planes?” Wheeler asked, his voice noticeably softer than before. “Anybody see any ships?”
“Nothing, sir,” Frazee told him, still leaning over the pilot’s shoulder, eyes scanning the sky around them, or comparing the island to the one on the map in his hand. “Place looks…different from what it shows here, but that’s nothing new.” One of the Asiatic Fleet’s—and PatWing-10’s—biggest problems all along had been the lousy, sometimes ancient charts the Dutch had provided them.
To Slip the Surly Bonds Page 15
