Red Randall Over Tokyo

by R. Sidney Bowen

  “A little, I think,” young Joyce replied without looking at him. “We did what we could, but he’d lost a lot of blood. It depends upon how soon we can get him to some medico on Negros. It’s not such a hot beginning, is it, Red? Wonder if it’s some kind of an omen, or something.”

  “Don’t be like that, fellow!” Randall said sharply, and reached over and rapped him lightly on one knee. “It’s just something that happened, that’s all. And why not? This part of the world is full of Jap planes, you know. To tell the truth, I was a little surprised that we didn’t meet up with some of them sooner.”

  “Yes, I was, too,” Joyce said, nodding absently. “And after all, this plane wasn’t something special for us. It was going to Negros, anyway, to get those members of General MacArthur’s staff.”

  “Hey, take it easy, Jimmy!” Randall admonished gently. “Don’t get the idea that Little had to die because of us. That’s not true, and you know it, fellow. What’s biting you, anyway?”

  “I guess I’ve been doing too much thinking,” Joyce said, and shrugged. “You know what I mean, and I’m sorry, Red. I’ll be okay soon. It’s just that every time I see some poor fellow catch his, I just can’t stop from thinking.”

  Randall nodded. He knew exactly what was in Jimmy Joyce’s mind. It was in his own mind constantly. He reviewed again the events of that terrible day at Pearl Harbor when his Dad, Colonel J. G. Randall, of the Fifth Pursuit Group stationed at Hickam Field on Oahu, had been seriously injured while bagging his share of sneaking Japanese attackers and had been sent back to the Mainland for lengthy hospitalization, never to fly again. Jimmy Joyce’s father, Commander Paul Joyce, of U. S. Naval Aviation, had been aboard the USS Arizona on that fateful day and had gone down to his death with that great ship.

  “Yes, I know, Jimmy,” Red said presently. “It’s always with both of us. And we wouldn’t want to forget it even if we could. It’s the one thing that will make us both fight this war harder than ever. But don’t get the crazy idea, fellow, that what happened tonight is any kind of a bad omen for us. Get that right out of your mind. Captain Little is dead, but I’ve a hunch we’re going to see lots of dead men before we finish up this job. And...”

  Randall stopped talking as Navigator Allen stuck his head inside.

  “Six minutes to the field, Randall,” he said. “You can start losing altitude now. Head her just as she goes. But be sure you don’t go down below fifteen hundred. That’s the arranged altitude, and those fellows on Negros probably have itchy fingers.”

  “Fifteen hundred feet it will be,” Randall called back to him. “No more and no less. Be sure and give me the buzz when we’re over the field.”

  “I will, and don’t forget to flash your wing lights. Three times. Well, a nice landing, Randall. And thank heavens you two were aboard tonight.”

  Randall made no reply to that. He dimmed his instrument cowl light and peered forward through the glass windshield at the deep darkness of the Southwest Pacific night. In some six minutes or so the first leg of their long journey would be finished. And then what? With things changing so fast these days, anything could happen. And how! Maybe Negros was no longer in American hands. Maybe the Japanese were in charge. Maybe...

  “That’s enough!” he snapped at himself. “Practice what you preach, Randall, and cut out thinking of crazy ideas!”

  “Huh, Red?” Jimmy Joyce echoed in his ear. “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t say a thing, fellow,” Randall grunted, easing the throttles back and pushing the Fort’s nose down. “Just talking through my hat. Skip it.”

  Chapter Seven – Expendables

  AS RANDALL HEADED the Flying Fortress on its third circuit around the patch of shadowy ground just fifteen hundred feet below the wings, a distinct chill settled in his chest and little beads of sweat oozed out on his forehead. The Fortress had been over the Negros field only a few minutes, but it seemed to his strained nerves that they had been circling about in the air for countless hours. Not a single flicker of light shone on the patch of shadowy ground below. There was nothing to indicate that there were human eyes down there watching the big four-engine plane circle against the canopy of stars high in the heavens.

  “Come on, light those flares!” Red muttered, and once more flashed his wing lights in the three signal. “We’ve got a wounded man aboard. Let us get down there, will you? Or are you Japs, and not Yanks?”

  He spoke the last unconsciously, and stiffened slightly in his seat when he realized what he had said. He cast a sharp glance at Jimmy Joyce. His pal evidently had not heard him. Jimmy sat hunched forward a little in the seat with his gaze fixed steadfastly on the shadowy ground below. Randall quickly turned his own gaze toward the ground and held the Fortress in a steady turn.

  Eventually he completed the third circuit of the field. He put his lips to the flap mike and called Allen.

  “You’re sure this is the spot, Allen?” he asked. “There doesn’t seem to be anybody down there.”

  “Positive,” Allen replied, but his voice was just a little too high pitched. “I’ve checked and rechecked. I’d bet my bars on it. What do you think we’d better do?”

  “Keep going around and wait,” Randall said grimly. “I’m not going to try to sit down without flares. I’d pile us up as sure as the Lord made little apples. So we’ll... Ah! And about time, too!”

  At that moment two long rows of flare lights spluttered on the ground. Off to one side a small arrow of flares burst out to point the way in. Red stared down at the rows of lights as great relief flooded through him. But he did not feel completely happy. There were lights down there, yes, but had Japanese or Colonel Baxter’s men set them out? The question burned through Randall’s mind as he put his lips to the flap mike and called all stations aboard the Fortress.

  “We’re going to make a landing run, men,” he said, “but whether or not I sit her down depends. Everybody keep your eyes peeled for figures on the field. Sing out if they look like Japs to you. And if they are Japs, hang on and give them the guns while I get us off again. Okay! Here we go!”

  The Fort’s wheels were already down as Randall reached the far end of the rows of lights and banked around into the wind. He set his flaps and throttles, sucked air through his clenched teeth and began to ease the big plane down toward the exact center of the strip between the two rows of sputtering lights. As the four-engine plane coasted down through the night sky, he squinted hard at the silhouetted figures of men standing to one side of the landing strip. At first they were just silhouettes, and then suddenly he was able to make out details. He gulped and blew out a long sigh. Those men down there were not Japanese. They were fellows from the good old U.S.A.

  “Relax, everybody!” he shouted into his flap mike. “It’s okay. We’re among friends. Hold tight.”

  A moment or two later the Flying Fortress touched ground. Randall applied the brakes gingerly and the plane slowly lost rolling speed until finally it came to a full stop. No sooner had the aircraft stopped rolling than the flare lights went out one by one. Red Randall cut his engines, and rubbed his tired eyes.

  “A very pretty landing, Red,” he heard Jimmy Joyce tell him. “Very nice indeed.”

  “Thanks,” Randall said. “But I don’t want to have to do that often. Here comes a bunch of men on the run. The first thing for us to do is get Wilson to a doctor. I sure hope there’s one here.”

  Most of the bomber’s crew were already out and down on the ground when Joyce and Randall reached the exit door. They dropped down to the ground and were immediately confronted by a tall rugged-faced man wearing the uniform of an American infantry colonel.

  “I’m Colonel Baxter in command here,” he said. “Which of you is Captain Little?”

  “Neither of us, sir,” Randall replied. “I’m Lieutenant Randall, and this officer is Lieutenant Joyce. Our orders were to report to you upon landing.”

  “Oh, yes, I received word about you two,” the Colonel said.
“I’ll speak to you in a moment. But where’s Captain Little? I want him to load up and get away from here before daylight.”

  “Captain Little is dead, sir,” Randall said quietly. “We ran into some Zeros. They got the Captain and wounded his copilot, Lieutenant Wilson. I took over the controls and brought us in on Navigator Allen’s instructions. Wilson is hit bad, sir, and needs a doctor as soon as possible. You’ve got one here?”

  “Yes, and field hospital equipment, too, thank God!” the Colonel breathed. Turning his head, he called out, “Major Sparkes! Come here with a couple of stretcher-bearers. A wounded man for you.”

  Without waiting for his order to be acknowledged, the Colonel turned back to Randall and Joyce.

  “Damned Japs got Little, eh?” he muttered. “Too bad. But one of the officers listed to go out is a pilot, so he can fly the plane. You two come along with me to my office.”

  Colonel Baxter turned and elbowed his way through the crowd of men that had gathered about the Fortress. The two pilots followed in his wake, and presently the Colonel entered a little knocked-together shack on the far side of the field. The place was half office and half sleeping quarters. A single oil lamp gave forth a faint glow, but there were blackout curtains over the door and over the two windows.

  Inside, Randall got his first good look at the Colonel. And what he saw startled him considerably. The Colonel’s uniform was in rags. The gummy mud of Negros was thick on his boots. The most startling thing was the man’s unshaven face. He looked like a man out cold on his feet, but one who possessed that inner spark that absolutely refused to let him quit. He was the kind of man who would go on until he dropped. Then he would pull himself up onto his feet and go on some more until he dropped again.

  “Sit down, Lieutenants,” he said in a weary voice and waved at a couple of chairs made from box slats. “Sorry it’s not more comfortable, but at least it will be just as uncomfortable for the Japs when they take over tomorrow or the next day.”

  “The Japs, sir?” Randall echoed sharply. “They’re that close?”

  “So close you can smell them,” the senior officer replied and wiped a dirty hand across an equally dirty forehead. “They tried a sneak landing on the east side this afternoon, but our patrols beat them off. Only a matter of time, though, until they whistle up their dive bombers and some heavy stuff to back up their landing. But they’ll know they’ve been in a battle. I can promise them that. My American-Filipino lads are good. We’ll give them bullets, and a good taste of the steel, too. But I didn’t bring you in here to tell you our troubles.”

  The Colonel paused, licked his lips and then wiped them with the back of his hand.

  “My orders code-called from Australia were to arrange for you to be taken aboard the submarine Sea King when it puts in here at Negros tonight. It has been putting in every night to take off dispatches and some things we’re trying to get out of the Philippines. But it didn’t show up last night for the first time in a week. Maybe she will show up tonight, but maybe she won’t. She may be at the bottom of the ocean for keeps. Bluntly, that’s how the picture is at the moment. What you two do about it is for you alone to decide.”

  “Just what do you, mean by that, sir?” Jimmy Joyce asked.

  The hard-bitten infantry Colonel gave a little shrug of his broad shoulders and made a little gesture with his hands.

  “Whether you go back to Australia on that Fortress,” he said, “or stick around here and hope for the best.”

  “Well, we’ll stick here, of course, and hope the Sea King does put in,” Randall said quietly.

  The Colonel gave him a look and a smile that was a little sad, it seemed.

  “It’s a bit more than that, Lieutenant,” he said in a voice that was both gruff and gentle. “It’s a question of how long the Japs let any of us stick around here. I don’t have to be told that you two are on an important mission. So I’m simply pointing out that it might be best for you to return to Australia, instead of staying here and getting killed with the rest of us. Assuming, of course, that the Sea King doesn’t put in here tonight.”

  “But, if it doesn’t put in tonight, sir,” Jimmy Joyce argued, “there’s still the chance that it will put in tomorrow night.”

  The Colonel sighed and shook his head.

  “It has to be tonight,” he said, glancing at his wrist watch. “Tomorrow night will be too late. The Japs will be here then.”

  Randall shivered in spite of himself and looked at the Colonel’s grim, war-weary face. He knew that by this time tomorrow night Colonel Baxter, and probably all of his gallant fighters on Negros, would be either dead or prisoners of the Japanese. The Colonel knew it, too. In fact, he fully expected to die. To delay the Japanese advance was his job, and the job of his pitifully few men. As on Bataan, and Corregidor, there was not the slightest hope of help. They were also the expendables. They knew it, and that was that. Someday the world would learn and understand and honor their memory for all time. But by tomorrow night they would be either dead or prisoners.

  “If the Sea King does put in tonight, sir,” Randall broke the silence, “what time should it show up?”

  “On the dot of midnight,” the Colonel said and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “In a little cove back there on the east side. I’ve got lookouts posted. They’ll ring me here if she flashes her approach signal. But the point is that the Fortress will have taken off long before then. The more hours of darkness that plane has to fly in, the safer it will be for all those aboard. The officers going back on her must get through to Australia. General MacArthur needs them. So, as I said, it’s up to you two. The Sea King may or may not be sunk. Your guess is as good as mine. You can go back on the Fortress, or stay here and take your chances.”

  Red Randall looked at Jimmy Joyce, and the unspoken word passed between them.

  “We’ll stay here, sir,” Randall told the Colonel. “If the Sea King puts in, fine. If it doesn’t...well, I guess you could use a couple of men who can operate a machine gun?”

  “Not only a couple, but a couple of thousand,” the senior officer said with a tired smile. “All right, then, you stick here and wait for the Sea King to put in. Maybe she will. For your sakes, I certainly hope she does. But if she doesn’t I want you to know that I appreciate your offer of help. And…”

  The Colonel left the rest hanging in mid-air and sat up stiff and straight. So did Randall and Joyce as they heard a sound that was something like an express train going through a tunnel. The sound rose until it was a sort of screaming whine, and then some place outside in the darkness there was a dull thud followed instantly by a muffled explosion.

  “This is the beginning,” Colonel Baxter said through clenched teeth. “That’s a Jap cruiser or two offshore beginning the business of trying to soften us up. Well, let them come. We’ll show them just how soft we are. You two wait here in case word comes about the Sea King. I’m going to get that Fortress away from here in a hurry. Ten to one the Japs have already sneaked ashore at some point. I haven’t enough men to watch every yard of the shore line. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  With a nod and a wave of his hand Colonel Baxter got up from his chair and ducked outside. For a moment Red Randall watched the wick in the oil lamp flicker, then he turned and grinned faintly at Jimmy Joyce.

  “Never a dull moment, anyway, huh?” he grunted. “Or what do you think? Are we really nuts to stay here and take a chance that the Sea King will show up?”

  Jimmy Joyce frowned and scraped a thumbnail across his chin.

  “For once in my life I really don’t know what to think, Red,” he said. “It...it was just something about the Colonel that suddenly made me want to stay here and take a chance. Gosh, Red! That man is going to die, and he knows it! That’s the kind of courage I never expect to have. It kind of gets you deep down inside. Just makes a fellow want to do every single thing he can to help. Maybe we are crazy to stay here. Maybe we should get out while the getting is good. We�
��re air pilots, not infantry. Yet, doggone it, Red, I just couldn’t go back to Australia on that Fortress.”

  “I know, fellow,” Randall said soberly. “We’d hate ourselves for the rest of our lives. And supposing we went back on her, and the Sea King did show up! A sweet how-do-you-do that would be. No, we stick here and do what we can...if anything.”

  As though to punctuate Randall’s statement, a shell from the bombarding Japanese cruiser offshore came screaming down on the far end of the flying field to explode in a roar of sound.

  Chapter Eight – Ground Action

  THE JAPANESE CRUISER off Negros heaved some half-dozen shells onto the little island and then for some mysterious reason quit firing. Only one had come close to the field, and that one simply had made a big hole in the ground. Waiting in the little shack for Colonel Baxter’s return, Randall and Joyce had counted the seconds between each shell burst.

  “Maybe they’re short of shells,” Randall grunted when continued silence followed the explosion of the sixth shell. “What time have you got, Jimmy? I make it nine forty-five on the dot.”

  “The same here,” young Joyce replied after a glance at his wrist watch. “Two hours and fifteen minutes to go. Then...oh-oh! There she goes, and happy landings to her!”

  The night outside was filled with the roar of the Flying Fort’s revving engine. By unspoken agreement Randall and Joyce got up from their chairs and slipped out into the night. The Fortress was beginning her take-off down the center of the strip between the two rows of flares. She did not show a single light, not even an exhaust plume, and to Red Randall watching her, and to Jimmy Joyce, too, the aircraft was like some huge prehistoric bird lifting itself on spread wings from the ground and climbing up into the night sky.

  “Happy landings!” Randall breathed softly, as the plane lost itself in the sky and the flares were snuffed out. “But come back some day with a thousand of your sisters. There will be a job here for you to do.”