Red Randall Over Tokyo

by R. Sidney Bowen

  These questions taunted him all the way from Darwin. But now, with General Ling Chan’s son along, their chances of success were increased a dozen-fold. It was a wonderful feeling of relief that flooded through him, and from the brightness of Joyce’s face he could tell that Jimmy was experiencing the same sensation. He looked at the General and smiled.

  “The reasons you give are more than enough, sir,” he said. “Lieutenant Joyce and I would like nothing better than to have your son, Colonel Harry Chan, accompany us. Frankly, I must admit that it really takes a big load off my mind. I just know we can’t miss now.”

  “May the sacred gods of our people make it so,” General Ling Chan murmured fervently. “Wait here, please. I will go and bring my son to meet you.”

  No more than fifteen minutes later the General returned with a Chinese officer the sight of whom caused both Randall and Jimmy Joyce to start in surprise. The General had spoken of the officer as his son, but somehow Randall had expected to see a man thirty or thirty-five years of age. The boy wearing Colonel’s insignia was about Randall’s age or younger. He was a clean-cut, clear-eyed youth and neat from the peak of his service cap to the bottom of his army boots. He was just a boy, save for his eyes. They were steady eyes, full of wisdom and courage, and in them Randall saw the age of China itself.

  “Lieutenants Randall and Joyce, my son, Colonel Harry Chan,” the General said with a ring of pride in his voice.

  Both Randall and Joyce saluted smartly, and then offered their hands.

  “A great pleasure, sir,” Red Randall said.

  “Indeed it is, sir,” Jimmy Joyce echoed.

  “The pleasure is mine,” Colonel Harry Chan said, and smiled boyishly as he shook hands. “My father has told me of what is to be done, and it will be one of the greatest honors of my life to help in my small way. But on one thing I must insist. I beg of you not to address me as ‘sir.’ On this venture, of which I have learned only the barest details, I am at your command. You are the commanders; I the soldier to take orders.”

  “No, I wouldn’t say that,” Randall said with a grin. “The three of us will be in it together, so we’ll be the same to each other. But if you don’t want us to call you sir, or Colonel, then what?”

  The youthful Chinese Army Colonel looked almost shy as he hesitated.

  “Would it offend you to call me Harry?” he asked.

  “Not at all, Harry,” Randall said with a laugh. “That will be swell. And this fellow here is Jimmy. And my friends call me Red.”

  “Enough!” General Ling Chan broke in gruffly, though a happy light glowed in his eyes. “We are all friends, but there is work to do and many things to discuss. Let us lose no more time.”

  Chapter Twelve – Challenged!

  THE SUN WAS like a huge blood orange suspended by an invisible wire in the western sky. Fanning out from it in all directions were shimmering streams of deep red, pale red, bright orange, yellow, and even a faint touch of green. Glancing toward it, Red Randall was held spellbound for a moment by the weird beauty of the combined effects of the shaded colors. He had never before seen a setting sun like this. It seemed to create a kind of evil beauty that made little shivers ripple through his body. With an effort he broke the trance that gripped him and turned his head front to stare out past the nose of the Japanese Showa Sho 98, single-engine fighter-bomber that General Ling Chan had provided for the flight to Takahara.

  But even by staring dead ahead he could not get away from the weird, eerie light of the setting sun. Its mixed rays tinted the seemingly limitless expanse of the Sea of Japan over which the Showa Sho winged northward. Sparkles of it were in the air, looking like specks of colored snow. In fact, rays of sunlight were everywhere, even in the cockpit with him, dancing across the glass dials of the instrument panel. He gave a little angry shake of his head, and put his lips to the intercom mike that made conversation with young Colonel Harry Chan and Jimmy Joyce in the seats behind him possible.

  “How long do you figure it now, Harry?” he called out. “That crazy light of the sun has me going nuts, but I’d guess that we haven’t more than a couple of hours of light left; Am I right, or will that sun hang around longer than that?”

  “Not this time of year, Red,” the Chinese youth called back. “Two hours is about right, and I figure that we’ll have fifteen to twenty minutes to spare before it gets too dark for a safe landing. Call it an hour and thirty-five minutes more we’ve got to fly. I’ll give you a change of course shortly. Japan proper is just over there beyond the eastern horizon. You can’t see it now, but you will soon. How’s the fuel making it?”

  “Very okay,” Randall said with a glance at his gauges. “We’ve only been on the main tanks a short while. And with only an hour and thirty-five minutes to go, that will leave us plenty for the flight back. Hey, there, Jimmy! How you making out, fellow?”

  “Fine, considering you two are doing all the work,” Joyce’s voice spoke in Randall’s earphones. “A nice comfortable little ship this, even if it is Jap. To look at her you’d never guess she could carry the load of gas she does. But of course she’s not carrying bombs, so that makes a big difference.”

  “Speaking of bombs,” Randall said, “it would have been nice if we’d had a few aboard when we passed over that Jap cruiser back there a way. Would they have been surprised!”

  “Yes, no doubt,” Harry Chan said grimly. “And right now we’d have the whole Japanese home air force on top of us. Let’s leave well enough alone, and call ourselves most lucky.”

  “You’ve got something there, Harry,” Red Randall said. “Only it isn’t luck, it’s you, Harry. Only one Jap cruiser and not a single Jap plane spotted since we left your father’s flying field. Back home that’s what we call tightrope walking the side line stripes for a touchdown. Once again let me say I’m sure glad you came along. No telling what Jimmy and I would have barged into trying to fly it blind.”

  “I still call us most lucky,” Harry Chan said gravely. “I have had little to do with it. It simply appears that the Japanese navy and airplanes are busy elsewhere. Let us bear in mind that we have not reached Takahara. We have yet to fly over Japanese ground. I only hope we will continue to be as lucky as we have been.”

  “And you can hope that again for me!” Randall grunted, and emphasized his words with a curt nod.

  “And make it three times for me!” Jimmy Joyce sang out.

  Randall half grinned, nodded once more, but made no comment. Truth to tell, the word luck was one that was beginning to make him wince inwardly every time he thought of it, because luck had certainly been Jimmy Joyce’s and his by the bucketful ever since leaving Australia. It just did not seem possible that any two people could be favored with so much of it. Something just had to let go soon. It could not keep on this way indefinitely.

  Luck and more luck. Take the very start of this flight for example. They had timed their take-off from General Ling Chan’s secret mountain field so that, barring accident, they would hit Takahara right on the dot of dusk. Every preparation possible had been made. They had stored aboard food and water, navigation charts that Harry Chan had worked out, side arms, a portable machine gun, a Japanese radio that Harry Chan knew how to operate, and most important of all, spare tins of precious gasoline that could be used on the first half of the flight and then be tossed overboard. With the spare tins, plus the reserve and main tanks, they had enough gas, and perhaps a little to spare, for the twenty-three hundred mile round trip.

  Every preparation possible had been made—but no one foresaw, the sudden China rain squall that swept around the edge of one of the surrounding mountains. The storm broke just as Randall was opening up the air-cooled radial engine. In no time at all, oceans of water streamed down on the Showa Sho as it picked up speed along the narrow runway that had been virtually cut out of solid rock by Chinese hands. The runway strip soon was like an oiled sheet of glass. The plane would have skidded and crabbed a wheel within fifty feet and piled u
p in a heap if Randall had cut his engine and braked to a stop. But to go on into the teeth of the rain was equally dangerous.

  Yet he had had to go on. It was the lesser of two evils. His heart rode in his throat, as the sturdy plane fought the swirling rain squall. When Randall was convinced that he could not possibly make it, and was about to yank back the throttle and snap, the switches, bull luck in the form of a crazy crosscurrent of air had hit the Showa Sho and practically booted it clear and up into the air. Once up, the plane had remained up, and kept on going.

  That had been “years” ago. Since then they had sighted only one Japanese cruiser. Now the goal, Takahara, was only an hour and a half away.

  “Doggone, just like a dream!” Randall murmured to himself, and gave a little nervous twist of his head. “No, not like a dream. More like something I was reading in a book. Me flying over Japan! Imagine it!”

  Absently he turned his head to look again at the weird light cast by the setting sun. The distinct flash of sunlight on moving wings caught his attention and he stiffened in his scat. He could make out three sets of monoplane wings, quite a way off and up-sun. They were unmistakably Japanese Zeros. He put his lips to the flap mike to tell the others, only to hear Jimmy Joyce’s excited voice in his earphones.

  “Jap Zeros at nine o’clock up-sun!” he cried out. “Three of them, and they see us, I think. They look like they’re heading down this way. Can you make those clouds off to starboard, Red?”

  Once again Randall started to speak, but once again a voice crackled in his phones. This time it was Harry Chan.

  “Veer toward those clouds, Red, yes,” the Chinese youth said, “but don’t let it look, like we’re running away. They’re trying to get us on the radio, I think, but the signals aren’t clear. Just a minute! Quiet, everybody. Don’t talk. My mike might pick it up!”

  Randall’s nerves seemed to go piano wire taut as he began to edge the plane over toward a bank of fluffy clouds hung in the sky to the east. His breath came in quick, short gasps, and he impulsively pressed one of his intercom phones closer to his ear before he realized that his headphones were not hooked into the plane’s receiving set. He grinned tight-lipped, lowered his hand and looked westward toward the three Japanese Zeros.

  They were coasting down toward the Showa Sho, but they certainly were not trying to overtake the light bomber. Realization of that fact filled Randall with a mixed feeling of relief and disappointment; relief because it was obvious that the Jap pilots did not know who they were, and disappointment because they did not come piling down to fight. True, this was no time for an air scrap with the goal of Takahara not so very far away. But the memory of Negros Island was still fresh in Randall’s mind...and three dead Japanese would be three less to kill at some other time.

  “I’ve just been talking with the leader of that flight!” Harry Chan’s hushed but excited voice cut off Randall’s thoughts. “We’ve got to decide what to do, and do it quickly. They are the offshore patrol for this area, and their leader is demanding who we are, our identification number, and where we’re bound. I made up something quickly and shouted it back to impress him. But I don’t think it did any good. It seems that no planes, other than patrol planes, are allowed in this area. A ruling since the Tokyo raid, of course. He’s calling his base at Kanazawa to check what I told him.”

  “Not so good!” Randall muttered, and absently slid his thumb up to the electric firing button on the control stick. “If...”

  “Quiet!” Harry Chan stopped him. “He’s calling me again. I’m switching over. Better get ready for anything to happen.”

  “You’re telling me!” Randall whispered to himself, and picked out the three Zeros again with his eyes.

  They were still more or less hugging the setting sun, but as he peered at them they closed up into tight formation and steepened the angle of their approach considerably. He licked his lips and tried to swallow the “sawdust” in his mouth and throat.

  “They are coming down to escort us to the Kanazawa Base!” Harry Chan’s Voice sounded in his earphones again. “He says orders are for us to return with them. We can’t do that! Can you reach those clouds fast enough, Red, to lose them before they can open fire?”

  “No, those Zeros can travel!” Randall replied. “Besides they’ve got altitude. But we’re not going to this Kana-whatsit Base, either.”

  “Then what?” came Jimmy Joyce’s voice over the intercom. “Pile in and nail them?”

  “You’ve called the turn, Jimmy!” Randall told him. “But not just pile in. That would be tipping them off. We’re going to shoot their ears off before they know what’s happening. Man your guns. Hold your fire until I give the word. We let them come down and in close...then, bingo! Any objections? Any arguments?”

  “Not me!” Jimmy Joyce called out. “A Zero at the end of my guns would just suit me fine.”

  “And I will do my very best, I promise,” Harry Chan said grimly. “Yes, to surprise and shoot them down is what we must do!”

  “Check on it then, fellows!” Randall said and veered the bomber around toward the approaching Zeros. “Make your first bursts count. The left one for you, Jimmy. The right one for you, Harry. And I’ll go for the middle guy. Everybody wait until I give the word. And good shooting.”

  Hunching forward slightly over the controls, Randall lined up his sights on the center of the three Japanese Zeros sweeping down across the sky, and rested his thumb on the trigger button. Now that he was deliberately slamming in to give battle, his nerves were no longer jittery, and the lumps of cold lead had gone from his stomach. As a matter of fact, there was a wild joy surging through him.

  “Come and get it!” he spoke through clenched teeth. “And by the way, I’m glad we have three sets of guns on this job. Each of us wants a crack at you, you see?”

  And then suddenly he cut his words off short. Perhaps the oncoming Japanese pilots had become suspicious, or perhaps they decided that their diving speed was too great. At any rate, the two wing planes began to pull away from the center Zero. A frown creased Randall’s brows and a faint sense of uneasiness came over him.

  “Not so good!” he muttered aloud. “If they come in that way it will make the range too long for Jimmy and Harry. They’ll...”

  The rest he finished with a sigh of relief, because the two wing pilots came veering back into close formation again. All three of them having now reached the altitude of the Showa Sho leveled off and came winging straight forward. Wild excitement rippled through Randall, and his whole body stiffened.

  “Any second now, fellows!” he spoke hoarsely into the flap mike of his intercom. “Any second now. Steady...steady... Okay! Let them have it!”

  As the last spilled from his lips Randall pressed the firing button on his control stick, but even as he did so he eased up the nose of the bomber a hair so that his first burst of bullets cut through thin air several feet above his onrushing target. In that last split second he could not bring himself to deal out cold murder, Jap or no Jap. And so he deliberately missed his target to give its pilot fair warning and the challenge to fight.

  His sights came down on the center Zero a brief moment later, just as the Japanese plane started to haul up and around. But the Japanese pilot was too late. He obviously fumbled over his controls, and his turn to get away in a hurry was slow and ragged. As a result, Randall’s relentless fire pinned the Zero to the sun-tinted sky. It seemed to hover there for an instant, then red fire spewed up from under its engine cowling, and the plane went slithering downward, leaving behind a long trail of ugly black smoke.

  Randall did not watch it fall. The instant the flames showed he took his gaze off the plane and looked to the left. By now the Showa Sho was directly between the two wing Zeros, and when Randall glanced to the left a shout of joy burst from his lips. Jimmy Joyce had not been asleep at the switch. He had held his fire until the right instant, and now was pounding out death and destruction across the air space between his gun and t
he Zero on the left.

  The Japanese fighter staggered sideways, as though it had rammed nose first into an invisible brick wall. Then, as though by magic, its left wing came off clean and went slip-sliding off through the air. The rest of the Zero spun over on its back, then dropped by the nose and went down like a spent bullet.

  “Pretty, Jimmy, pretty!” Randall shouted. “Two for our side. Now, Harry, make it...!”

  The last froze on Randall’s lips as he jerked his head around to look off to the right. The third Zero was still flying. But it was flying away from the Showa Sho at top speed! At that instant Randall’s earphones rang with shrill, angry Chinese words, though it all was just a jumble of sound to him. Then it stopped abruptly, and Harry Chan spoke hoarsely in English.

  “My gun, it jammed! It wouldn’t fire a shot. A thousand curses on the one who checked these guns and declared them all right. When we return to Kiaochow I will order his ears cut off and pinned over his eyes. My friends, my shame is great. There is one who is getting away. He does not dare give battle. Right now he is radioing his base. Soon the air will be filled with Japanese planes searching for us. And it is all my fault. My gun would not fire when I pressed the trigger button.”

  “Forget it, Harry!” Randall sang out. “Those things happen to all of us. Just tough luck, that’s all. I know you would have nailed him cold if you’d had the chance.”