The survivor Read online

  About ten guys were frantically trying to swing one of the artillery guns around and get it set, so he took care of them and hosed the whole outfit down again, watching the belt uncoiling from the ammo box and looking around for more belts.

  The smart boys were getting back into the trees and behind the buildings. More and more stuff was hitting the tank, and the plane's props were blow-

  ing clouds of dust over it, making it hard for Guns to pick his targets.

  "Get that thing out of here," Guns said, angrily, glaring at the plane he could barely see through the dust.

  Then Guns' anger died and he was sad, because now he would never be able to tell Adam that he was as good a marine as Guns had ever served with. A marine.

  *'np here's a wab going on," the Rebel said.

  X Adam was having trouble now with things moving in and out of focus as he searched the panel for the fuel selector. Later, he told himself. "Let's go," he said.

  "Can you make it?" Jason asked.

  "Yeah," Adam said and was surprised that he knew now that he could. He got one hand on the throttle knobs and the other around the yoke. "Keep your feet hard on those pedals," he told Jason. "The great stripy bird."

  "They're all goofed up," the Rebel said, looking out the window. "They're shooting up their own tank"

  Adam pushed the throttles forward as fast as the engines could take it. The waves that were rolling through his brain were coming faster now, and each one seemed to black him out for a longer time. He knew he couldn't last to check the magnetos, but the engines were going smoothly. He held the yoke forward to keep the plane from leaping off the ground when Jason let go on the brakes.

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  "Off the pedalsr Adam said.

  The plane seemed to jump forward, then it slowed a little and began to roll.

  Adam could feel, in the back of his head, a wave of the sick darkness rolling toward him. He held it back and looked out at the shortening runway streaming imder the nose of the plane. He would let it roll all the way. Let it roll to the lagoon. . . .

  He looked for and found the landing-gear control and showed it to Jason. He wanted those wheels to start up the instant they left the ground—if they ever did. But not before. Not a second too soon, or the plane would go down on its belly; nor too late, adding drag that could pull them into the lagoon. "Ill say XJpV" he told Jason.

  He was running out of runway, the blue water of the lagoon seeming to come at him too fast Then he had to translate kilometers per hour into knots to figure his ground speed. Six tenths . . .

  Guns, in the tank, kept the enemy down with short bursts from the machine gun, between biu-sts watching the plane as it lumbered down the runway. It seemed to him to be going too slow ever to lift itself off the ground, and he felt sorry for Adam and Jason and the Rebel. It had been a good try—a pity it had to end with the plane in the lagoon.

  Guns felt a tingle of fear as he saw the wheels of the plane folding backward. Now, he thought, the plane was going to drop down on its silver belly and crash right at the end of the runway. He had seen planes do this and had wondered how the enormous fire could start so instantly.

  The wheels kept folding, and the plane went neither up nor down. It passed over the end of the coral runway and was out over the lagoon now.

  Guns laughed aloud in the tank. If there had been waves in tliat lagoon, waves only a foot high, the plane would never have cleared them. It was the best piece of flying he had ever seen, and he said in a whisper, "Go go gol"

  Guns saw some of the troops appearing again and he swung the gun on them. It fired a dozen times and then stopped firing in mid-burst.

  It did not surprise Guns, for he had been expecting it and knew that the ammo belt had been exhausted.

  But the plane was slowly pulling itself up and he still had the cannon, the barbette moved by the still running engine of the tank.

  Gims settled down now to take care of the enemy's antiaircraft guns. He picked out the long sky-pointing barrels of them and shot at their bases with the cannon, the tank jerking back on its treads at every round.

  He shot all the ammo for the cannon and then looked around in the tank for some small-arms stuff. They were, he decided, going to have to get him out of this tank with a can opener.

  The plane was now just a pencil Une in the sky, two dots in the line.

  Guns aimed the small-caliber rifle carefully at a group of the enemy cranking up a flame thrower. .. .

  The Rebel, who had been standing in the narrow space just behind the two pilot's seats turned

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  back into the plane and said, "How about that. Guns. We all is flyin* lak . . r Then he stopped talking and walked slowly back into the plane. He walked all the way back to the head and pulled aside the curtain. "Guns?" he said. "Guns?"

  The Rebel turned and went back to the cockpit He leaned down so he could see Adam's face. Under the dirty beard Adam's skin was gray, and his clenched teeth made the muscles stand out

  The Rebel leaned down close to Jason, "Guns isn't here,** he told him.

  Jason swung around, *Tou*re nuts!**

  "No. I think he went back to the tank**

  "What /or?" Jason yelled.

  "There was a real war going on when we took oflF. Between them and the tank. Guns."

  Jason looked at the Rebel for a moment, his mouth set hard to keep anything from showing. Then he said, "GunsTl give 'em heU."

  "He sho' will," the Rebel said.

  Adam said, "In case I can't manage it, here's what you do, Jason."

  It took him a long time to show Jason, He kept forgetting things, leaving out things, but at last he showed Jason how to hold it steady on the course he hoped would take them near the American-held island of Samoa. To fly straight and level. Then Adam said, "I'm going to sleep a httle while."

  Jason held the yoke with tense hands, his eyes straining between the airspeed meter and the altimeter. The Rebel leaned down close to him and said, "Is he going to wake up, Jason?"

  "See what you can do for him," Jason said. "I'm flying.--

  All the Rebel could do for Adam was to slow the draining away of his blood. When he finished, Jason asked, "How bad is it?"

  "Anybody else would be dead." Then he looked at Jason. "How are we going to get down from here, Jason?"

  Jason allowed his eyes to leave the instruments long enough to look over at Adam. Adam looked dead as he lay slumped in the seat, the bloody seat belt holding the Rebel's bandaging in place. Then Jason looked at the Rebel. "He'll get us down, Reb."

  FOR FOUB HOURS Adam sat in the pilot's seat, held upright by the belt and shoulder harness, his head lying to one side, his eyes closed. Many times during the hours the Rebel and Jason thought that he had finally died, but he did not die. He gave no sign of consciousness, said nothing, apparently did not hear anything they said.

  But, after four hours, he suddenly opened his eyes and said, "How long, Jason?"

  "Four hours and ten minutes."

  "See anything?"

  "Water."

  "We'll radio Samoa," Adam said, and then, as though he were perfectly healthy, he told Jason how to turn on and tune the radio, reading the little, strange symbols. The Rebel hung the microphone around Adam's neck and then held the push-

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  to-talk button, for Adam didn't have strength enough.

  Adam called in the clear, asking for Radio Samoa and even managed to smile a httle as Samoa answered almost at once.

  "This is Lieutenant Adam Land, Naval Reserve. Fm flying a captured enemy twin-engined Betty at angels 10 on course 187, speed 180. Request course to Samoa field. Over."

  The flat voice of Radio Samoa said, "Bogey at angels 10, course 187, speed 180. It's a Betty. Go get him I"

  "Nol** Adam tried to shout into the microphone. "Leave us alone, pleasel This is not a trick. We are unarmed, without bombs. There
are only me and three marines. United States marines. My number is 070562—look it up. Land, Adam Land."

  "PlanesI" the Rebel said, pointing out the side window.

  There were six Navy F2F's speeding down on them.

  Adam said nothing, and when the Rebel looked at him his head had fallen over again, his eyes closed again.

  The Rebel got the microphone off of Adam and held it in his hand. "Listen heah, you all," he said into the mike. "You shoot down this heah plane and Ah'm comin' back to ha'nt you. You Navy swab handles, you. We done brought this plane from way out yonder and we want to land it. We got a wounded Navy pilot aboard."

  The flat voice of Radio Samoa came in then, **You are cleared to land, Betty. But if you open

  your bomb bay or man your guns we will shoot you down. Acknowledge.**

  "Okay," the Rebel said and looked again at Adam. "Listen, down there," he said into the mike. "We may not be able to get this plane down in one piece. So take this down. Write it down. We are Operation Moondance. We've come from Island Moondance, and here's what's on it. Write this down, because that's what we went out there to find out. They've got eighteen coast-defense guns on concrete pads that can cover any landing, sea or lagoon. They've got thirty-six antiaircraft guns, Nambu or Bofors. Troops estimated at two thousand and apparently well trained . . ." The Rebel went on, reeling off the details of the defense on Moondance.

  When he stopped, Adam suddenly said, "And that tank, Reb."

  The Rebel had purposely left out the tank because, with Guns in it, there wouldn't be much left of the tank by the time they got Guns out of it.

  Or much left of Guns, the Rebel thought, and wondered why it was always the best guys who got it.

  "There's the island," Jason said. "Can you see it, Adam?"

  Adam strained to sit up, and the Rebel helped him.

  Below them Samoa was green and beautiful and peaceful, with the long landing strip cut, as on Moondance, through the groves of coconut palms. They could see the neat little houses of the native

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  communities, see the churches and schoolhouses.

  "I've got it," Adam said, lifting his hands to tlie yoke.

  Beside them the Navy F2F's flew in formation, ready to shoot if a gun on the Betty moved or the bomb bays as much as cracked open.

  The Betty swung into its approach and settled toward the earth. "Gear down," Adam said. "Flaps down."

  Jason looked at him. He was sitting ahnost erect, his head up, his eyes moving from the instruments to the field ahead of them.

  Now the runway was streaming under them. Then the wheels touched with a Httle scream of rubber. Adam reversed pitch of the props and cut the throttles.

  As the engine stopped and the plane stopped rolling, it seemed to Jason and the Rebel strangely quiet and suddenly hot inside the plane.

  Outside, a jeep, loaded with oiBBcers, came tearing down the runway. And off to the left Jason saw machine guns concealed in the low undergrowth.

  "Don't take a deep breath, Reb," Jason whispered. *There're marines behind those guns."

  They heard the jeep roar up and stop outside. Then a voice yelled, "Open up and come out with your hands up."

  Jason leaned out the window. "We got a wounded officer in here, sir. Wounded bad."

  "All right, we're coming in. Remember, no tricks. You're covered."

  "TricksI" the Rebel said to nobody, going aft to open the door.

  The oflBcers, armed with carbines and looking as though they were about to use them, came cautiously into the plane. But when they saw the Rebel, they relaxed a little.

  The Rebel followed them respectfully as they marched forward through the plane to the cockpit. *Who's the pilot?" an officer asked.

  Jason pointed at Adam, who had slumped back into the seat. His head was hanging down on his chest now. Jason had not noticed that, and he gendy raised Adam's head and let it rest on the back of the seat.

  For a moment it did not seem important, but then, slowly, Jason put out his hand again and touched Adam on the throat.

  So cold, so cold and still. "He's dead," Jason said.

  "Who is he?" the officer asked.

  Jason looked up at him. Jason's throat was so tight it hurt, and suddenly his head ached behind his eyes.

  Jason said to the officer, "A marine."