JET PLANE
MYSTERY

By
ROY J. SNELL

WILCOX & FOLLETT CO.
CHICAGO
1946

COPYRIGHT, 1944, BY
WILCOX & FOLLETT CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

I [Whistling Mystery] 1 II [Contact] 10 III [Friendly Enemies] 20 IV [A Glorious Fight] 27 V [A Good Show] 34 VI [Plane Wrecked] 40 VII [A Night’s Adventures] 49 VIII [A Look at a Mystery Plane] 60 IX [The Tagged Monkey] 70 X [“Hist There! You!”] 78 XI [Night Fighters] 86 XII [Up at Dawn] 96 XIII [The Jet Plane] 105 XIV [Ted’s Gony] 115 XV [The Secret Book] 125 XVI [Mostly Memories] 134 XVII [Voices in the Night] 143 XVIII [Luck, Pals and Providence] 152 XIX [Mysteries Deepen] 158 XX [A Ship from Some Other World] 165 XXI [Mary Brown from the U. S. A.] 175 XXII [Star of the Mist] 183 XXIII [Hot Cannibal Rivets] 192 XXIV [Twilight Battle] 200 XXV [Jack’s New Gunner] 207 XXVI [Jack’s Jet Plane Wins Its Way] 217 XXVII [Stratosphere Tactics] 225 XXVIII [The Jet Plane’s Last Battle] 234

JET PLANE MYSTERY

CHAPTER I
WHISTLING MYSTERY

Ensign Jack Steel sat on the edge of a life raft whittling a stick. A strange place to whittle, one might say, on the deck of a great U. S. aircraft carrier in mid-Pacific. But Jack loved to whittle.

“What do you make when you whittle?” someone once asked him. “Shavings—just shavings—that’s all,” had been his prompt reply. Then, feeling that this was not a real answer, he went on to say, “I whittle and think. Thinking is what really counts.”

Jack was thinking now, not thinking hard—just letting thoughts drift in and out of his mind. There was enough to think about, too; they were in Jap waters right now. Something was bound to happen soon, perhaps at dawn. Jack would be away before dawn, for his was a scout plane. Back at the faraway training base at Kingsville he had put in his bid for a dive bomber.

“Ah! A dive bomber!” he had said to Stew, his buddy. “There’s the plane for me! You climb to twelve thousand feet, you get near the target, you come zooming down at four hundred an hour, you let go your bomb, and—”

“Wham!” Stew had exclaimed.

“Yes,” Jack had agreed. “Then you get out of there fast, as if Old Nick himself was after you.”

In the Navy you don’t talk back; so when the powers that be read off Jack, or “Jackknife Johnny,” as some of the boys called him, for a scout ship, a scout ship it had been—and still was.

And now, Jack thought, I wouldn’t trade my little old scout plane for any ship that flies. To go skimming away before dawn, to watch the “dawn come up like thunder” in those tropical waters, then to skip from cloud to cloud, eyes ever on the sea, looking for the enemy—ah, that was the life!

“Nothing like it!” he whispered as he carved off a long shaving and allowed it to drop silently on the deck.

A moving shadow loomed up before him. He knew that shadow—“Old Ironsides,” as the boys called him—Lieutenant Commander Donald Stone, boss of the carrier Black Bee, Jack’s ship, was on his way to the bridge.

“Must get a swell view of our task force from up there, eh, Commander?” Jack spoke before he thought. He’d always been that way.

“Eh? What? Oh, it’s you, Jackknife Johnny.” The Commander gave a low laugh. “Well now, on a night like this you don’t see much—a bit of white foam after each ship, and a blink of light now and then—that’s all.”

“It’s enough, sir,” said Jack. “You know what’s there—cruisers, destroyers, and maybe a tanker. Your mind must fill in the picture.”

“Oh! It does! It really does!” the Commander agreed. “Want to come up and see for yourself?” he invited.

“That would be keen, sir!” said Jack, dropping to his feet.

“Come on up then,” the Commander urged.

As Jack mounted the steps to the Commander’s bridge, twenty-five feet above the flight deck, he thought how strange life aboard a carrier would seem to those who had never put to sea as a navy pilot. Routine was strictly adhered to. When a flight of planes came in from a practice flight, they came down in perfect formation like a flock of wild geese landing on a pond.

Strict discipline, yes, he told himself, yet here I am following our Commander to his bridge, and it doesn’t seem a bit strange; for he’s one of us. We’re all one, all dressed in khaki, all tanned, trained to the last degree, ready to act as a unit to beat the Japs.

“Life on a carrier surely is grand, sir!” he said aloud.

“Yes, son,” the hardy old Commander rumbled. “There’s never been anything like it before.”

“Never has, sir,” Jack agreed.

“And now,” said the Commander as they reached the bridge, “there’s your Navy task force on a moonless night. Have a seat. Take it all in. I’m going to do a little meditating on the reality of the Absolute.” He laughed, and Jack laughed with him. Jack didn’t know who or what the Absolute might be, but he did know that the Commander was giving him a real treat, and that was enough for him.

It was strange sitting up there feeling the throb of the ship’s mighty engines, looking away at the blacker-than-black sea, and knowing that they were racing along at twenty knots an hour toward some sort of real trouble.

“Spooky,” he thought.

And indeed, it was just that, for they were definitely in Jap waters. Everyone expected a fight at dawn. If some Jap snooper plane or submarine sighted them now, there would be a mighty battle.

To the right and a little ahead he caught a white gleam on the water. “That’s the Black Knight,” he told himself. The Black Knight was a fast and powerful cruiser. Three other cruisers, always close to the carrier but not too close, sped along with them. Six destroyers lay farther out.

“What a lot of power, sir!” Jack said aloud as the Commander strode past him.

“What? Yes, a lot of striking power,” the Commander agreed. “We’re likely to need it, too. They say the Jap navy won’t come out and fight. You can’t count on that. They’re sly rascals, those Japs. They might pounce on us with double our striking power any time. They....”

“What’s that, sir?” Jack broke in.

“What’s what?” The Commander paused.

“Don’t you hear it, sir?” Jack asked. “It’s like the howl of a dog, or a train whistle far away.”

“All I hear is that banjo on the after deck,” the Commander laughed low.

“It’s not that, nor anything like it.” Jack was in dead earnest. “It’s nothing on this ship. It comes from far away, sir. Listen hard.”

“You have good ears,” said the Commander. “Radio ears, perhaps. They say there are people who can pick radio messages right out of the air with their unaided ears. I’ve never believed that, but—say!” His voice rose. “I think I do hear something out there!”

“Sure you do, sir!” Jack exclaimed. “It’s getting louder, closer!”

For a space of seconds the two of them, the aged Commander and the boy, stood there listening with breathless attention.

“This may be serious!” the Commander exclaimed at last, as he dashed for the intership telephone.

Jack heard him barking words into the phone. He at last exclaimed loud enough to be heard, “Good boy, Steve! Keep a sharp watch!”

Jack wondered who Steve was, but more than that he wanted to know what made that high-pitched, screaming whistle that had increased in volume until it fairly filled the sky.

“It’s a bomb!” he exclaimed at last. “Sounds just like the ones those Jap dive bombers threw at us!” He wanted to race down the companionway to seek a safer spot. And then again he did not, for was not this a first-class mystery? And was not the Commander standing by? You had to be a real sailor.

“Could be a bomb from some stratosphere plane,” the Commander, who had returned to his post, agreed. “But I doubt it.”

“What is it then, sir?” Jack asked.

“Some Jap trick I’d say,” the Commander rumbled. “They may be closer than we think. The Germans claim they’ve got planes loaded with TNT that they guide by radio. It might be one of those.”

From below came the murmur of many voices. All over the ship men were calling, “What is it?” “What’s going on?” “Here it comes!” “Here she comes!”

Jack wondered if they would be ordered to battle stations, but no order came.

“It’s high up and coming fast.” There was a suggestion of huskiness in the Commander’s voice.

“It will pass over quickly, sir,” Jack declared. “Unless....”

“Yes,” the Commander agreed.

To Jack, whose mind often conjured up strange things, all that lay about him—the night, the black sea, the tiny lights blinking in from nowhere, and the eerie scream from the night sky—seemed part of another world.

The Commander took a more practical view of it. “Maybe a meteor,” he grumbled.

“A meteor!” Jack was startled.

“Yes, a shooting star that’s burned its way through the earth’s atmosphere.”

“But I don’t see—”

Jack did not finish, for all of a sudden he realized that the thing, whatever it might be, had passed directly over their heads and was now speeding east.

“It—it’s gone by!” Jack exclaimed. “Danger’s over.” He experienced intense relief.

“I wonder,” was the Commander’s strange reply.

“Whew! that was fast, sir!”

“Fast?” the Commander added in a lower tone. “Faster than any plane you’ve ever flown, Jack my boy!”

“I wouldn’t doubt it, sir,” Jack laughed.

“Or ever will fly,” the Commander added.

In this last statement he was entirely wrong, as future events were to prove.

“Who’d want to ride a meteor, sir?” Jack asked with another laugh.

“Meteor? Oh, yes. Quite a wild guess on my part,” said the Commander. “A meteor speeding through the air would glow with the heat created by friction. You didn’t see anything, did you?”

“Not a thing, sir. Whatever it might be, it’s black as night itself.”

“Well, that’s that.” The Commander sighed a moment later when the last faint whistle had died away in the night.

“Just one of those things, sir,” Jack agreed. At that he wondered whether he had spoken the truth. Or will there be more of them, many more? he wondered. And will one of them at last make contact with the broad side of the old Black Bee?

“Boy, oh boy!” he whispered to himself. “That would be something!”

A moment more of vast, black silence, and he was excusing himself to go down the ladder to join his buddies.

“Got to turn in, sir,” he explained.

“That’s right,” the Commander agreed. “Tomorrow may be a great day for us all. You never know.”

CHAPTER II
CONTACT

On the flight deck Jack joined a group of his fighting pals. Sprawled about the deck, they were still discussing the mysterious something that had gone screaming over their heads.

“It’s a Jap trick,” said Dave Dunn, a torpedo bomber pilot. “I tell you they’re closer than you think!”

“They didn’t have to be too close at that,” Jack broke in. “I was on the Commander’s bridge when the thing went over.”

“Oh, ho! Listen to Jackie!” Kentucky, a fighter pilot, exclaimed. “Been hobnobbin’ with the Commander!”

“Shut up, Ken!” Red Sands, another fighter pilot, gave him a push. “What does the Commander think about it, Jack?”

“It’s a sign. That’s what it is!” a bombardier exclaimed. “Sign of trouble ahead!”

“The Commander thinks just what we all think.” Jack gave a low chuckle as he dropped to the deck. “Might be just anything—a meteor, a Jap nuisance trick—just anything!”

“Nuisance trick! Say! If that thing had hit us I’ll say it would have been a nuisance!” Blackie, another fighter, exclaimed.

The talk went on, but Jack, who for the moment had lost interest in the sky-screamer, was talking with his pal, Stew Sherman, radio gunner.

“The Commander thinks we’ll contact a Jap task force tomorrow,” he confided.

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Stew murmured softly.

Unlike Jack, who was tall, slim, blond, and quick as the snap of a jackknife blade, Stew was short, solid, and rather quiet.

“A message was picked up from a land-based plane,” Jack continued. “He was reporting back to his own base. That base is a long way from here, but those big old land-snoopers cruise long distances. He was reporting a Jap task force headed south. Sounds like action ahead!”

“It’s our turn next,” Stew grumbled. “Last time Louie and Dave spotted the Jappies. We’ll find ’em this time, or bust!”

“We sure will!” Jack agreed.

“Which means we’d better turn in,” Stew suggested.

They were on their feet, when suddenly the squeaky notes of a badly played violin reached Jack’s ears. “Oh! Ouch!” he exclaimed in mock pain.

The two boys wandered back to find Ted Armour, a fighter pilot, doing his best to murder “Turkey in the Straw.” Ted was the son of a rich stockbroker, but a real fellow for all that.

“For Pete’s sake, tune that fiddle!” Jack exploded.

“Tune it yourself!” Ted held out the violin. “How are you going to do it without a piano?”

Without troubling to reply, Jack accepted the challenge. Tucking the fiddle under his chin, he began strumming its strings.

“No.... Now!” He exclaimed once. Then, “There, that’s better!” He hummed a tune, tested a string, hummed again; then, after drawing the bow across the strings, exclaimed softly:

“Not bad! Not bad! Really quite a fiddle!”

“Little you know about that!” someone laughed. “You’re just a scout pilot.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jack laughed. Then, after one more testing of the strings—seeming to forget his surroundings, the racing carrier, the black sea, the murmuring men—he began to play the “Londonderry Air.”

At once the group became silent. Even the great ship’s motors seemed to throb in a strange, new way as the plaintive strain drifted out into the night.

Jack played it through to the end, while many a boy far from home seemed to hear the voice of a woman singing the sweet and melancholy words of “Danny Boy.” Finishing, he purposely made a harsh discord, then gave the violin back.

“Bravo! Bravo!” came in a chorus. “More! More!”

“Here.” Ted held out the violin. “It’s yours, for keeps. If you can make it do that, it belongs to you.”

“What? You don’t mean that!” Jack stared in astonishment.

“I certainly do.” Ted spoke soberly. “Dad paid good money for that violin. It was wasted as far as I’m concerned. But you can really play!”

Yes, Jack could play. From his eighth birthday on, he had known but one ambition—to become a really fine violinist. Then had come the war, and—but why think of that? The war was here. He was a scout pilot.

For a moment he stood silently thinking. Then he said:

“Tell you what.” His voice was low and full of emotion. “You wanted my radio. I’ll swap you.”

“It’s a go,” Ted agreed.

Then, fearing that his first tune had dug too deep into the souls of his comrades, Jack struck out with the old “Virginia Reel.”

At once the whole gang was whirling about in a mad sort of dance.

“Concert’s over!” Jack exclaimed at last, tucking the violin under his arm. “Tomorrow we fight.”

“Tomorrow we fight! Tomorrow we fight!” came echoing back. And so the party broke up.

Jack had the precious violin, acquired in such a strange manner, tucked under his arm as he and Stew strode down the deck toward the ladder that led to a night’s repose.

As they rounded a life raft someone blinked a faint light upon them. “Oh! It’s you, Jack?” It was the Commander who spoke. He was off for a cup of coffee.

“Ay, ay, sir.” Jack grinned.

“Got a violin?” The Commander halted. “Weren’t you playing back there on the deck?”

“I’m afraid I was, sir,” Jack admitted. “Trying to play, I mean. You see, sir, I haven’t touched a violin in months. It—well—it didn’t seem to fit in with my program. You see, sir, I really worked at my fiddling from the time I was eight. Then—well, you know.”

“Sure, I know. The war came along. And you went all out for Uncle Sam.”

“Something like that, sir,” Jack agreed.

“That’s the proper spirit,” the Commander approved. “But let me tell you something, son. You’ll be a better flier longer if you go back to that violin for an hour or two every day.”

“What do you mean, sir?” The boy voiced his surprise.

“Ever draw a string tight and leave it for a long time?” the Commander asked.

“Sure did, sir.”

“What happened?”

“It snapped, sir.”

“Of course. It’s the same with fliers. It’s the fellow with one string, one thought, who snaps first. Relax, Jack my boy. Relax with your fiddle and you’ll ride through this war right into a concert hall.”

“Sounds a bit strange. But I’ll try it, sir,” Jack agreed.

“Good night and good hunting to you tomorrow.” The Commander disappeared.

Before turning in, Jack took a closer look at his new treasure, his precious violin. “It’s a honey,” he told Stew. “Bet it cost a thousand dollars.”

“Why not,” said Stew. “What’s a thousand dollars to a man like Ted’s dad?”

“That’s just it,” Jack agreed. “Seems sort of wonderful, doesn’t it, that you and I who’ve never had a lot of anything, and Kentucky and Red, who’ve had even less, should be messin’ round with fellows like Ted and two or three other rich guys on the old Black Bee?”

“Well, we’re all in the same boat, aren’t we?” Stew drawled.

“Yes, and the same-sized Jap bullet will down one of them just as quick as it will one of us. For all that,” Jack paused, “it looks as if ours should be a better world to live in after the war is over, all of us getting along together the way we do.”

“Oh! It will!” Stew agreed. “And here’s one bombardier who’s going to try to be around when it’s over. Fight hard, but take no fool chances, that’s my motto.”

“Mine too,” Jack agreed. “I’ve got folks waiting for me back home.”

“Same here. And besides, we can’t help Uncle Sam much down there in Davy Jones’s locker.” At that they lapsed into silence.

Jack slept with his violin that night, and next morning before dawn he stowed it away in his plane. “Why not?” he asked himself. “Red’s got a dog he takes along. Blackie carries a parrot, and Bill, a monkey. A violin makes just as good a mascot, and not half the bother.”

When he and Stew worked their way to the flight deck that morning they found it crowded with planes. The Black Bee was one of the largest carriers in the Navy and carried more than a hundred planes.

Because they required only a short run to clear the deck, and also because in case of an attack they must be the first ships up, the fighters stood in front of all the others on the deck. Back of these were scout planes; next rode dive bombers; and last of all, torpedo planes.

Already the air was filled with the roar of motors warming up. Fighters would soon be taking off for a look at the skies close at hand and for practice runs. Scout planes would cut the sky into a great four-hundred-mile-wide pie and each would take its own sector of air and sea for a close search. Lucky the scout-ship pilot who could announce, “Enemy task force a hundred miles north by east.” Even the discoverer of a Jap snooper, a huge four-motored flying boat, would receive his reward, and besides, with luck, might send the air giant flaming into the sea. Little wonder then that Jack’s fingers trembled as he gripped the controls and waited for the flight officer’s signal for the take-off.

Slowly at first, then more swiftly, their wheels rolled across the deck until they glided out over the dark, gray waters into the approaching dawn.

They climbed a thousand, two, three, five thousand feet. Jack examined and tested his instruments. Stew swung his machine guns back and forth. Then pressing the button, he sent a burst of fire into the limitless blue-gray of the sky. “This is our day!” Jack exulted. “I feel it in my bones.”

“Hope you’re right,” Stew grumbled. “We’re due for some luck. Three months in the Pacific and we haven’t sighted a single snooper or sneaking Jap ship. It’s rotten luck!”

“Cheer up, there’ll come a time,” Jack sang. He was in fine spirits. The feel of violin strings under his fingers had done things to him. And besides, there was much more involved in that simple ceremony of swapping a cheap radio for a priceless violin than the onlookers realized. He and the fighter Ted Armour had a secret all their own.

The two boys in their scout plane flew straight away for some time. Fighter planes would guard the air close to their task force. At last they began crisscrossing the sky. Each time, as they went farther out to sea and their sectors widened, their crisscrosses increased in length.

“We’re heading into a mess of black clouds,” Stew grumbled. “Won’t be able to see a thing.”

“Not so thick, at that,” Jack called back cheerfully. “Wait until the sun is up and you’ll see.”

Soon dark clouds turned purple, faded into dark red, then pink, to take on at last the fluffy white of full day.

“What a day for duck hunting!” Stew exclaimed.

“I’ll say!” Jack agreed. “But give me Japs, not ducks! The things they did to our prisoners in the Philippines make my blood boil!”

“Mine too. I’m aching to get a crack at them. We—”

“Look!” Jack exclaimed. “Off there to the east!”

“Ships!” Stew exploded.

“Yep! And we’ve got no task force out there!”

“Duck into that long white cloud, quick!” Stew suggested.

Jack’s head was in a whirl as he gripped the controls, banked his plane, then vanished from sight into the cloud.

“Contact,” he whispered hoarsely. “Contact at last! And there’ll be a fight!”

CHAPTER III
FRIENDLY ENEMIES

“Boy, oh boy!” Stew exulted as they slid into the cloud. He set his radio with trembling fingers. “Here’s where we score a scoop!”

“Wait!” Jack warned. “We can’t risk a false alarm. Might pull the entire task force off its course for nothing!”

Jack was thinking. What a lovely cloud this is! There’s sure to be a carrier in that Jap convoy down there, if they’re really Jap ships—a carrier and Zeros. There’s sure to be a fight, and this ship of ours is good for only 260 M.P.H. at most! But this is what she was built for, and what we were trained for. This is our zero hour. He drew in three deep breaths of air and felt better. Jitters, he decided. They all get them. Old Ironsides says we’d be no good if we didn’t.

Stew had not advised going into a cloud without a reason. They were still some distance from the task force—too far to be sure of anything. By following it in the cloud they could obtain a better view.

The cloud was miles long and appeared to dip down toward the sea. They were constantly running into thin filmy fringes and being obliged to drop lower. They didn’t want to be spotted by a Zero. Not yet. They must make sure that this was really a Jap task force, and get in a report. Then let the Zeros come if they would. They’d give them a grand exhibition of cloud hopping and, if need be, a glorious shooting match as well.

“No shooting if we can help it,” Jack told himself. “Our job is to spot the enemy task force and sit above them, sending in reports until our bombers and torpedo planes come to attack. We—”

His thoughts broke off sharply. What was this he was hearing? A high-pitched whistle like a country fire alarm. No doubt about it. It was on the same key as the one they had heard the night before. Stew had heard it too—Jack could tell by the look in his eyes.

“Some Jap trick!” Jack exclaimed, gripping the controls hard. “Got to be ready for anything!” Stew was swinging his gun about as a ballplayer swings his bat before a try at the ball.

The screaming noise increased. It filled the air, and seemed almost upon them. Acting by instinct, Jack went into a sudden steep dive.

The next instant he looked up to see a shadowy bulk shoot through the misty clouds above them to lose itself at terrific speed in the distance.

“That,” said Stew, with a shudder, “was a torpedo. The Japs shot it at us. If it had connected we wouldn’t be here.”

“I wonder,” said Jack.

There was little time for wondering, for suddenly they were out of the clouds, not far from the sea. And directly beneath them lay the enemy task force. So near was it that it looked almost like a cardboard display against a field of blue.

“Zeros!” Stew warned suddenly. “Three of them over to the left!”

Jack dipped a wing, touched the accelerator, cut an astonishingly short circle, and re-entered the same cloud.

“Ann to Mary! Ann to Mary!” Stew repeated in a strained voice, talking into his mike. “Enemy task force southeast, hundred and eighty miles. One carrier, five cruisers, eight destroyers, and three cargo ships.”

He waited ten seconds. He, you have guessed, was Ann. The operator on the carrier was Mary. Twice, at brief intervals, he repeated the messages.

“Watch it!” Jack exclaimed, banking his plane so sharply it stood on a wing. In his excitement he had come so close to the edge of the cloud that he had sighted a shadow. The shadow had a voice, a sudden rat-tat-tat that made small round holes in his right wing. A Zero had nearly winged them.

“Close,” he murmured. “Got to have a care.”

They circled about in the cloud for fully five minutes. “What’s your idea about that screamer?” Stew asked.

“I know what it can’t be,” was Jack’s reply.

“What?”

“It can’t be a meteor. You can see a meteor.”

“Probably a rocket from a plane. The Jerries have them.”

“I wonder!” Jack said once more. “Well, guess we’ll slip down for another look. Tell you what—we’ll zoom out of this cloud full speed. That’ll take the Zeros by surprise. By the time they close in we’ll be safe in another cloud.”

Jack’s idea was a good one. Stew had one more good look at the task force. He corrected his report—one less destroyer than he had thought, and one more cargo vessel. The distance was shorter, perhaps nearer one hundred and seventy miles. Their trick of dashing full speed from cloud to cloud fooled the Japs. But they would soon run out at an edge of the cloud they had just entered, small-circle it as they might.

“The Nips will corner us like rabbits in a hayfield,” Stew grumbled.

“Let ’em try it!” Jack’s spirits were rising. This was their day. “We’ll come out shooting. We’ve just got to cut one notch in the handle of your gun before this hour gets away.”

“Here’s hoping.” Stew patted his gun.

Despite his rising courage Jack’s knees began shaking when, for a second time, they barely escaped a blast of fire from a Zero.

At last he exclaimed, “Shucks! This cloud is too thin and ragged. We’ll make another run for it.”

Another run it was, and this time two Jappies were right after them. But to his surprise Jack found the enemy unwilling to press home the attack. They would make a run, then as soon as they were close enough for a possible shot, circle away. The first time one did this Stew gave him a short quick burst of fire, without result.

“Huh!” he grunted the second time, “I know their game. They want me to shoot out my belts of ammunition. Then, while I’m reloading, they’ll slip in for the kill. Oh no you don’t, Jappie!” He withheld his fire.

So interesting was the game that for the time being they forgot both the clouds and the task force. But not for long. Suddenly Stew exclaimed:

“Say! Look! That Jap task force is smaller!”

Jack did not look, for suddenly he threw his plane into full speed.

“What the—”

“That fellow was sneaking in too close,” Jack exclaimed. “Tell you what. We’ll take him on!”

“Take him on!”

“Sure. Let him try another sneak, then I’ll whirl on him with our left wing lowered.”

“Say! You’re right! I’ll just swing this old twinflex gun around to the front and fire across our wing while—”

“While I pepper him with my two guns in the nose. Watch now. On your toes!” Jack warned.

He slackened his speed a little. The Jap pressed in. Suddenly Jack’s motor roared like an attacking lion. The left wing dipped. The plane cut a half circle. Its guns flashed in unison. The Zero faltered, fell away to the right, began to smoke, then went into a spin.

Twenty seconds later, just as three Zeros dropped at them from above, the boys lost themselves in one more cloud.

“Chalk up one Zero!” Stew exulted. “That’s one up for us!”

“And say!” he added, “that reminds me. I’ve got to get a message off.”

A few seconds later he was droning into his microphone:

“Ann to Mary! Ann to Mary! Task force split. Two cargo vessels, three destroyers, going due east. Remainder of force same as before.”

“We’d better stick to this cloud for a while,” was Jack’s decision. “It’s a good big one, and fairly thick. Those Zeros will be swarming round it like angry bees, but they’ll never find us in here.”

“All the same, we’ve got to find out what that break in their task force means!” Stew insisted.

Jack caught low words in his earphones:

“Jack! Where are you?”

Jack jumped. He knew that voice. It was Ted Armour speaking. “In a cloud over a Jap task force.” Jack asked very quietly, “Where are you, Ted?”

“In a cloud over a Jap task force,” Ted laughed softly. “Picked up your message. I was quite a ways east, so I came on out. Thought you might need some help.”

“That—ah—that’s swell!” Jack swallowed hard. “We’re coming out for a look.”

“Good! I’m coming too. I’ll be seeing you.”

That was all, but Jack felt a great uplift of spirits as he headed for the edge of his cloud. “It’s a strange world,” he thought. “Friendly enemies. War is terrible and wonderful!”

CHAPTER IV
A GLORIOUS FIGHT

“Good old Ted!” Jack exclaimed without thinking as he headed for that dangerous fringe of mist. “He’s from my home town.”

“What?” Stew exclaimed. “You never told me.”

“I’ve told you now,” Jack snapped. “So keep it quiet. It’s our secret.”

They slid out into the clear blue sky to discover that while the main Jap task force continued to glide serenely on its way, the two cargo ships and three destroyers had lost themselves in a rain squall that reached right down to the surface of the sea.

“Tough luck!” Stew exclaimed. “We’ve just got to locate them and see where they’re going. They may be the grand prize. Very likely those cargo ships are loaded with ammunition, and one of them is a twenty-thousand tonner.”

Jack put his plane into a steep dive. Two thousand feet from the sea he soon lost himself in the top of the rain squall.

They went through the squall and were out on the other side in no time at all.

“There they are! Two ships, three destroyers!” Stew exulted. “Still going due east. I’ll get in a report, and then—”

He stopped short to grip his machine gun and exclaim, “Jack! Quick! Back into the cloud! Three Zeros are coming down at us from 5,000 feet.”

As Jack dipped his right wing to circle, he thought, “Looks like curtains for us.”

Their plane, though a sturdy and dependable craft with some forty-five feet of wing spread, was far from fast. The Zeros were small, light, and fast. They seemed to drop with the speed of sound. It looked bad. At that instant, there came a silver flash from just above the cloud, and a U. S. fighter leaped at the three Zeros which were dropping straight and fast and thus unable to change their course.

What followed was a beautiful thing to see. Seeming to stand in mid-air, the U. S. fighter pilot handled his guns as a bird hunter does his fowling piece. He picked off the first two Zeros and sent them flaming to the sea below—then sent the third wheeling harmlessly away.

“Good old Ted!” Jack exclaimed as he slid his plane into the small cloud that hung above the rain squall.

“He handles his plane as though he were dancing,” Stew said. There was admiration in his voice.

“Of course,” said Jack. “That’s Ted for you. He was the finest dancer in our school, or our town, for that matter. He played basketball and tennis the same way, with perfect rhythm.”

“Just think what the war has done to the world,” Stew murmured. “Sets a fellow teaching a fighter plane to dance!”

Stew got off his message. He thought it hard that all this radio reporting should be one-way stuff, but of course it was necessary for the carrier to maintain radio silence, otherwise her position might be given away and she herself might be attacked.

“Why don’t the bombers come?” Stew was growing restless with the delay. Since their job was to shadow the Jap task force until the dive bombers and torpedo planes arrived, they would not be free to leave until the others put in an appearance.

“The Commander will hold the bombers and their fighter protection until all scouts are heard from,” said Jack.

“Why?” Stew was puzzled.

“Because there may be other Jap task forces lurking about the sea waiting to send their air fleets after the Black Bee. She must not be left unprotected. She—”

“Listen!” Stew broke in. To their ears came the sound of machine-gun fire.

“Ted’s in a fight. We’ve got to get out and help him!” Jack exclaimed. “Can’t let that swarm of Zeros gang up on him.” He set their plane climbing. “We’ll just get some altitude, have a look, then fly right down onto them.”

“Good stuff!” Stew agreed. “We can dive with the best of them.”

It was only after they had climbed out of their cloud on up to the one above, and out at the top of that one, to a height of five thousand feet, that Jack took time out for a downward glance. Then, what he saw all but cost him the chance of a grand fight. What’s more, much of his life might have been radically changed, had he failed to come to a decision in the next sixty seconds. Almost directly beneath them, a little to the left, an air battle raged between four Zeros and a single-seated U. S. fighter.

Jack did not need to be told that the lone fighter was the boy from his own home town, Ted. It could be none other, for the broad, sweeping circles his plane made appeared to be timed to the tune of a Strauss waltz.

At the moment they sighted Ted he was being followed by a Zero that spouted fire. The distance was too great; the shots did not take effect.

Instead of turning on his opponent, Ted swung up and under an enemy coming from above and, seeming to stand his plane on its tail, sent a burst of fire into the enemy’s engine. The Zero wavered. Something hung from it for a space of seconds, then rocketed downward.

“Shot off his motor!” Jack exulted.

Stew did not hear. His mind was still on the task before him. The rain squall was over. He spotted the two groups of enemy ships, also some small islands off to the east. With a strange sense of finality coursing through his being, he reported all this to the Black Bee’s radioman. As he listened after that, he thought he heard the low rumble of many distant planes. He could not be sure; too much was going on directly beneath them.

Continuing his magnificent circles, Ted came up behind the very Zero that seconds before had been following him. He let out a burst of fire. Smoking badly, the Zero limped into a cloud.

“Now! Now we’ve got to get down there!” Jack tilted his plane for a steep dive, then set his motor at top speed.

The two remaining Zeros were closing in on Ted. At the same time three others were swinging in on him from the left. The three were flying in formation, rather far apart.

“Get ready with your twinflex,” Jack ordered. “We’ll go right into that trio and break it up.”

Did the Japs see them coming? No matter. They came in too fast for the Japs to dodge. At just the right instant Jack pulled up short, then let out a burst of fire that cut squarely across the lead plane of the Japs.

At the same time Stew swung his twinflex gun on the second plane and let him have it for all he was worth.

What happened after that came so quickly that it remained a blur in Jack’s memory. Afterward he seemed to recall seeing two Jap planes falling, and Ted, with a damaged plane, disappearing into a cloud. At the same time something had creased his forehead. He went dizzy for an instant, then he was all right again.

“They got our radio!” Stew reported.

“She doesn’t steer right!” Jack headed her into a cloud.

“Well, that’s that,” Stew sighed. “No radio. No more work for us.”

Jack scarcely listened. He was hearing a rumble. It came from the west. “Bombers! Our bombers!” he exclaimed.

“Our work is finished!” Stew exulted.

“All but getting back. And that we can’t do.” There was an air of finality in Jack’s voice. “That Jap did plenty to this plane. Nearly got me too. Take a look at my right temple.”

Stew leaned forward, then whistled. “Burned you, all right. Bleeding a little. Wait. I’ll fix you up.”

They circled slowly in their cloud while first aid was applied.

“There are some islands off to the east,” Stew suggested.

“How far?”

“’Bout fifty miles.”

“Good! That’s our best bet.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“Nothing.” Jack eased his plane over toward the edge of the clouds.

“What about the Zeros?” Stew asked.

“It’s a chance we have to take,” Jack replied soberly. “This old kite won’t stay up too long. Be prepared to give them the works if they show up.”

“The works it shall be,” Stew replied grimly as he reloaded his powerful weapon.

CHAPTER V
A GOOD SHOW

The Zeros, it seemed, were engaged elsewhere. When Jack and Stew emerged from their cloud none were in sight, nor were the islands that Stew had seen.

“A rain squall has hidden the islands. They’re there, all the same,” Stew insisted.

“It’s our only chance.” In vain Jack tried to get more power from his disabled motor. It coughed, sputtered—all but died—then carried on.

Heading due east, he started to climb. He had gained a thousand feet or more when he began losing again.

“Look over your parachute,” he said to Stew. “Be sure you can get hold of our rubber raft at a second’s notice. This motor may die at any moment.”

“It’s all done,” said Stew. “All in order. Let’s have a look at your chute.” He worked over Jack’s chute and harness. “It’s okay. Be sure to pull the cord,” he joked. “That’s always a necessity, you know.”

“Sure I know,” Jack’s voice was cheerful. “I’m glad we got our job done before this thing happened.”

“The sea’s fairly smooth. We’ll get on. Some kind of a bird will light on us. They always do—booby, gull—something.”

“Sure, they light on anything that stands out above the water.” Jack set his ship climbing again. They were inside the rain squall. From not too far away came the sound of sudden battle.

“Zeros and our fighters have tangled.” Stew became tremendously excited. “Boy! This is going to be terrific! Wish we could see it!”

“Like taking in a world-series game from behind a high board fence,” Jack agreed. “But leave it to our bombers!”

“They’re sure good! They took that other carrier we discovered a week ago.”

“They’re tops, those bombers!” Jack had a great love for his ship and her men. “There never was a carrier like the Black Bee!”

The roar of bombers coming on in formation filled the air.

“They’re climbing! I can tell by the sound!” Stew exclaimed. “Boy! Just you wait!”

Stew all but stood up in his place while Jack divided his attention between the bombers and his disabled motor.

“Now!” Stew exclaimed at last. “Now they’re diving! Listen!” He held his breath, counting “One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—”

He had reached twenty when there came a roar. “Oh! Too bad! That one missed!” Hardly were the words out of his mouth when there came a second roar. “Right on the beam! Boy! Oh boy!”

Six bombers dumped their loads. “Three connected,” was Stew’s decision. “That’s a very good record.”

Then all of a sudden they emerged from the screening rain squall to find themselves over a bright, blue sea. In the center of this sea, two large cargo ships and three destroyers steamed rapidly toward the east.

“Oh!” Stew groaned. “They’ll get away! And I have a hunch they’re the most important of all.”

For a space of seconds Jack considered turning back in an effort to direct some of the bombers toward this target. “No use,” he grumbled. “We’d never make it in time.”