A Death in the House : And Other Stories

War Is Personal

The Jap flat-top was a beautiful target. Little red eyes wrinkled all over it, sending up a storm of shrapnel that exploded and looked like puffs of black silk unfolding in the air.

Bill Jackson crouched behind his gun in the rear seat of the Avenger and wondered whether his luck would ever change. During three years of service on board one of Uncle Sam’s carriers—his luck, or rather, his lack of it—had become a legend.

Here he was again, right behind the eight-ball. As if it weren’t bad enough to be on the tail end of the attacking torpedo force, he had drawn Lieutenant Cabot Hart as pilot.

Not that Hart wasn’t a good pilot. He was. Jackson admitted there was nothing he could lay his finger on to justify his resentment for the man in the seat ahead. It rose from Hart’s unbending correctness, from his inhuman aloofness even in the rush of battle.

Other pilots sometimes shouted insults at the Japs, or yipped in exultation when they dived on the enemy. Hart never did any of these things. Somehow one was made to feel that Hart thought insulting a Jap or yipping when he loosed a bomb or strafed a gun crew was not quite correct.

Over the howling of the Avenger’s motor and the roaring of the guns below, came the dull crump of heavy bombs. That would be the land-based Fortresses from New Britain giving the destroyers a pasting.

Jackson craned his neck, searching for planes, eyes squinted against the sun. The sky was sprinkled with blossoming flak. Far to the east lay a cloud, a tiny line of black along the horizon. The thought that it might rain again edged itself into his brain.

Suddenly he stiffened, then whipped into action. High overhead two black shapes were diving—Jap Zeroes!

One veered off, heading for another Avenger. But the second came down in a vertical dive.

The Jap was coming fast, banking on his speed to get him through. The Zero’s guns flickered, and leaden slugs chewed into the Grumman’s left wing. Jackson pressed the trigger, and the twin barrels of the Avenger’s gun hammered with a coughing purr.

The Zero danced a jig in space under the impact, fell off, then slid seaward. Metallic ribbons fluttered from its peeling wing surfaces. The plexiglass over the pilot’s head was splintered. Jackson knew the Jap was dead. He had been fast, but not quite fast enough.

“One down,” Jackson reported, keeping his voice calm. With any other pilot he would have shouted.

“Good work, Jackson,” said Hart, his voice crisp and brittle.

“Maybe,” Jackson told himself, “the guy is just plain scared. Maybe he just talks that way to make me think he ain’t.”

But Hart had courage, plenty of it. He never let himself get enthusiastic—as if this war were a problem to be worked out on a blackboard.

The Avenger picked up speed in its dive. From the sea below came the thunderous roar of an exploding torpedo. A garish flare flickered, and smoke billowed from the sea.

Another Zero was coming in at an awkward angle. Caught off guard, Jackson swiveled his gun, trying desperately to get the enemy in his sights.

Steel snarled wickedly above his head, punching holes in the plexiglass. The Zero’s guns spat angrily again, and the storm of slugs moved down the fuselage.

Jackson opened up, slewing the gun around to get at the body of the plane. He saw metal fly, saw bullets march into the cowling, heard, in turn, the chug of Jap bullets in the armor just behind his back.

Suddenly a wisp of smoke trailed from the Jap’s ship. Then the Zero was out of range.

Straightening up, the gunner leaned over the side of the Avenger, saw the Jap streaking for water, trailing smoke.

“Two down,” he said into the mike, but his voice was blotted out by a mighty roar.

“We got her!” yelled Jackson. “We got her!”

“Looks like it,” Hart agreed.

The flat top was almost hidden by a towering column of smoke. Red flames curled through the pall.

Just ahead was another Avenger, heading straight for the stricken carrier. A single gun on the vessel opened up again, a red breath in the smoke. Steel smacked into the water, raising sullen splashes.

Jackson saw the torpedo drop from the plane ahead, saw it streaking forward, a foamy wake behind it, while the attacking plane wheeled upward and disappeared in the smoke.

Then the very air shook as the torpedo hit. A wall of water rose, hung for a moment there in front of them, then fell back into the sea.

Hart was making his run. The carrier was listing, fire lapping its sides, while a dense black cloud towered up, edged with the flickering pink of raging flames.

Jackson leaped to his feet, yelled in triumph as Hart sent the Avenger scudding upward into the smoke above the carrier.

But there had been no sudden jump to the plane. There was no explosion. Jackson sat down again.

“You didn’t use the torp,” he said.

“The ship is sinking,” said Hart. “Why waste a torpedo?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jackson, “I guess there is no use.”

But it was crazy, he told himself, to go to all that trouble just to pass it up.

Far below, the carrier was hidden by the column of blackness that rose from the sea. To the north were two other pillars of smoke. They would be her destroyer escorts. The Fortresses had taken care of them.

Far ahead were three dots, probably other Avengers heading home. Otherwise the sky was empty.

When Jackson looked back again there was no longer any cloud of smoke, just drifting wreckage on the water.

“She sank, sir,” he told Hart.

Hart didn’t answer. Now he was justified for not putting that torp into the flat top.

The excitement was over and, heading home, Jackson realized he was hungry. That was all right. In another hour or so he would be sitting down to steak and French fries.

“Jackson,” said Hart, “do you see anything to the east?”

“Bank of clouds, sir. Noticed them a while back. Maybe we’ll have another storm.”

“Not that,” said Hart, sharply. “More like smoke.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Jackson. “Maybe another Jap ship.”

“There are no Jap ships there,” Hart said coldly.

Incongruously, Jackson thought of steak and fried potatoes.

“If they—” The words dried up in his mouth.

“We sank theirs,” Hart reminded him.

There was no use trying to talk to a guy who looked at war as a diagram of opposing forces, at a carrier as a certain striking power, not a ship that spelled home and security for fighting men.

Jackson stared intently toward the southwest. A cloud of smoke, lighter than the bank of angry clouds that were creeping up the sky, hung on the horizon. …

The United States carrier was listing. Smoke poured from the bow. But no confusion was apparent on board. Fire fighting crews were manning apparatus, others were clearing away wreckage on the deck.

A destroyer and a cruiser lay a half-mile off, sleek gray shapes in the water, standing by.

Blood pounding in his throat, Jackson stared down at the carrier as they circled it at low altitude. In the starboard bow was a gaping hole.

“A sub,” he said.

Other planes were circling the ship, a homing brood with no place to land, for the tilting flight deck was impossible.

A sailor stepped out on the deck with two signal flags.

“They’re ready to signal, sir,” said Jackson. “Don’t want to use the radio.”

Hart nodded and swung the Grumman down toward the deck. Other Avengers, Jackson saw, also were coming in to get the message.

The signalman worked frantically, intent on finishing the wigwag before the planes swept past. Jackson kept his eyes glued on the flags.

“We’re on our own,” said Jackson. “Use our own discretion.”

“I read it, Jackson,” Hart snapped.

Jackson studied the back of the pilot’s head, assessing the value of a sock in the snoot. But they were in a jam. Better be thinking about what they should do, although Hart would do what he wanted to.

There were two choices, Jackson knew. They could land in the sea and be picked up by the destroyer. Or they could try to reach land—Saipan, probably, for it was the nearest land in American hands.

If they landed in the sea, they would get away with a whole skin, but it would mean the loss of their plane. If they tried to make land, they could save the plane—if they reached land.

The gunner glanced at the sky. The entire eastern horizon was blanketed in slate-gray, and soot-black clouds half-way to the zenith. A storm was coming and coming fast.

Two of the Avengers were dropping down for a landing near the destroyer. Their gas supply, apparently, was too low to attempt a flight to land. The others circled as their pilots tried to make up their minds.

Hart didn’t wait to see what they did. He swung the Avenger’s nose east.

“I’m going to try for Saipan,” he said. “You can come along or bail out. I’ll pull over to the destroyer if you want to jump.”

“We’ll run into a storm, sir,” Jackson pointed out.

“I’ve taken that into account,” Hart told him.

That was the last straw. It was not enough that the man should suggest his gunner might want to jump to save his own neck. He had to take every opportunity to show his rank, to meet every suggestion with an insult.

“I’ll stick with the ship,” Jackson said. “Not with you, but the ship.”

“You have made that distinction plain,” said Hart. “You do not approve of me, Jackson?”

“How did you ever guess it?” Jackson asked.

Hart said nothing. Jackson settled down, fuming. Looking back, he saw that three of the Avengers were following them. The others were landing in the water. On the carrier, the fire crews seemed to be getting control of the blaze.

The sea, which had been blue before, was now an angry gray. The first drop of rain splashed against the shattered plexiglass.

The Avenger drove east, the Wright Cyclone howling a challenge to the wind. The raindrops came faster and thicker. Jackson pulled the hood forward, but water dripped through the holes the Jap bullets had punched.

Now they were flying in a world of storm, a world of streaming water. There was no sign of the other three Avengers, although Jackson knew they must be close behind.

The hours dragged on toward evening and the storm grew less. The overcast thinned, and the rain stopped. Scudding clouds parted to let the sinking sun paint a blood-red streak across the sea behind them.

The other Avengers were not in sight. Apparently they had taken another course in the storm.

Sky and sea were empty except for a small island off to the right. Sprawling like a huge horseshoe, it stood astride the sun’s bloody path, with the surf painting a white fringe around it.

Hart’s voice broke the silence.

“We’re sitting down, Jackson. Gas is running short. Probably a break in the feed line.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jackson.

“A bullet might have nicked it,” Hart declared.

“We took no bullets forward, sir,” said Jackson smugly.

He had Hart dead to rights. The pilot had overestimated their fuel supply. That one about the fuel line was nothing but a feeble excuse.

The Avenger was gliding for the island which was larger than it had first appeared, and was heavily wooded. The lagoon on the inside of the horseshoe was well-sheltered, and on the outside rim ran a narrow beach which broke abruptly into wooded heights.

Hart was heading for the beach. Jackson crossed mental fingers, envisioning holes or boulders that might crack them up. But the plane came down smoothly on a beach almost as smooth as a floor. Hart cut the engine, and the silence was deafening. Slowly Jackson became accustomed to the sound of the surf, the chatter of birds in the woods.

Leaning against the plane, Jackson lighted a cigarette. He found Hart staring at him with angry eyes.

“Why don’t you go ahead and say it?” the pilot demanded.

“Say what?” asked Jackson.

“Tell me what a mess I’ve got us in.”

“Robinson Crusoe made out, sir. So can we. The war’ll be over some day. Somebody’ll find us then.”

“I ought to take a swing at you for a crack like that,” Hart declared.

“If you want to fight, mister,” announced Jackson, “I’m your man. But you got to hit me first. Regulations, you know.”

Hart looked bewildered.

“You’re the first man I’ve ever wanted to lick,” he said. “I never wanted to fight anyone before.”

“Yeah, I know. Not even the Japs.”

“That’s a lie, Jackson!”

“No, it isn’t. You’ve shot at the Japs, sure, and bombed them. But you really haven’t fought them. You’ve fought this war the way a man plays golf. You been fighting par, not the enemy.”

“Jackson,” asked Hart, “do you want me to take that swing at you?”

“Forget it,” said Jackson. “Let’s see what the lay-out is. Maybe we’ll have to squat here a long time.”

A twig snapped with a loud report in the jungle opposite the plane, and they stiffened to the alert. Something was moving through the jungle toward them.

It was a man, a white man. His ragged beard was white, and unkempt gray hair hung almost to his shoulders. He wore no shirt, and his trousers were held up by a piece of frayed rope.

He stopped at the edge of the jungle and blinked at them.

“Americans?” he asked.

Hart nodded.

“I saw you come in,” the old man said, stumbling over his words, as if English were unfamiliar. “You must go away. The Japs are here.”

“The Japs?”

“Over on the other side. Using the lagoon for a seaplane base. The natives are building a ramp for them.”

Hart shook his head.

“I don’t understand, I’m afraid. Tell me who you are.”

“I’m Smith. At least you can call me that. Half beachcomber, half trader. Ran a little station here. Natives friendly, what there are of them. Only about fifty or so. When the Japs came, they didn’t kill me because I could make the natives work, or—” Smith ran his thumb across his throat.

“Perhaps the Japs didn’t see us land,” suggested Hart.

“Fat chance,” said Jackson.

“I’m afraid they did,” said Smith. “You must go.”

“We have no gas,” Hart explained.

“How many Japs?” asked Jackson.

“Only a dozen or so here regularly,” said Smith. “Ground crew and engineers. Otherwise they come and go. Sometimes there are as many as twenty planes. Other times, none at all. There are none here now. Once in a while a supply boat comes.”

“How far is Saipan?” asked Hart.

“Two hundred fifty miles,” said Smith. “If we could manage to hide you until night, I could get enough gas to you. The natives would help me. They hate the Japs.”

“You say there are no planes here now?” asked Jackson.

“Not now,” Smith told him. “They left yesterday. There was a battle.”

“We know about that,” said Jackson.

“It’ll be easy, then,” declared Hart calmly. “So long as there are no planes, we can keep out of their way. You get the gas down here—”

“Why bother with hide and seek business?” protested Jackson. “Let’s just drop in on the camp and take the gas away from them.”

The jungle rustled and Smith was gone—just as if he had stepped behind a bush and vanished.

“Now where did he go?” demanded Jackson.

The jungle rustled again and a squeaky, high-pitched voice sang at them:

“Put up the hands!”

A Jap officer stepped out of the undergrowth with a pistol in his fist. The bushes waved and three soldiers came out on the beach, rifles held at ready.

Jackson spat in the sand.

“Japs!” he said.

“Keep still,” the Jap yelled at him. “Put up your hands!”

Hart had his hands up.

“Get them up,” he snapped at Jackson. “There’s no sense in getting shot.”

Jackson raised his hands reluctantly.

“So sensible,” hissed the Jap officer. “And a nice plane, too. We shall be so interested in it.”

He squared off in front of the Americans, looked at them and laughed.

“Let me introduce myself. I am Matoka. Formerly of San Diego, in your own delightful country. After this war is over, I shall go back there to live. I like Americans. You are so ready to listen to reason.”

“I’m sorry now I didn’t go for my gun,” Jackson snarled. “I could of got two or three of them.”

“Perhaps you could have,” Hart agreed. “Then what?”

“Then we would have shot you,” Matoka said. He jabbed the muzzle of the pistol playfully at the pit of Jackson’s stomach.

“I have a hunch, Joe,” Jackson told the Jap, “that before this is over I’m going to have to kick your teeth right down your yellow throat. …”

The morning sun slanted through the broken windows of Smith’s old trading shack. From outside came the sound of hammering and sawing as the islanders labored, under a half-dozen Jap guards, at the half-finished seaplane ramp.

The shack was bare except for several cots, a few blankets piled in one corner, a stack of rifles and other odds and ends.

Matoka sat behind a small wooden table and regarded the two Americans before him. A guard stood at the door and two others were stationed at opposite walls.

“So,” said the Jap officer, “you refuse to give me information.”

“We are prisoners of war,” Hart told him. “We have given you all the information we are required to.”

Matoka leaned forward.

“Lieutenant Hart,” he said sneeringly, “you Americans still cling to the conventions of war, perhaps. You set up your silly rules and expect the world to follow.”

“They are rules of decency,” snapped Hart.

“Decency!” The Jap tried to mimic the tone. “Lieutenant, war is not decency. Consider—this island is out of the way. Who is there to know what happens to you here?”

He settled back in his chair and waited.

“I could break his scrawny neck,” said Jackson, calmly, “before one of those monkeys with the guns could stop me. Shall I have a try at it?”

Matoka laid his pistol on the table.

“By all means, Mr. Jackson,” he invited. “Go ahead and try.”

“You hold all the aces,” Jackson pointed out.

Matoka grinned. “You see, Lieutenant Hart. We do hold all the aces. So picturesque a phrase. Tell me, what happened to your carrier?”

“Send your navy to find out,” snapped Hart.

“You forget,” corrected Jackson. “They haven’t much of a navy. We just got through with it.”

The Jap rose slowly. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned over until his face was inches away from the pilot’s face.

“Tell me!” he shouted.

The pilot stiffened, said nothing. The Jap raised one hand and struck Hart across the cheek. The imprints of the Jap’s fingers stood out white on the pilot’s flesh and for an instant time seemed to stop.

Then Hart moved—silently, efficiently, ruthlessly. His hands caught Matoka’s neck in a vise, dragging him across the table. The Jap’s mouth opened for a scream that emerged as a tiny gurgle.

With a whoop, Jackson snatched up Matoka’s pistol and wheeled. A bayonet was coming at him, less than a foot away. With suddenly cringing stomach, he twisted his body away—moving by instinct.

Gleaming Jap steel seared across his ribs, made a ripping sound as it jerked free of his shirt.

There was no time to shoot. Even had he wanted to, Jackson could not have shot, for he had grasped the pistol across its center. The Jap guard was unable to stop, was almost on top of him. Pinned against the table, the American slapped the pistol, flat-handed, straight into the astonished yellow face. The man went down.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jackson saw the guard by the door, his rifle leveled. Swiftly the Yank spun the pistol in the air, snatched the grip and snapped up the barrel. The rifle in the guard’s hand roared, and Jackson felt the bullet whip past his cheek. Then the heavy revolver spat viciously, and the guard went down, rifle clattering across the floor.

Matoka was crawling on the floor where Hart had hurled him, making animal sounds. Hart had managed to ward off the plunging steel of the third guard, was wrestling with him for possession of the rifle.

With a savage wrench, the guard twisted the rifle barrel from the pilot’s hand, stepped back, bringing the weapon up.

Jackson fired, and the heavy slug twisted the guard around, but he still clutched the rifle. The gunner fired again and the man’s cap leaped from his head as he crumpled.

Wheeling about, Jackson ran to the door. Three Japs were racing up from the beach.

Jackson lined the pistol and fired. The leading Jap staggered, went down on one knee, then got up again. From the beach came the sullen bark of a rifle, and a bullet kicked dust at Jackson’s feet.

One of the three Japs running toward the shack whipped up a barking rifle. Jackson heard the bullets chugging into the door casing back of him. The pistol cracked again, and the Jap who had fired went down.

The guards at the ramp were firing now. One slug threw sand against Jackson’s trouser legs. A red-hot flame slashed across his left forearm.

Behind him, a rifle opened up, talking as fast as a man could work the bolt. One of the Japs went down and the other turned and sprinted for the ramp.

Down the beach galloped a white man with no shirt, and with long hair flying. Smith waved a flashing machete, and as he ran he shouted strange gibberish. But the natives working on the ramp understood, for as one man they rose and surged toward the guards.

Knives and axes flashed in the morning sun. The Japs got in a few shots, made a few futile bayonet stabs and then, overpowered by sheer numbers, went down under the wave of howling islanders.

The lone Jap who had been running for the beach stopped short, then fled for the jungle. With a shout, Smith sped after him. The machete flashed over his shoulder, left his hand, glittering in the sunlight as it wheeled end over end. The Jap screamed in agony as it sliced into his back and brought him down.

Hart stepped from the doorway of the shack, rifle cradled in his arm.

“I guess, Jackson,” he said, “we can get our gas now.”

Jackson wiped his brow with a shirt-sleeve that trailed blood. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“You’ve been hit,” said Hart.

“A couple of scratches, sir,” said Jackson. “One in the arm and one across the ribs.”

A figure hurled itself out of the blackness of the shack behind them, landed on Hart’s back. The pilot dropped the rifle and pitched forward in the dust. In the excitement of the moment Matoka had been forgotten.

But as Hart struck the ground, he rolled, breaking the Jap’s grip.

Jackson started forward, pistol clubbed, but Hart yelled at him.

“Stay out of this, Jackson!”

The Jap charged in, apparently seeking a ju jutsu hold, but the American sidestepped and rocked him with a blow. Matoka’s hand flicked out and grabbed Hart’s wrist, threw him off his balance.

But as Hart went down, he managed to hook a toe back of the Jap’s knee, almost upset him. The Jap’s hold was broken, but Hart hit the ground flat on his back. With a scream of triumph, Matoka hurled himself through the air. Hart flung up hands to ward him off, but the Jap’s weight crashed through.

For long seconds the two lay locked in straining effort. Once Jackson stepped forward, then stepped back. Hart had said it was his fight.

Suddenly Hart arched his back and heaved, shook Matoka loose. Struggling to one knee, the American slowly rose, holding the Jap at arm’s length. On his feet, he released his grip on Matoka’s shirt front and stepped back. The Jap charged in, head lowered.

Hart measured him and swung from the ground. The blow smacked in the morning silence, stiffened the Jap before he slowly crumpled.

Hart let his arms fall limply at his side, stared dazedly at the man who lay wilted at his feet. A trickle of blood ran out of the corner of Matoka’s mouth.

“You killed him!” Jackson gasped.

“I meant to kill him,” Hart said, quietly. “He slapped me.”

Bare feet padded up the path from the beach, and the two saw Smith approaching. The white man’s eyes flickered across the dead Jap officer and he tugged reflectively at his matted beard. “A good morning’s work, gentlemen,” he said.

“Those natives of yours,” said Jackson. “They—”

“They have been waiting for a chance like this,” Smith told him. “They are a proud people and they resented Jap brutality. They would have done it long ago, but I stopped them. I told them some of them would die.”

He took a deep breath.

“Gentlemen, some of them did die. But the rest of them are free.”

“But the Jap planes will be coming back,” said Hart. “If not today, tomorrow.”

Smith smiled quietly. “We shall be ready for them. The invaders landed guns, anti-aircraft. The planes will not suspect. We shall wait until they’re so close we cannot miss.”

He glanced around at the green palms swaying in the breeze.

“It was peaceful once,” he said. “It shall be so again.” He paused, then said, “Perhaps you gentlemen will be wanting to get on to Saipan.”

Saipan field was taking a pounding. A large warship lay a few miles off shore and was heaving salvos of screaming steel into the tiny clearing.

“Looks like a battleship, sir,” said Jackson.

“Perhaps,” suggested Hart, “we should go down and see.”

“We’d never make it,” the gunner declared. “They’d open up on us with everything they had.”

The Avenger, cruising almost at its ceiling, had the sky to itself. Apparently the Yank force was held down for the moment by the bombardment of the field, while all Jap planes probably had been diverted for the naval engagement just fought, perhaps still being fought, to the west.

“Maybe,” said Hart, “if we came in at them low over the water we might make it.”

“It’s worth a try,” Jackson agreed.

“Okay, then,” said Hart. “Pull up your feet. You’re liable to get them wet.”

The plane slid downward in the sky. Below them the Jap ship fired another salvo, the flash of the gun muzzles twinkling in the noonday light. On the air field, jets of smoke cascaded.

Jackson thought of the torpedo in the bomb bay—the torpedo Hart had refused to fire into the flat top. The gunner clenched his fists until the nails bit into his palms.

They had to get that ship!

If they didn’t, it would churn the field into plowed ground, would rob the fighting leathernecks of their air support, would open the way for enemy counterattacks.

The Avenger droned downward until the uneven ground was just below its belly, skidded down the hillside just above the tree-tops, flashed above the foaming beach and headed out to sea.

Hart gunned the motor, and Jackson instinctively slouched into a crouch behind his gun. There probably wouldn’t be much use for it. This would be Hart’s show.

The Avenger scudded no more than fifty feet above the water. Ahead, looming against the horizon was the massive battle wagon in gray battle dress.

One of the forward batteries thundered, and Jackson could see the ship stagger at the recoil. Another battery let loose, then two together.

No one had noticed them as yet. Those firing batteries had given them a break.

Then a smaller gun spat from the ship, and another, and many more. A swelter of shrapnel burst to the right, and geysers of water churned around them.

The battleship loomed up with a rush. The plane jerked to an impact and Jackson saw ribboned metal fluttering from the right wing. Geysering water curled above them and descended on the plane, drenching it.

Hart was swearing under his breath—a stream of malefaction against the Jap—and then there was the bump that told Jackson the torpedo was on its way.

The Avenger tilted up and seemed almost to claw at the sky in its rush to get away.

Jackson found himself standing up and yelling while metallic death whined and droned and zipped around him.

A gust of flame speared out against the battleship and the great hulk shuddered from stem to stern, heeled over, rocked violently.

Two thousand pounds of naval torpedo had hit the ship just below the waterline and penetrated, spewing death and destruction deep within its bowels.

The Avenger raced with howling motor for safety in the sky. Below wallowed a stricken ship, perhaps not badly enough damaged to sink, but at least put out of action.

“Looks like we got the dirty son!” yelled Hart.

“We did, sir!” Jackson yelled back.

“He slapped my face,” said Hart.

And Jackson, suddenly limp, knew then that for Hart this war never again would be impersonal. It took a slap across the face to give him hatred of all things Japanese.

“How many rounds have you left?” yelled Hart.

“Three cans, sir,” said Jackson.

“I got all my belts full,” declared Hart, almost proudly. “What say we give ‘em the works?”

Jackson looked down. They were almost over the smoking ship now.

“By all means, sir,” said Jackson happily.

Hart tilted the nose of the Avenger down and the Wright Cyclone screamed a song of hate.

“Here we come!” Hart yelled.

The machine-guns in the wings broke into a roar.