He shifted his gaze to the guard. The fellow watched him closely with shiny black eyes. Something was sticking out of the man’s pocket…a long handle and a bulge in the pocket. Mason gulped. Unless he was mistaken, it was a hand grenade, one of those potato-masher affairs.
“American feel so bad,” suggested the guard, hopefully.
“Shut up,” snarled Mason.
The Jap’s face darkened and his eyes grew brighter, if that were possible.
“You no talk to me like that,” he said. “Me good as you are. Better maybe.”
“Like heck, you say,” said Mason.
The guard jerked his gun down toward Mason.
“Me tickle you up a bit, maybe. Talk different, then.”
Mason stared at the bayonet. “You keep that thing out of my reach, Joe,” he warned, “or I’ll take it away from you and slit your gizzard with it.”
“Commander see you in little while. Talk with you. Then we take you out, kill you.” The Jap squinted his eyes to see how Mason took it.
“You scummy little buzzards get a big kick out of killing people, don’t you?” said Mason.
“You talk too much,” hissed the Jap.
“Sez you!” said Mason.
The guard stepped inside the hut, moved closer, bayonetted rifle held stiffly in front of him.
“Me mess you up a bit,” he decided.
“The commander won’t like that,” Mason warned.
“Commander won’t care. Just so not too much.”
He advanced with mincing steps, pushing the pointed steel closer and closer. Mason watched it idly, but the blood was pounding in his throat. This baiting of the guard was taking a chance, an awful chance.
The Jap danced nearer, eyes sparkling.
The bayonet was no more than six inches away when Mason moved…moved like an unwinding coil spring. With a single motion he slapped the bayonet aside, rose to his feet and hit the Jap with his fist. The swing was a round-house blow, coming almost from the floor. It caught the Jap on the chin even before he could look surprised, lifted him off the floor, slammed him against the wall.
Glassy-eyed, the man sagged to the floor.
Grunting in satisfaction, Mason picked up the fallen rifle, used the bayonet, then bent above the erstwhile guard and took the long-handled thing from his pocket. It was a grenade, all right.
Clutching it in his hand, he walked to the door of the hut, stuck out his head, glanced cautiously up and down. There seemed to be Japs everywhere, but none of them were looking in his direction.
There was, he decided, only one way to do it. If he ran, they’d notice him, be on him in a minute, sure he was making a break. But if he walked he might not attract attention. They might be puzzled, but they might think it was all right, give him the time he needed.
Regretfully, he leaned the rifle against the wall, slipped the grenade in his belt and sauntered out into the open.
Walking slowly, he had gone a hundred feet when someone yelled at him. Stifling a desire to run, he kept on unhurriedly. The yell was not repeated.
Another hundred feet. Those fuel barrels were nearer now, much nearer. Just a few more steps and in a pinch he could reach them.
Another shout. A chorus of shouts and the patter of running feet.
Mason jerked the grenade from his belt, snapped out the pin and heaved. Then he ducked and ran. Rifles cracked and chugging things kicked up dust at his feet and in front of him.
He doubled behind a hut, ran full tilt into a startled soldier. From the field came the roar of the grenade, the gushy sigh of rushing flame.
The impact had knocked the soldier off his balance and, as he staggered, Mason reached out and snatched away his rifle.
A rocky hillside lay just ahead. He sprinted for it. Something tugged at his side and a sharp jab of pain went through him.
Behind him an oil drum exploded with a hollow boom. He snatched a quick glance over his shoulder. Black smoke was mushrooming far above the field.
Also, and more important, at least a dozen Japs were on his heels.
He swung around and snapped the rifle up. The mechanism was unfamiliar, but he got in two shots. Both counted. Then he was running again, stumbling as something smacked into his shoulder.
A roaring filled his head and he went down on hands and knees. This was the end, he knew. They’d get him now. He’d be cold meat for the Japs and no mistake.
But the roaring wasn’t all in his head. There was another roar. The throaty roar of a motor sweeping down into the bowl. And then another sound. The chattering of guns, a wicked, vicious sound, a snarling crescendo that seemed to sweep down upon him, then snapped off.
He flopped over and sat down, stared into the sky.
Climbing over the field was a ship—a ship he’d know anywhere. The Avenger he’d left back on the beach!
The camp was in pandemonium. Shrieking Japs were running. In front of him lay five of them, where they had been mowed down by the strafing guns. “Steve,” he yelled. “Give it to ’em, Steve!”
As if in answer, a black object leaped from the belly of the plane and streaked earthward. Earth and dust billowed up in a flash of fire and rolling smoke. Another bomb was falling and again the hills echoed with the thud of a five-hundred-pounder.
The camouflaged planes were gone, fire licking through them.
Painfully, hopefully, Mason got back on his hands and knees and crawled. Maybe if he got up that hillside when nobody was noticing him, he might have a chance.
Another bomb shook the earth and Mason counted: “Three.” There was one left.
The explosion came. That was all there was.
An anti-aircraft cut loose and the Avenger howled in answer, howled, then stuttered with fiendish gunbursts.
Feet pattered behind Mason and someone bent to lift him.
“Me carry,” said N’Goni.
“N’Goni,” yelled Mason. “What are you doing here?”
But he didn’t wait for the answer, for, even as he spoke, a sound came that chilled his heart. The coughing of the Avenger’s motor.
Then he remembered. There had been only a little gas. Now that was used up. The ship would fall.
He struggled to his feet and watched, with a dull ache in his heart. The Grumman, prop barely turning over, was wheeling toward the very hillside where he stood. Plunging at them, faster and faster.
“Is that Steve?” shouted Mason at N’Goni. “Is that Steve in there?”
“Maybe,” said N’Goni. “Him go back. Hear guns. So him go.”
So Steve had come back. Had heard guns and had come back. Figuring he’d keep his gunner out of trouble, get him out of a mess.
The Avenger lifted its nose slightly as it hit the up-currents of the hillside, seemed for a moment almost to stall and then crashed no more than a hundred yards above them.
N’Goni was loping up the hill, eating up the distance, while Mason limped behind.
Down below the Jap base was ablaze, thick columns of smoke standing in the air. The parked planes were burning, gas dumps were belching thick black clouds.
A new sound stopped Mason in his tracks. The distant hum of many motors. A hum that grew until it was a roar and then a shriek
Streaming over the lip of the bowl was a formation of American bombers, bombers that howled down upon the Japs with blazing guns and a roar of bombs. Blindly Mason stumbled up the hillside.
N’Goni was helping Foster out of the Avenger and, through the blood that streamed from a cut across his forehead, the pilot grinned at Mason.
“You O.K.”” gasped Mason.
“Right as rain,” said Foster.
“But N’Goni, how did the Americans know? You couldn’t have gotten there and got back this soon.”