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!”
11
“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.
12
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.”
13
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.
14
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.”
15
“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?”
16
“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.”
17
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.
18
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.”
19
“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!”
