ANDERSON, TAYLOR - Crusade

It would wreck him. Even if he came back to his senses, it wouldn’t matter. Everyone would know . Tony Scott, coxswain, was helplessly afraid of the water. The pity would be worse than jeers. He’d blow his brains out. Thank God he could still handle the bay.

Behind him he heard the clattering roar of engines as the PBY thundered across the bay and took to the sky. He looked over his shoulder as a fleeting ray of sunshine flickered on the rising plane. All that water, he thought. It was bad enough in the bay, where few of the monsters were present, but . . . out there, where the plane was headed and most of Tony’s pals might even now be slipping down into the dreadful embrace of the sea, so far from land. The safe, dry land.

He fought the current upriver and dodged the dead trees and other debris that had washed down from the distant mountains. Crocodiles floated by, disoriented or dead, and he knew the river must’ve been something at the peak of the deluge. It was still out of its banks. The damp world had begun to reawaken, however, evidenced by the flocks of lizard birds that rose amid raucous cries and riotous colors to greet them as they churned upstream. Finally, after another hour of enduring the buckshot of bird shit that peppered them constantly from above, the fueling pier came into view around the bend.

The willing hands of the caretakers caught the rope, and Tony gratefully leaped up to the dock and onto the shore. His relief at feeling the motionless earth beneath his feet was palpable, and his mood brightened immediately despite another round of drizzle. “Everything all right?” he asked the first Lemurian caretaker/guardsman that joined him.

“No pro-bleemo,” mimicked the ’Cat, proud of his English.

“Anything come apart?” Tony asked the other one, who he knew could speak much better.

“Don’t think so. Everything fine here. Won’t know for sure until the pump is back on.”

“Okay,” Tony said. “I’ll go check it out. In the meantime, why don’t you fellas try to get the fires lit? God knows it’ll be a week before any local boats can make it up that river and bring the rest of the crew. I’ll have to ferry ’em up in the launch.” The idea of spending the better part of the next two days on the water didn’t appeal to him, but at least for now he could bask in the safety of the shore. He stuck his hands in his pockets and, whistling, followed the pipeline cut into the jungle.

He didn’t whistle for long. The ground was mucky and the grade was steep. Soon l to him,im.

Ben Mallory had coaxed the reluctant aircraft up to three thousand feet, all the while listening intently to the engines. So far, so good. The steady, throbbing drone of the Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasps seemed healthy enough. Contrary to Lieutenant Letts’s suspicions, Mallory really thought the engines were fine. Of course, it was hard to tell over the excessive rattling and violent vibrations the rest of the aircraft made. Everything except the engines on the hard-used plane was falling apart. He tried his best to take it easy on the old gal, but metal fatigue was beginning to take its toll. Sooner or later, good engines or not, the battered flying boat would fold up like a paper kite and fall out of the sky and the only airplane in the entire world would be no more. He shrugged mentally. When it happened, it happened. Until it did, he would fly.

He spared a quick glance at his “copilot.” The young sable-furred ’Cat on his right was peering through a pair of precious binoculars through the open side window at the ocean below. His name was Jis-Tikkar, but he seemed to like “Tikker” just fine. He’d been a good companion on the long flights between Baalkpan and Surabaya and he was still fully enraptured by the wonder of flying high above the world at a measly 110 miles an hour—oh, how Ben missed the glorious P-40E! Whatever Ben called him, Tikker wasn’t quite ready to assume all the duties of his position. For one thing, he could barely see over the instrument panel.

On a couple of occasions, Mallory had allowed him to take the controls for a little “straight and level,” but it would be a while before he did it again. The second time the little devil had his hands on the oval-shaped wheel, he’d nearly put the big plane through a barrel roll. It was all very exciting and the flying lessons abruptly ceased. For now, the “copilot’s” duties had reverted to observation and keeping Ben awake on the long flights with his irrepressible humor.

The rest of the flight crew consisted of Ed Palmer, and two more farsighted Lemurians in the observation blisters. Ed sat in the compartment directly behind the flight deck, still trying to raise Walker when he wasn’t keeping track of their navigation. The young signalman had been studying under Bob Flowers to raise his grade before the lieutenant was killed. In his short time aboard Mahan he had, for all intents and purposes, been the navigation officer. He wasn’t a pro yet, but he was a quick study. As long as there were landmarks he could identify, he hadn’t led them astray—and they were forbidden to fly at night. Besides, they’d made the trip often enough now that the Makassar Strait was pretty familiar. Ben liked having someone to bounce his reckoning off of, though.

They broke out of the dreary overcast at last and the sky ahead was bright and clear. The trailing edge of the storm was still visible far to the east beyond Celebes, and a few petulant squalls marched about at random. Below them, evidence of the storm was still apparent from the lingering whitecaps. Three hours of flying had them in the general vicinity where they’d captured Revenge, and nearing the way point where they would either turn southeast and prepare to set down and refuel or head due south on the next dogleg that would complete the bottom of their horseshoe search.

Ben glanced at the fuel gauges. More than enough. The flying boat had a theoretical range of over twenty-eight hundred miles, and the search pattern Letts had suggested would consume less than half of that. Mallory intended to cover more area than the plan called for, but there’d still be ample fuel. He decided to forgo a visit to their remote gas station on Celebes. Every time the plane touched > wident, particularly on the still-rough sea. Besides, there were no pumps at the station and they would spend half the day hoisting and pouring the two-gallon jugs. He much preferred idling up alongside Big Sal and letting the fuel run down into the plane.

He called Palmer forward. “We’re going to zigzag south across the Flores Sea on hundred-mile legs, west-east, west-east. But I want to check out those islands north of Sumbawa. Keep track of our turns so we don’t miss the damn things. I’d rather catch them headed east so we can cross them twice. There must be a hundred of them.”

“Most of those islands aren’t much account,” Palmer replied.

“No, but if somebody got driven east by the storm there’s a good chance they might’ve wound up on one of them,” Ben reasoned grimly.

As it turned out, they didn’t have to go that far. Shortly after they made their first eastward turn, Tikker spotted a lonely wake below them. Ben immediately began a spiraling descent.

“ Mahan, sure enough!” Tikker said excitedly. “Only three smoke-stacks, see?”

Mallory grunted when he banked the plane far enough to see for himself. “Unless the storm knocked one off Walker ,” he agreed doubtfully. “But mainly, she’s headed north, toward Baalkpan. Walker would be headed west. Yeah, that’s Mahan, all right. There’s her number. Looks even worse than the last time I saw her, but she’s under way.”