Clifford Simak - A Death in the House - And Other Stories

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.