Whip (6 page)

A voice came quietly from the group. "Amen."

Alex smiled. "Our gunners called off at least eighteen Zeros peeling off on us. I found myself admiring those pilots. I mean, they didn't break formation or throw their advantage away. They wheeled about smartly and came at us in precision, where they could do the most damage.

"Well. By now I could make out the shape and disposition of the fleet getting closer with every moment. What I saw did nothing to inspire confidence. The warships were deployed miles deep, arranged in a loose box formation, with the carriers moving swiftly.

This way they kept plenty of maneuvering room for evading our attacks, and still they retained the protection of all the other warships. I imagine that totaled several thousand antiaircraft weapons of various calibers, and the fighters, to say nothing of the carriers themselves."

Alex went quiet for several moments. The muscles in his left cheek twitched visibly. But there was no quaver or change in his voice.

"Anyway. It was obvious the Japanese were going to give us what you Yanks so quaintly call the old one-two punch, first with the defending fire of those warships, and then with the Zero fighters. One sight I will never forget. For a moment I thought I'd gone mad.

The whole fleet seemed to have exploded into flames. Then I realized that every gun of those warships had opened fire, and the brilliant flames I was seeing came from the flashing of the guns. One rippling blast of flame after the other.

"We'd hoped, of course, to hold a tight formation so we might better defend ourselves against the fighters. Not much of a chance there, however. The Japanese were firing everything up to and including their sixteen-inch rifles, and their first salvos fell short of us. Impossible to miss, because the ocean erupted in towering geysers where their big shells struck the water. It's a frightening thing, really, to see those spouts of water. Must have been hundreds of feet high. You run into one of those and it's like hitting a tree. It's all over right then and there.

"That wiped out our neat formation, to say the least. We began to dodge. Whip at once skidded off to the left of the lead aircraft. The way we were bunched in there, one salvo and its waterspouts could have creamed all of us. So we spread out and began to jink about. We were really dodging the great spouts of water, flying between and around them and trying to stay one jump ahead of the Japanese. Yet, the man who was leading the show, I think his name was Carter, was quick. He estimated the Japanese had shot their load with those heavy salvos, and that now they would leave it up to the fighters to attend to us. So he called out for everyone to close it in tight again, and we did just that, back into the diamond formation."

"We got down to the thin skin of it all when the Zeros made their move. They came at us in line-abreast position, and the fun began with the first sweep of six of the bastards. You all know the sight when they're firing with their cannon and guns, but you rarely have a delayed view of all those Zeros with their noses and wings sparkling like that. They opened fire with their nose guns.
Then
we saw the wings come aflame. The color was darker and had black smoke, and that meant, of course, they had opened up with their cannon.

"It was quite eventful, really. There were still some odd waterspouts about and before us, so in effect here we were rushing in like some bloody fools to take on the whole Japanese fleet, and we were actually trapped. Remarkable, when you think of it. We didn't dare climb because that would slow us down and open us up to lighter flak, and everybody would have a piece of us. We still had some altitude because our dive was rather shallow.

Carter, who was leading us, had a rather terrible decision to make. Did we give the nod to the guns or the Zeros as the greater evil? The man deserves enormous credit for split-second thinking. The instant he saw the black smoke from the wings of the Zero fighters, he made his decision. I was still sitting there with visions of cannon shells coming at us when all four Marauders went down steeply. Very steeply, because I had a marvelous view of the ocean rushing up at us. The air was more than rather bumpy, of course. All those exploding shells were throwing out their shock waves. Most interesting effect, really.

"Well, what Carter had done was to think that one vital moment ahead of the Japanese.

Our sudden dive, and still in formation, took us right down to the water. It threw off the aim of the Zero pilots in their head-on pass at us, and also gave our turret gunners a chance to have a shot at the fighters as they passed overhead. It was a marvelous payoff for us, for we rushed ahead of that wave of fighters, and the short dive gave us some extra speed.

"I haven't had much to say about those navy machines. The poor bastards in the Grummans. They were quite a bit slower than us and trailing well behind. What worked for us didn't do a thing for those blighters. I had a chance to look back and to my right.

"Nasty back there. The Zeros were dead-on in their aim. Almost at the same instant I saw two of the Grummans explode. One moment they were holding their tight formation, incredible discipline, really, and then two of them were just fireballs and going into the water. A third one lost its wing and cartwheeled into the sea. No one had a chance, of course.

"It was at this point that we were cutting to the right, and I still had those Grummans in sight. Three of them had gone down in less time than I've told you. Another one flew into one of those waterspouts from the exploding shells. With all that had been happening I was still startled. The effect of hitting that column of water was, well, it was like a giant hand came out of nowhere and just slapped the machine into the water.

"Then there was no time to look. The Zeros were back onto us. By now we were closing rapidly on the warships and the fighters were going crazy after us. A few of them singled us out and — " Alex blinked several times; the onrush of memory was hitting him faster than he could bring it to words. He took a deep breath and looked about the club. Most of the men watching him were aware that Alex didn't see them. He was embroiled in that misty tunnel of months before…

"You know, the sequence of… I mean, things were now happening so bloody fast. We had no more formation. Impossible to hold. We were ten feet off the water, absolutely no more. It looked like we were flying straight into the ocean, all the time skidding and weaving madly to throw off those fighters. They were more of a nuisance than ever before. You've heard the old expression about flying through a storm of bullets and shells. Once I laughed at cliches. No more, because that
was
a storm of bullets and shells.

"Do understand" — and they could see Alex straining to paint them into the pictures flashing through his mind — "that it had all become quite the madhouse. The sounds…

our engines, of course, the banging on the wings and fuselage from enemy bullets. Every now and then a cannon shell would hit. You've all heard that sound, you know what it's like, but it's so difficult to tell anyone who hasn't. It's like putting your head inside a bucket and then having someone fire off a shotgun, also
inside
that infernal bucket. The gunners were shouting back and forth to one another, calling the fighters as they made their runs, and our turret guns were firing, and the tail gun, and the two waist guns as well. I'll never forget Whip during that long run toward the aircraft carrier.

"He wasn't flying anymore. Too soft and easy a word. He'd become a part of that machine. Every muscle in his neck and his face was as tight and visible as braided wire, and you could see muscles snapping, his nerves taut as he slammed his feet — yes;
slammed
— back and forth on the rudder pedals, and the yoke was working constantly.

We weren't flying, actually, we were being thrown constantly forward through the air. I paid close attention to it all, because I knew that if Whip took a bad one, it would be up to me to take over. So I had my hands and feet ready to go to work, and it was positively maddening.

"I don't like the Japanese. Nasty beggars and all that, but you had to give them credit, the way they came after us. Their air discipline was beautiful. They closed to absolutely pointblank range, ignoring our gunners as if they didn't exist, firing in short, steady bursts. I said pointblank range? They were closer than that. It looked as if they might even ram us.

"Then they finally found our number. Our turret gunner, his name was Gogoj, tried to get them off us, and Ashley, in the tail, was doing the same thing, but the Japanese just ignored them. Three fighters picked us out and the next thing we knew the machine was filled with buzzing, screaming hornets. The bullets were literally that thick, and every now and then we heard that terrific whacking bang of the cannon shells going off.

"Gogoj took the worst of it. The fighters went for his turret to get him out of the way, and they shot the plexiglas covering of the turret into a shambles. Pieces whipping away in the wind, that sort of thing. We, gentlemen, fly inside the cockpit. Can you imagine what it was like when those shards, those jagged pieces of plexiglas, whirled about? We were doing something like three hundred miles an hour, and the torn plexiglas ground Gogoj's face, instantly, into raw hamburger. You must understand I didn't know all of this at the moment it happened; I'm recounting, to some extent, so forgive me if I seem to have been everywhere at the same time. Gogoj was torn to ribbons about his face and neck, and the exploding shells and the wind quite literally blasted him out of the turret.

Blood was everywhere. His face was spurting blood from a dozen wounds, there were slivers of skin hanging from his cheeks, his nose and chin, his forehead. He was in agony, and there he was on the floor of an airplane that Whip was throwing about as violently and as constantly as he could, to throw off the aim of the Zeros. And it kept getting worse for Gogoj; you see, as Whip kept jinking so wildly it threw the sergeant against the sharp mechanism of his turret and opened up even more wounds.

"We went through a wild turn, a long skid, to be more precise, when one of our machines bought it. I was watching this Marauder, flying along, and the next instant there was this long streamer of brilliant flame coming back from a wing tank. I never believed fire could spread that quickly. It raced along the wing into the cockpit, kept right on going and ignited the engine on the opposite side. Thank God it didn't last long, for you all know what it was like inside that airplane. The tanks exploded. I know I was thinking that that airplane could be
us
. For an instant all we saw was a fireball and then pieces of wreckage struck the water. They must have bought it instantly.

"We didn't know, not then, that at that very same moment, the fifth Grumman had also gone in. That left one of those Avengers still in the air. Only that one. Not a very auspicious start for the machine, what?

"Anyway, as my friend Psycho is wont to say, things were going to hell in a handbasket for us. Back in the fuselage, that remarkable man, Gogoj, bleeding everywhere, was heard screaming curses into the intercom, and actually forcing his way, and with a great deal of pain, I should add, back into his turret."

Alex took a deep breath. "The worst was the wind? Not so, I imagine, for frustration must have exceeded even that. This man had forced himself back into his turret and was swinging his weapons around, but he never had a chance to fire. Zeros came in from both sides and they chopped us to pieces, and poor Gogoj again caught the brunt of it.

This time the poor bastard took a cannon shell almost in his face. He was still staggering from the blast — and there is no way this man could have lived, but I assure you he did

— when he was surrounded by buzzing hornets. Would you believe a bullet tore away the charging handle of his left machine gun, right out from under his closed hand, without injury to the hand? At the same time the turret control handle was shattered, the triggers were mashed to pulp and the turret wiring was cut in a hundred places.

"Now, imagine this if you can. The turret was dead, the man was critically wounded, and he waved away all help, because he figured if he stayed at his guns, he might bluff the Japanese pilots into thinking his turret was still dangerous and they might be more cautious in their attacks.

Alex gestured easily. "Don't let me take away from anyone else. I mentioned Ashley in the tail turret. That poor bastard took five bullets in his hip and knee, and all at about the same moment. He was thrown back into the fuselage, and he crawled out of the way, bleeding and in agony, so that Melo — he fired the tunnel guns — might get past him to the tail, where the gun position was much more vital.

"Melo, it turned out, hesitated just long enough to make Ashley comfortable, and he paid for that little bit with a slug across his entire forehead. Would you believe that this man also ignored the pain and the blood and forced his way into the tail turret? I should say, he tried. Because he took another bullet, this time in his right arm near the shoulder. Two more slugs went into his side, raking his ribs. Still he went for the turret. A cannon shell exploded and put something like fifty or more pieces of hot metal into his leg.

"
Then
he made it to the turret. He wasn't there long before he discovered his back was on fire. Incendiaries; they'd set aflame the seat cushions in the tail. Melo carried the blazing cushion to the open space by the tail and hurled it away. The wind threw it back into his face and set
him
afire. He beat out the flames with his bare hands, snuffed out the fire in the cushions and turned around to see flames everywhere.

"He tried to call us in the cockpit, of course, but the intercom was dead. All the radios and wiring had been shot away. Melo went back to the tail gun, but it was shot up and jammed. Somehow, in that wildly flying machine, Melo came forward through the fuselage, along the catwalk of the bomb bay, through the small circular hatch, down into the radio compartment and then up to us. He grasped Whip's arm, shouting that everyone in the airplane was badly wounded and we were on fire.