life.
“Me too,” replied Orrin, shouting over the sudden rumble of engines up and down the dock.
“Watch where your giant shoes go!” Lawrence suddenly protested from within the fuselage.
“Well, move your damn lizardy face out from under ’em!”
“Lay off, you two!” Orrin said. The moon had dulled behind the smoke, and there was less visibility on the lake now. “I need to concentrate- and you do too! Don’t forget, there’re still some other ‘lizardy’ things out there!” He paused. “Besides, why’d you bring Lawrence this time?”
“What, you wanna leave him back there with that buncha dopes? I doubt any of ’em has ever seen his type before. Hell, they’d have ’em on a leash-or in a fish tank-by the time we got back.”
“Just as well,” Orrin said. “After the stunt you pulled, I’m not sure we should go back! Listen, as soon as we’re up and get some altitude, send a report to Makka-Kakja about the mess here, and what we’re going to try.”
“Okay,” Silva responded doubtfully, “I’ll try. They may have trouble readin’ my writin, though!”
“Just do your best,” Orrin directed. “Use the ‘air’ frequency. You’ll have a better chance of getting through that mush offshore.” With that, he advanced the throttle and the “Nancy” accelerated across the water.
Once they were airborne and the rest of the pickup squadron, mostly from the 10th Pursuit, had formed on them, Orrin banked wide around the valley to the south of the lake, almost to the sea. There, the sky was clear and the bright moon was almost overhead now. He circled to the east, near the Sperrin Mountains, and tried to view the battle for New Dublin, but all he saw was a bright glow on smoky clouds beyond the cggy peaks. He steadied up on a northeast to southwest flight path that put the greater enemy concentration directly ahead.
“We’re first,” Orrin shouted back. “The rest of the guys’ll try to lay their eggs just beyond ours, and then the next plane’s in succession! It’s gonna be tough in the dark. Hell, it’d be tough in daylight, but there’s not much else we can do. If we leave it to those rear area… gentlemen at their supposed HQ, your Jap buddy’ll have to fight this whole campaign all over again.”
“He may be a Jap,” Silva returned, “an we ain’t exactly ‘buddies,’ but if he has to start over, I guarantee his campaign-with our guys-won’t be anything like this one! These New Brits ain’t like our Marines, but they ain’t bad soljers, I hear. I can tell you their Navy men are damn good-but their Navy’s kept ’em from havin’ to fight a big land war before, an’ except for that Blair fella-accordin’ to Chack-they don’t much know how.” He looked over his shoulder at the glare beyond the moun- tains. “An’ which it looks like ol Chack an’ Blair are stuck in pretty good. Chack damn sure knows how to fight!”
“Yeah, well maybe we’ll have a look after we’re done here.” Orrin nodded back toward the lake. “As I said, maybe we ought not go back there. Now hang on!”
Suddenly, the nose pitched down and the plane aimed for the edge of the now-much-larger fire burning on the enemy’s left flank. Orrin’s warning had really been just a figure of speech, because Silva couldn’t hold on with a ten-pound bomb in each hand. The “Nancy” hurtled downward, and if it hadn’t been for the sudden fusillade of musketry crackling toward them, it would’ve been frighteningly difficult to tell how low they were getting.
“Get ready!” Orrin yelled. Musket balls began striking the plane. “Now!”
Silva pitched his bombs just as the plane jolted to starboard with the sudden lightening of the port wing. He was pressed back into his seat as Orrin pulled back on the stick and applied full throttle, but still managed to keep his eyes on the general area where their “ordnance” fell. “Who-eeee!” he roared when two small flashes ignited a mushroom of orange and black. Myriad trees and limbs were silhouetted, many already adding yellowish wisps to the fireball. “That was a good-un!” he cried as the plane continued climbing, banking east over the city and out of the haze already lingering over the enemy position. Another fiery eruption extended the fire a little southwest, and Silva whooped again. There was nothing more for several moments beyond a few probable mortar bursts, long past the time for the next two planes to drop. Suddenly, the sky spit a spiraling meteor that spun out of control and impacted almost a quarter mile past the last explosion. It detonated with even greater force than their own bomb had done-just as another “Nancy” suddenly blew up a little beyond where the first had fallen.
“Two of them must’ve run into each other,” Orrin said stiffly. Even as they watched, the new flames leaped back the distance toward the first. Evidently, the drops had been good; they just hadn’t ignited. They did now. Tall, sappy trees became instant torches, swirling flames coiling around them and pointing at the sky. Another plane dropped its payload, then another. Orrin was sad about the pilots he’d just lost, but damn, the rest of the “boys” were pasting them!
“Okay, one more run!” he commanded. “Send it, if you can.” He circled around, out of the growing haze of smoke to the southwest, and tried to line up on the procession of strengthening firesi›It must be hell down there, he thought, but then tried not to think about it. They took more bullets on this run, and Lawrence squeaked when a ball tore through the hull and exploded some of his tail plumage, but they made their drop without serious injury to the plane or themselves. The gas didn’t burn this time, but a plane behind them connected fuel to the flame, and the whole thing went up in a quickening rush. Orrin was probably only imagining the screams he thought he heard over the engine and the wind rushing by.
“Jesus,” he muttered, looking down. The Dom artillery flashes had all but stopped, and the semicircle of encroaching fires had become a cauldron of flame. Somewhere in the midst of all that were hundreds- thousands of men who’d had absolutely no idea what was coming, how to deal with it, or even how to take cover. They’d never been attacked from the sky before. He felt a little sick. In the dark days before the Philippines fell, the few remaining American planes had been forbidden to tangle with Zeros. They could outrun them or dive away, and that was what they’d been told to do, to preserve their planes for recon and ground attack. Mixing it up with the nimble Japanese planes was a losing proposition. Therefore, he’d strafed and bombed his share of landing craft and troop columns-but that was different. They were Japs, they’d attacked his country, and they were after him. He felt protective of “his” pilots now and he mourned those he’d lost, but this still just didn’t feel like “his” war yet.
Below, the flames grew more intense as the prevailing east wind curled around the flank of the Sperrin Mountains and blew them northwest. He began to see why the “tree officer” had been so concerned; the conflagration was growing and threatened to consume the entire valley in a sea of fire. Well, that was tough. He’d come to save people, not trees, and the increased fire from the Imperial positions showed that “his” side was taking advantage of the situation and pressing the Dom survivors back toward the blaze. Their reserves, caught on the other side of the advancing firestorm, were abandoning them and starting to flee up the Waterford road. Soon, those left behind would have to surrender or die.
“Our work here is done,” Silva shouted in the lofty tone of some satisfied warrior prophet. “Let us go across the mountains!”
“You think we ought to take the rest of the flight?”
“I dunno. They’re as likely to be welcomed as hee-roes as shot, I guess, an’ they was just followin’ orders. Then there’s them giant lizard birds to consider.”
“Right. Tell ’em to set back down on Lake Shannon and await further orders. If they don’t hear from us in a couple of hours, they’re on their own. If they can’t get any reception, they can take a plane up once an hour and try to contact Maaka-Kakja. Otherwise, they can still support the ground elements here, but don’t let the boneheads push ’em around! We just won their damn battle for ’em,” he added grimly.
Silva sent the message, and the two men and Lawrence turned northeast for the pass Chack and Blair had crossed to New Dublin.
“Have Major Jindal bring his company up even with us, on those parallel streets to the right, then move up several more… sections? Blocks! Several blocks, and wait for us to do the same! Oh, and watch for people on the roofs! Ask their aid in spotting enemy concentrations. They’ve been most helpful.”
“Aye, sir,” said Shmuke, and he trotted off with his squad.
The “mystery company” they’d joined near the Company HQ was one Jindal put together much like Chack had. It even included some of Blair’s men. No one had been prepared for urban combat like this. The only good thing was that the Doms apparently weren’t very good at it either; and even fractured as they were, the allies were pushing from all directions while the enemy had little choice but to contract toward that heavy bastion in the northwest of the city.
That didn’t mean the fighting had gotten easier. The first thing Chack and Jindal accomplished together-with the help of the light six-pounder an industrious Lemurian artillery crew had brought forward-was the capture of the holdouts in the Company HQ house. Several double-shotted loads collapsed the south-facing portico, and a final
