“Later,” Pitt snapped. “When there’s time.” He swayed forward onto his hands. “Help me you dumb bastard before it’s too late.” There was a desperation, a burning fierceness in Pitt’s voice that startled Knight into action.
Knight half carried, half dragged Pitt up the ladder and onto the deck. He stopped at Gunn’s cabin and kicked at the door. “Open up, Commander Gunn. It’s an emergency.”
Gunn threw open the door dressed in nothing but a pair of shorts and his horn-rimmed glasses, looking like a confused professor who was just caught in a motel room with the Dean of the University’s wife. “What’s the meaning .. .“ He stopped suddenly, staring at the blood-caked apparition supported by Knight His brown eyes swelled to Immense proportions behind the thick lenses. “My God, Dirk, is that you? What happened?
Pitt tried to smile again, but it was only a slight curl of his upper lip. “I’m a dropout from hell!” His tone was low, then it came on strongly. “Do you have any meteorological equipment on board?”
Gunn didn’t answer. Instead, he ordered Knight to get the ship’s doctor. Then the bespectacled little skipper led Pitt into the cabin and gently lowered him on the bunk. “Just rest easy, Dirk. We’ll have you patched up in no time.”
“That's just it, Rudi, there is no time,” Pitt said, grasping Gunn’s wrists with his ripped hands. “Do you have any meteorological equipment on board?” he repeated urgently.
Gunn looked down at Pitt, his eyes reflecting bewilderment. “Yes, we have instruments to record various meteorological data. Why do you ask?”
Pitt’s hands released their grip and fell away from Gunn’s wrists. A smug cold smile gripped his eyes and spread his lips as he struggled up on his elbows. “This ship Is going to be attacked any minute by the same aircraft that raided Brady Field.”
“You must be delirious,” Gunn said, moving for ward to help Pitt sit up.
“My body may look like hell, but my mind at this minute is sharper than yours,” Pitt said. “Now listen, and listen closely. Here’s what has to be done.”
It was the lookout perched on the great A-frame crane, that first spotted the little yellow plane against its vast blue background. Then Pitt and Gunn saw it too, not more than two miles away, flying at eight hundred feet. They should have seen it sooner, but it was coming at the First Attempt straight out of the eye of the sun.
“He’s ten minutes late,” Pitt grunted, holding an arm aloft for a white goateed doctor who worked quickly and skillfully at bandaging his chest.
The elderly physician, oblivious to Pitt’s movements on the: ship’s bridge, cleaned and dressed the raw cuts without bothering to turn and look at the approaching plane. He tied the final knot tightly, making Pitt twinge and display a wry face. “That’s the best I can do for you, Major, until you stop running up and down the deck, shouting orders like Captain Bligh.”
“Sorry, Doc,” Pitt said without taking his eyes from the sky. “But there was no time for a formal office call. You better get below now. If my little battle tactic doesn’t work, you’re going to do a land office business in about ten minutes.”
Without answering, the wiry, deeply tanned doctor closed a large worn leather case, turned and ducked down the bridge ladder.
Pitt drew back from the railing and glanced over at Gunn. “Are you connected?”
“Say when.” Gunn was tense, but looked ready and eager. He held a small black box in his hand attached to a wire that led up the radar mast and then into the brilliant morning sky. “Do you think the pilot of the old contraption will take the bait?”
“History never fails to repeat itself.” Pitt said confidently, glaring at the nearing plane.
Even in this moment of tense anxiety Gunn found time to marvel at Pitt’s complete transformation since dawn: the man who staggered on board the First Attempt in such fearful physical condition was not the same man who now stood on the bridge with gleaming eyes and the expectant posture of a war horse inhaling the scent of battle through flaring nostrils. It seemed strange, but Gunn couldn’t stop his mind from drifting back many months ago to the bridge of another ship, a tramp steamer called the Dana Gail. He remembered as though it was only an hour ago, seeing the same expression on Pitt’s face just before the old rusty hulk cast off to find and destroy a mysterious seamount In the Pacific, north of Hawaii. Abruptly he was pulled back to the reality of the present by a strong grip on his arm.
“Get down.” Pitt said urgently, “or the shock wave will blow you overboard. Be ready to join the contacts the instant I g
ive the word.”
The bright yellow plane was banking now, circling around the ship, testing it for defenses. The drone of its noisy engine tore across the water, causing a vibration in Pitt’s eardrums. He watched it through a pair of borrowed binoculars, smiling with satisfaction as he noted small round patches in the fabric of the wings and fuselage; a record of Giordino’s hits with the carbine. Moving the glasses in a near vertical angle he focused on the black wire that led upward, and all at once he felt a hope that began to amount to complete conviction.
“Steady . . . steady,” he said quietly. “I think he’s going to nibble at the cheese.”
The cheese, Gunn thought wonderingly. He calls that damn balloon up there the cheese. Who would have ever thought that Pitt wanted a damn weather balloon when he asked whether the First Attempt carried meteorological gear. Now the damn balloon floated up there in the damn sky with a one hundred pound charge of explosives from the damn seismic lab tied to it. Gunn peered above the railing at the big silvery airborne ball and the lethal package dangling beneath it The cable holding the captive balloon and the electrical wire attached to the explosives both stretched eight hundred feet high and four hundred feet astern; a total distance of four football fields away. He shook his head, it was ironic that the explosive charge, normally utilized for producing underwater shockwaves to analyze the bottom of the sea, would now be used to blow an airplane out of the sky.
The roar of the plane’s engine grew louder, and for one brief moment Pitt thought it was going to dive straight-on at the ship, but then be realized that its angle of descent was too low. The pilot was lining the Albatros up for a pass at the balloon. He stood up for a better view, knowing he was a tempting and exposed target The engine turned into a high pitched snarl and the gun sights aimed for the lazy gas bag, waiting above the sparkling water. There was no delay, no adjusting for range, the yellow wings glistened in the sun, obscuring the flashes from the two guns mounted on the cowling, The sound of the staccato bursts and the whine of the bullets signaled the beginning of the attack.
The rubberized nylon skin of the helium filled bag shuddered under the onslaught of the rapid gunfire. It sagged at first, then wrinkled like a prune and collapsed, flapping in lose folds toward the sea. The yellow Albatros swept over the dropping balloon, making a beeline for the First Attempt.
"Now!" Pitt yelled, hitting the deck.
Gunn threw the switch.
The next instant seemed to march on to infinity. Then there was a gigantic blast which shock the ship from keel to mast. The early morning silence was shattered
with a violent sound like the breaking of a thousand windows by a tornado. And, in the sky, a tower of dense smoke and flame swirled in a huge bursting mass of orange and black. The concussion from the explosion knocked the wind from Pitt and Gunn; squeezing internal organs against spines with the sudden punch of a battering ram.