Probably, Barry thought, they were scanning the island for signs of enemy activity. He wondered if they would notice the smooth strip at the edge of the bomb-pocked field. He was not left long in doubt. Three of the bombers peeled off and circled down in wide, slow spirals. They were wary, those Jap pilots, of another Guadalcanal-style occupation. The newly smoothed runway strip must have looked to them exceedingly suspicious. A shout from Nanu at the other end of the runway rang above the droning of enemy engines. There was alarm in it, and pain. A cry from Dora Wilcox echoed it. Barry sprang to his feet and raced through the bush, in the direction of the planes. Behind him he could hear his crew panting. Their progress was maddeningly slow, yet they dared not leave the bush. Once the enemy planes guessed their identity bullets would fly, and bombs would fall. “Crayle’s grabbed the tommy-gun, I’ll bet,” Chick Enders gasped as he fought to keep up with Barry. “The idiot _would_ pick a time like this. Oh-oh! There he is—in the—uh—_Kawasaki_!” The bomber’s team halted as Crayle saw them and swung his sub-machine gun to cover them. “Stay back!” he warned hysterically. “You can’t keep me here on the ground while they’re dropping bombs on us. I’ll kill you if you come another step.... You, Nanu—walk that propeller around once again, or I’ll kill you, too. _Turn it, you fool!_” Nanu, sweating with the pain of his injured leg, grasped the _Kawasaki’s_ propeller and leaned his weight on it. Off balance, he slipped to his knees. The fall probably saved his life, for at that moment the engine coughed into life. Crayle did not wait for the engine to warm up.... Scarcely had Nanu dragged himself out of the way of the wheels when they rolled forward. The _Kawasaki_ rushed down the runway trailing a cloud of dust. Her tail came up. Then, just as she reached the end of the strip something went wrong. Either the plane had not gathered sufficient speed, or Crayle failed to ease back on the stick soon enough. Instead of rising, the wheels struck the far edge of the unfilled bomb crater. The _Kawasaki_ went end over end, with a rending crash. Fire burst from the center section. The whole plane exploded in a giant bloom of flame. Above it the Jap bombers zoomed, and spiralled upward to join their formation. The Kawasaki’s futile attempt to take off had at least convinced them that the field was not in enemy hands. Barry turned around to find Dora and Claire Barrows bandaging Nanu’s re-opened wound. They appeared far more concerned over the suffering native boy than about Glenn Crayle’s flaming death. “How soon do you think we can get Nanu to a hospital, Barry?” the girl missionary queried anxiously. “This new loss of blood is likely to bring on a fever, and we haven’t a thing to treat it with.” The young skipper looked toward the _Kawasaki’s_ wreckage, blazing on the other side of the last bomb crater.