CHAPTER TEN HAND TO HAND Curly Levitt linked an arm through Barry’s as they left the commandant’s tent. “That warning about crews joining the scrap doesn’t apply to us, does it?” he asked. “We’re short-handed already—with the Old Man and Babbitt in the hospital. Anyhow, the _Rosy O’Grady_ won’t fly for a long time after this battle is over. We’re free to do just about what we please, aren’t we?” “I get your point,” Barry answered with a grim smile. “You’re suggesting that the six of us form a sort of guerrilla squad and bag a few Japs on our own. Not a bad idea at all—if our squadron commander agrees. Let’s get him alone now and see what he thinks about it.” Captain Loomis was not yet thirty years old, and next to flying a fighting ship he loved best a fight on the ground. His sympathy was easy to enlist. “I can’t give you boys official permission to join the ground attack,” he told Barry and Curly, “but I won’t confine you to the post. If you pick up some rifles and grenades and wander off into the woods, that’s your affair. And I certainly wish you good hunting!” “Thanks, Captain,” Barry replied as the two turned to leave. “If we find a Samurai sword in the bush, we’ll bring it back to you for a souvenir.” The two young lieutenants found the rest of the _Rosy’s_ crew at mess, and passed them the word to rendezvous in their tent. When the six were all together, Barry broached the plan. “It’s better than sitting around and swatting mosquitoes,” he concluded. “And we know that the fight for Grassy Ridge will be tough. Six extra men might be quite a help.” “You don’t have to sell us the idea, Lieutenant,” Fred Marmon spoke up. “After two days of taking Jap shellfire we’re all spoiling for a chance to dish it out. I know where we can get some hand grenades and side-arms tonight.” “I know where there’s a case of tommy-guns,” said Tony Romani. “We can ‘requisition’ them, so to speak, this afternoon. And plenty of ammo, of course.” “I’ll collect a few tin hats,” added Cracker Jackson, “and some iron rations and water canteens. Reckon you-all didn’t think of them.” Danny Hale rose to his feet and spread his big fingers. “If I get near enough to one of those yellow snakes,” he said slowly, “I’d like to match his jiu-jitsu tricks with an Apache wrestling hold. Anyhow, the six of us ought to have a pretty good time before the party’s over.” Before supper the _Rosy O’Grady’s_ crew had collected a young arsenal in their sleeping tent. It included bayonets and three sheath knives. Fred Marmon had brought six suits of green coveralls to replace their flying togs, and even some burnt cork to blacken their faces. “We’ll have to fit a tin hat over that nice, clean bandage of yours, Lieutenant Blake,” he said. “Anything white would draw Jap bullets like a doggone magnet.... Look. If I set it on sidewise, like this, it doesn’t hurt your wound.”