Barry Blake of the Flying FortressDu Bois, Gaylord
History
Barry Blake of the Flying Fortress
Du Bois, Gaylord
B-17 bomber -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1939-1945 -- Aerial operations -- Juvenile fiction
Bullets pounded the stone behind which Barry lay. They glanced off with
wicked little screams. Once rock-dust got in Barry’s eye, half-blinding
him.
“Make it snappy, fellows!” he warned through clenched teeth. “Our game
will be up in half a minute.”
“I beg to differ with you, Lieutenant,” Curly Levitt’s voice sounded at
his shoulder. “Just watch this!”
His tommy-gun spoke, just as the thirty Japs started their rush.
Barry’s weapon chimed in briefly, slamming its last bullet into the
officer’s midriff. The charging Japs flung themselves flat.
Barry rolled aside to make room behind his rock for Fred Marmon.
Sergeants Jackson and Romani had now finished reloading. They were
firing from the highest point of the rocks, raking the enemy
mercilessly. Quickly the Japs realized that to stay where they were
meant sure death. Behind them the Americans were mopping up the last
trenches.
Barry had just joined Danny Hale in the shelter of a half-sunken
boulder. The big sergeant was trying to puzzle out the workings of a
captured Jap rifle. Suddenly he glanced up.
“Here they come, Lieutenant!” Danny Hale whooped. “No time to reload
now.”
Dropping his tommy-gun, Barry whipped out his bayonet. At Danny’s heels
he vaulted the boulder. The Japs who dived through the hail of
sub-machine gun bullets must be met with cold steel.
The shooting fizzled out. Now all the fighting was hand-to-hand. Barry
bayoneted a monkey-like figure who had leaped upon Fred Marmon’s back.
Turning, he glimpsed Danny Hale wielding his Jap rifle like a
pitchfork. Just in time, he leaped aside to dodge an enemy bayonet
thrust and grapple with the man.
He blocked a vicious kick with his knee, but his wounded leg gave way.
The next instant he was rolling on the ground, with the Jap’s buck
teeth snapping at his throat, and the Jap’s knife slashing his ribs.
Desperately he twisted aside and jabbed with his bayonet. His enemy
screeched and went limp.
Another mob of helmeted figures came bounding through the tall grass.
Barry heaved the dead Jap aside, and came up on one knee. Sweat stung
his eyes, blurring them. He gripped his bayonet for a last thrust.
“Hold it, man!” yelped a Yankee voice. “Don’t you know your friends?”
The newcomers were infantrymen, arriving just too late for the finish.
They had popped out of the communication trench and were looking for
more Japs. With them was a medical-corps man—the same one who had
attended Barry in the field dressing station. Seeing Barry’s new
wounds, he whipped out a hypodermic needle, and drove it home before
the young flier knew what was happening.
“You bonehead!” Barry cried. “I’m only scratched. Now you’ve fixed me
so I can’t carry on. There’s a lot of mopping up to do. Those Jap field
guns—”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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