1275psi
Posts: 7979
Joined: 4/17/2005
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March 8th
Jack awakens with a start.
"Crap, what in the hell is that?"
He is not the only one, about him men are stumbling from their bunks, rushing out into the
still dark night.
It takes but moments to find the noise, from the direction of Darwin Harbour, the sound of
heavy gunfire, the flashing of explosions, star shells........
An orderly comes racing towards them......"There's a Jap task force in the harbour!, Captain Turnball
wants every plane in the air now!, in case they bombard us too!"
It is barely 3 am.
half blind, Jack struggles to throw on his clothes, adrenalin pounding through him.
Suddenly, every button, every buckle has become an impossible task, his shoe laces a nightmare.
Cursing all and sundry, he stumbles towards his fighter, its engine already started by his ground crew.
he leaps onto its wing, exchanges places with the man in the cockpit ( good, good, they know
their job, $%#@ing good)
Into his seat, belt, controls, eyes swiftly scanning.....where the hell is the strip?
Fuel?....enough to fly until dawn?.......yes, thank god
Turnball bullocks past, swings hard left, snarling vanishes into the night, exhaust flaring
blue, yellow, angry
Jack follows
Discrete lights, the strip plain, the night dark, damnation, here we bloody go!
Climbing away, nobody in sight, the harbour clearly visible in the moonlight.
Shock flows through him
A line of vessels nestled against the short pier.....lit up like Christmas trees by the
stabbing, blinding spotlights further out in the harbour.
Tracers, the flash of guns.......
The radio cackles
Äre we all clear?.......nobody is to do anything bloody stupid, maintain a circuit, do nothing.
Turnballs voice. Calm, but angry.
It is a long 90 minutes until they can begin to land again.
4 ships burn in the harbour, 2 Japanese Heavy cruisers almost with contempt are sailing away.
The landing is awkward, hard.
men swarm about them, fuel, ammunition.
The engine remains running.
A canteen of water
8 Wirriways rumble past, little bombs slung underneath.
Brave, brave barsteds.
A slap on the head......go!, go!, go!
Again snarling down the strip, dust trailing.
Climbing, climbing
Another shock
Angling, coming south, a sky, a bloody sky full of twin engined planes
Japs!
Jesus!, Japs!
Again Turnballs voice, still calm.
"No fighter escort......plenty for everyone, make your shots count"
banking hard, wing vertical, swinging around behind them, above them
Tracer?......the barsteds trying to kill me!, me!
A bomber swarms up, and up, bigger, bigger.
I am going to shoot!, going to shoot!
Guns, the stick hammers, stink.
A wing, alarmingly, separates, twirling vanishes past, OVER him, the bomber heeling
over, going down vertical.
Through them, bank again, crud, they have dived, turned too, never catch them now.........
A kill
I have a kill.
First mission
And I can do this......I can do this........
It is a busy day, 3 waves of bombers.
No fighters
19 kills to the 75th
1 wirriway lost, plunging into Takao's wake
The Japanese though, are coming
A carrier task force is North of Broome. Betties strike shipping at Port Headland
And Takao , Atago are still out there.
There will be no rest, no celebration time for Jack.
By dusk, 75th is at Wyndham, Darwin deemed too vulnerable to naval bombardment.
Not until dark, not until they wearily climb from their planes is the truth found
Wyndham, no supplies. No fuel. And just 6 mechanics, who don't know the front end
of a Kittyhawk, from its arse.
_____________________________
big seas, fast ships, life tastes better with salt
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