Collection 1986 - Night Over The Solomons (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF

drank the hot coffee, taking the chill of the night from his bones.…
    Two days ago in Port Darwin, Major Garnett had sent for him. Curious, he responded at once. Garnett had come to the point immediately.
    “You’re a civilian, Cowan. But you volunteered for duty, and you’ve flown over most of the East Indies. Know anything about Siberut?”
    “Siberut?” Cowan was puzzled. “A little. I’ve been on all the Mentawi Islands. Flew over from Emma Haven on the coast of Sumatra.”
    Garnett nodded.
    “No Europeans, are there?” he asked.

----
    C OWAN HESITATED.
    “Not to speak of. The natives are timid and friendly enough, but they can be mighty bad in a pinch. Villages are mostly black inland. It’s heavily jungled, with only a few plantations. There are, I think, a few white men.”
    “How about that trouble of yours some years back? Weren’t they white men?” Garnett asked keenly.
    Steve Cowan chuckled.
    “You check up on a guy, don’t you? But that was no trouble. It was a pleasure. That was Besi John Mataga. He’s a renegade.”
    “I know.” Major Garnett nodded. “Furthermore, we understand he is negotiating with the enemy. That’s why I’ve sent for you.”
    He leaned forward.
    “It’s like this Cowan. Intelligence has learned that fifty Messerschmitt 110s were flown from Tripoli to Dakar across the Sahara. They were loaded on a freighter heading for Yokohama. War broke out, and temporarily the freighter was cut off from Japan.
    “Just what happened then, we only know from one of the crew, who was supposedly drowned. He got to us and reported that several of the crew, led by the chief mate, murdered the captain and took over the ship.
    “The chief mate had some idea of striking a bargain with the Japanese. He’d claim the ship was injured and that he could tell them where it was—for a price.”
    “And the mate is John Mataga, is that it?” Cowan asked.
    “Exactly. Mataga had signed on under an assumed name, but was dealing with the Japanese as himself. Naturally, the freighter had to be hidden until a deal was struck. Our advices are that the deal is about to go through. Of course, I needn’t tell you what those fifty Messerschmitts would mean to Japan.”
    “No,” Cowan frowned. “Plane for plane we’re much better than they, even though we’re badly outnumbered. But those Messerschmitts would be tough to handle.”
    “That’s it,” Garnett agreed. “So they must never reach Japanese hands. They must be found and destroyed—and we know exactly where they are?”
    “Off Siberut?”
    “Yes. Lying in Labuan Bajau Bay. You know it?”
    “You bet.” Cowan sat up. “What do I do and when do I start?”
    “You understand the situation,” Garnett said. “We can’t spare the pilots for an attack. Indeed, we haven’t planes enough. But one ship, flown by a man who knew the locality, might slip through. It’s one chance in a thousand!”
    Cowan shrugged.
    “That makes the odds about right,” he said. “You want that freighter blown up?”
    “Yes.” Garnett nodded vigorously. “You’ve had no bombing experience, so we can’t trust to that. You must land, and…”
    But that had been two days ago.
    The first night, Steve Cowan had flown the amphibian to a tiny inlet on the south coast of Java, where he remained all day, hidden from hostile scouting planes. Then when darkness fell, he took off again. Time and again he had narrowly missed running into the enemy. Once, south of Bali, he had come out of a cloud facing a lone Japanese plane.
    He recognized it instantly. It was a Kawasaki 93, a bomber-reconnaissance plane. In the same instant, he banked steeply and sharply and fired a burst at its tail as it shot by him.
    Cowan had the faster ship and could have escaped. But he was conscious of nothing but the realization that if the pilot broke free, it would be only a matter of minutes before speedy pursuit ships would be hunting him down.
    His turn had brought him around on