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

the enemy’s tail, and he gunned his ship. The Kawasaki tried an Immelmann and let go a burst of fire as it whipped back over in the tight turn. But Cowan was too close behind for the pilot’s fire to reach him.
    He pulled his ship up so steeply he was afraid it would stall, but then he flattened out. For an instant the Kawasaki was dead in his sights.
    Cowan’s burst of fire smashed the Japanese tail assembly into a stream of fragments. But their crew was game. They tried to hit Cowan with a burst from the observer’s gun.
    Cowan saw the stream of tracer go by. Then he banked steeply and swung down in a long dive after the falling ship, pumping a stream of steel-jacketed bullets into his target. Suddenly the Kawasaki burst into flame. An instant later, a red, roaring mass, it struck the sea with a terrific smash.
    The entire fight had lasted less than a minute. Cowan pulled back on his stick and shot upward, climbing until he saw the altimeter at sixteen thousand feet. Then he had leveled off and headed straight for Siberut.

----
    C OWAN DRANK THE coffee slowly, then ate a bar of chocolate. It would be daylight in a matter of minutes, he knew. Beyond the clump of casuarinas on the shore would be the renegade freighter. Beyond the trees, and probably a mile away.
    Carefully Cowan stowed his gear, then checked his guns. He was carrying two of them, a .45 Colt automatic for a belt-gun and a .380. The smaller gun was strapped to his leg inside his trousers. There was a chance he might need an ace in the hole.
    The explosive he’d brought along for the job was ready. It had been carefully prepared two days before by one of the best demolition experts in Australia.
    Cowan made his way ashore through the mangroves that grew down close to his anchorage. Then he swung down from the trees and walked along the sand under the casuarinas.
    Besi John Mataga would not leave the freighter unguarded. There would be some of the crew aboard. And if Steve Cowan knew Besi John, the crew members would be the scum of the African waterfronts where they had been recruited.
    How he was to handle that part of it, Cowan didn’t know. You could rarely plan a thing like that; so much depended on chance. You knew your objective, and you went there ready to take advantage of any chance you got.
    The Japanese would be hunting the ship. They wouldn’t pay off to Besi John without having a try for it. But on the other hand, they couldn’t afford to delay for long. The planes were needed too badly, with streams of new Curtiss, Bell, and Lockheed pursuit jobs pouring into Australia.
    Cowan halted under the heavy branches of a casuarina. The outer harbor was open before him. There, less than a half mile away, was the
Parawan
, a battered freighter of Portuguese registry.
    It was at least possible, even if improbable, that Besi John did not know of the inner harbor. In any case, no large ship could possibly negotiate the channel without great risk. The entrance, about two hundred yards wide, was shoal water for the most part and out of sight behind the point of casuarinas.
    The
Parawan
lay in about sixteen fathoms, Cowan judged, remembering the soundings of the outer harbor. On the shore close by was a hut, where traders used to barter for rotan and other wood products.
    Moving along the point toward the mainland, Steve Cowan studied the freighter from all angles. He would have to get aboard by night; there was no other way. In any event, it wasn’t going to be easy.
    Keeping under cover of the jungle, Cowan worked his way along the shore. Several times he paused to study the sandy beach. Once he walked back under the roots of a giant ficus tree, searching about in the darkness.
    A ripple in the still water nearby sent a shiver along his spine. He watched the ominous snout and drew back further from the water’s edge.
    “Crocs,” he said. “Crocs in the streams and sharks in the bay.”
    Coming to the bank of a small stream, he hesitated, then walked