In the meantime Jack had decided on a bold stroke. He was not sure that at this time it was a wise thing to do, but his burning desire to make his way back to the carrier and resume his post of duty there had all but driven him to it.

As he paced back and forth on the beach, guarding camp and wondering about his strange night visitor, he recalled the words of his uncle Dan who had fought in the first World War:

“You’ll be in danger many times,” he had said in a serious, friendly voice. “Your superior officers will not always be present to make decisions for you. You’ll sometimes have to make them for yourself. Always keep this thought uppermost in your mind: you are worth a great deal more to your country alive than dead. Don’t take unnecessary chances.”

“Am I planning to take unnecessary chances now?” he asked himself. Though he did not know the answer, he was willing to take the risk.
106

One more thing had made a lasting impression on him. “Jack, my boy,” said his uncle, who limped as a result of wounds received in France, “the thing I want most to tell you is this. While you are in service you will have comrades, many boon companions, and if you treat them right, as I know you will, you’re sure to make attachments that will last as long as you live. You see, Jack, you’ll be living under difficult conditions, enduring hardships, and facing great dangers together. Your souls will be tried as by fire and you’ll be welded together, the way steel is welded.”

Yes, Jack thought now, Uncle Dan was right. We have grown closer and closer to one another. There’s Stew and Ted, Kentucky, Red, the Commander, and all the others. We’ll never forget one another. That’s one reason why I’m so eager to get back to the Black Bee.

Yes, he decided finally, I’ll do it, even if it does mean taking a chance. I’ll do it the first thing in the morning.

Then he awakened Stew for his watch, stretched himself out, and fell asleep at once.

He was up again before dawn. “Tell you what!” he exclaimed over a cup of coffee. “I’m going to find out who those fellows are.”

“The men with that queer plane?” Stew asked.
107

“Yes. We’ve got to know. They might help us get back to our ship.”

“And then again they might not—they might do just the opposite,” Stew suggested.

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. You’d better stay here and sort of look after things,” he suggested. “I may discover something big. We might want to get off this island in a hurry.”

“Get off?” Stew stared. “Yes, but how?”

“There’s the Jap raft, you know. It’s seaworthy. We’ve got supplies of a sort, enough to last us weeks with the birds and fish we’d catch. If it seemed the thing to do, we could slip the raft out into the current and get away rather rapidly.”

“I suppose so,” Stew agreed.

Jack stood up. Should he tell Stew of the night visitor? After a moment’s thought he decided against that.

A half hour later, after hurrying over the native trail, he found himself slipping silently through the brush toward the camp of the strangers. “I’ll just look before I show myself,” he whispered to the empty air.

All of a sudden he stopped to listen. A low, whispering wail had reached his ear.

“Too late.” His hopes fell. “They’re off.” Yet as he listened the wail died away.
108

“Probably testing their motors,” he assumed. Once more he crept through the brush. Three times the wail rose and fell, but he pushed straight on until the smoke from a campfire told him he was close to the edge of the tangled mass of palms and tropical brush beside the strangers’ camp.

Choosing a young date palm, whose fronds sprouted close to the ground, he crept to it and crouched there a minute. Rising to his knees, he parted the slender fronds to look away to the sloping rock.

The mysterious plane was some distance away. The two men talked and laughed while they refueled the plane. The language they spoke seemed strange to Jack, though he was too far away to understand what they said, even if they had spoken English.

“Wish I hadn’t come,” he observed. Then, “But I really must know about them. No sense beating about the bush.”

The men ceased laughing. The sound of their words changed. One of them climbed to the plane’s cockpit. The motor howled once more. So loud was its final scream that it hurt Jack’s ears. Then it faded away.

“They’ll be off in a minute,” he breathed, rising to his feet. “It’s now or—”
109

No. He settled back. The man on the rock hurried away.

“Oh Jerry!” the one in the plane called in perfect English. “Bring an alligator wrench.”

Jack heaved a sigh of relief. So they spoke English! They must be okay. At that he stepped boldly out from the brush and walked straight toward the plane. The man in the cockpit was bent over working on something. He did not raise his head until Jack was within three yards of the plane. When he did look up, he started at the sight of Jack. His figure stiffened. His right hand dropped.

“Stand where you are!” he commanded. “Who are you? What do you want? And how did you come here?” The man spoke with a decided accent.

“My uniform should tell you what I am,” Jack replied evenly.

“In war, uniforms mean nothing!” the man snapped. His gray eyes matched the gray of the bushy hair about his temples. He was no longer young. Between his eyes were two lines that told of work and strain.

“I’m sorry.” Jack apologized. “I had no intention of startling you. I’m an American fighter............