Free The Dive Bomber by L. Ron Hubbard Page A

I thought, and he’s bound to know where that steamer is. We’ll pull the throttle a notch.”
    â€œWe haven’t anything to fight with, Lucky.”
    â€œWe’ve got the wing guns, haven’t we?”
    â€œBut I ain’t got anything back here. Look at him, Lucky. Cold meat!”
    Easing back to two-eighty, the evident speed of the gray pursuit ship below and ahead, Lucky tagged hopefully.
    â€œThat pursuit ship was never built in America,” volunteered Flynn. “Too square. Too many wires.”
    â€œWe know where it was built.” It was four o’clock before a smudge could be seen ahead. The spring day was almost over. Night would fall before the bomber could get more than halfway to land and the gas would be gone long before that time—and the bomber would ride waves less than two hours.
    â€œOh, for a radio,” mourned Flynn. “Even if we win, we lose.”
    â€œIs that the right freighter?” said Lucky.
    Flynn methodically inspected it with his binoculars and declared that it was. “She’s flying the American flag, too, the damned pirates.”
    The ship was five miles ahead and three miles down, about the size of a needle floating in a glass of water, black smoke no more than a dot against the enormous bowl of the sea.
    The gray pursuit ship was a gnat flitting through the dusk, almost invisible against the pattern of the waves.
    The sunset was turning to flame, the sky was deepening to indigo in the direction of Africa.
    The waves were long, thin shadows, as close together as the threads of black gauze.
    Presently the white wake disappeared as the steamer swung to. Smith would land in the sea, to be picked up by a lifeboat.
    Flynn could see the davits swing out and then he shouted, “They must have sighted us! They’re signaling Smith not to land!”
    â€œWe’ll bomb first and fight second,” said Lucky.
    â€œBut with Smith still in the air to pick us off—”
    â€œWe’ll take that chance.”
    Lucky opened the engine wide, and the gleaming plane, blood-red in the setting sun, leaped ahead, a Pegasus stung by a spur.
    The gray ship banked in a climbing turn, scrambling for altitude.
    Fifteen thousand feet under the dive bomber, three miles straight down, the steamer began to get under weigh once more, rapidly picking up speed, already starting a zigzag.
    Verticaling tightly, tipping the sea until it was certain that all the water would run out of it, Lucky looked sideways at the faraway vessel.
    Flynn was busy with the binoculars. “Three machine guns mounted aft, all manned and waitin’ for us. It sure ain’t much of a bomb target; I’d rather shoot at a mile-away penny.”
    â€œSee any sign of Dixie?”
    â€œThere’s something white—”
    â€œShe was wearing a light-colored polo coat, wasn’t she?”
    â€œThat’s her!” cried Flynn. “They got her on the forward well deck , just ahead of the superstructure . Good God, Lucky, we can’t bomb that ship!”
    â€œForward well, is it. We’ll bomb aft.”
    â€œBut, Lucky, a pullout at three thousand… We don’t know if we can hit the afterdeck!”
    â€œWe won’t pull out at three thousand. Hold your breath. We’re going down!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    The Ship
Shows Her Mettle
    F LYNN’S agonized protest was blasted aside by the rising snarl of the engine.
    The dive bomber went over the hump and then, like a silver arrow, shot itself against the sea.
    Up, up, up sirened the engine. Down, down, down flashed the wings. Up to terminal velocity, back on the throttle. No engine on earth could drive the ship any faster now. Air was a solid wall against the cowling, shrieking, ripped asunder by the racing bullet’s thunder.
    The steamer grew longer. The sea was a bowl, a whirlpool. Lucky could see the masts, then the halyards , then the caulked seams in the