Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [138]
We found no whiskey there. Just enough for their own Christmas celebration. But they thought a shipment had come in at Munda. Try the Marines on top of the hill. It was a fifteen-minute hop from Ondonga to Munda, but it was the longest fifteen minutes of my trip to the South Pacific.
We took off without difficulty and flew over Kula Gulf, where our Navy had smashed the last big Jap attempt to retake Guadal. We could see ships beached and gutted, and one deep in the water. But as we turned to fly down the channel to Munda, we started to lose altitude. The engine gradually slowed down.
Bus elected not to tell us anything, but when he started crabbing down the channel both Tony and I knew something was seriously wrong. From time to time Bus would pull the nose up sharply and try to climb, but after he nearly stalled her out, he gave that up.
"Prepare for ditching!" he said quietly over the interphone. "She'll take water easy. But protect your faces! Tony, sit on the deck and brace yourself."
I took my parachute off and wedged it over the instruments facing me. If we crashed badly my face would crack into something soft. I was sweating profusely, but the words don't mean much in recollection. Even my lungs were sweating, and my feet.
We were about two hundred feet over the water. The engine was coughing a bit. We were near Munda. Then we heard Tony calling over the interphone: "Take her in and land on Munda. You can do it, Bus!" His voice was quiet and encouraging.
"It's the carburetor, Tony!" Bus called back. "She may cut out at any minute!"
"So might a wing drop off. Take her in, I tell you. You can make it easy, Bus. Call the airfield!"
Bus started talking with Munda again. "Permission to stagger in," he said. "Got to land any way I can get in. Even cross field. I'll crash her in. Permission to stagger in!"
"Munda to 21 Baker 73. Munda calling. Come in. Field cleared!"
"Will try to make it from channel approach. Is that one ball?"
"Channel approach one ball. Wind favorable."
"Well, guys!" Bus called. "Stop squinchin' your toes up. Here we go!"
He tried to maintain altitude with the heavy TBF and swing her down channel for a turn onto the field. Before he had gone far he realized that to bank the plane in either direction meant a sure stall. That was out. He then had to make an instant decision whether to try a down-wind, no-bank, full-run landing or to set her down in the ocean and lose the plane.
"Coming in down wind. Clear everything!"
From my perch in the radio seat I could see Bus' flashing approach. The airplane seemed to roar along the tops of the trees. I could not imagine its stopping in less than two miles. Then, straight ahead gleamed Munda airfield! It was a heavenly sight. Longest of the Pacific strips, it had been started by the Japs and finished by us. In twelve days we built as much as they did in almost twelve months. To port the mountain marking the airfield rose. At the far end of the field the ocean shone green above the coral. I breathed deeply. If any field could take a roaring TBF, this one could.
But at that moment a scraper, unwarned of our approach, started across the near end of the strip. I screamed. I don't know what Bus did, but he must have done the right thing, for the old Belch vaulted over the scraper and slammed heavily onto the coral. Two tires exploded in a loud report. The Belch limped and squealed and ground to a stop.
As usual, Tony was the first out. He looked at the burred wheel hubs and the slashed rubber. He looked back at the scraper, whose driver had passed out cold, grazed by a TBF tail wheel. Then he grinned at Bus. "Best landing you ever made," he said.
It would take two days to put new wheels, tires, and carburetor in the Belch. Meanwhile, Munda had no whiskey. That is, they had