The Treasure of Ho-Chi Tut and the flight home.

This is a snippet of my up and coming novella amongst other projects in my pipe line.

The sun shone so brightly it made the Japanese sea cobalt blue. The pilot of the B-17 bomber ‘Dancing Gail’ wrapped his silk scarf around his right forearm to stop the bleeding. One of the pistol shots had hit the instrument panels and there was a smell of burning wiring. The flight engineer burst through into the cramped cockpit and spoke to James Dunn the pilot,

“Captain we managed to over power him. He is one strong son of a bitch though. How the hell did he get that .45 Colt he is a damn prisoner?”

To make matters worse James saw tracer bullets fly just behind the port wing. He instinctively turned the wheel to the right and the all silver B-17 dived to starboard. Below James saw two American Motor Torpedo Boats in line astern opening up on his B-17. He shouted out,

“What the, Blue blazes is this happy horse shit?”

Several 20mm cannon shells holed the port wing and high octane fuel streamed backwards from the damaged fuel tanks. The flight engineer juggled the fuel transfer pumps and shouted in the pilots ear again,

“The fuel cocks must be damaged she isn’t transferring fuel. Why are our guys shooting at us for Christ sake. I bet its that shit we have in the bomb bays. Carrying gold and silver and looks like jewels to me. I bet that jerk of a GI we tied up is part of a scheme to bring us down”

Laying on the cold fuselage floor Private Nelson shouted out into the cockpit,

“Hey, think your clever bush waking me to the floor and tying me up? Those guys shooting at you are my guys. You wont make it back state side not with that loot in the bomb bays. That’s got mine and my buddies’ names on it”

Just then another volley of cannon shells crashed into the aft fuselage rocking the silver B-17 from level flight. James shouted out as he fought with the controls,

“We’re going down, I think they have damaged the control cables. There is an island down there I’m putting her down I’m not crashing in the sea. Hold on”