Sword Is Drawn by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton [Norton, Andre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497656840
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2014-06-30T21:00:00+00:00

Lorens thought that maybe hope rather than sense had prompted her question.

“Well, there’s always a first time,” agreed Gong. “But I’d feel a lot happier if I knew just what he had in his guns.”

“Isn’t that land?” Carla indicated a dark line along the sea.

“Yep. That’s Australia. Now we turn west to reach Darwin. Which we won’t!”

His voice rose. The Zero had done with playing, it was diving straight for them.

“Can you land?” Lorens cried.

As the last word left his lips the port engine missed and a plume of oily black smoke puffed back at them.

“That’s done it!” Gong yelled. “With this load I can’t bring her down on one engine. I’ll try to crash her down on land. Strap yourself,” he snapped at Carla. “And you,” he flung over his shoulder at Lorens, “hold on. She’ll come down hard — if I can get her in at all!”

Gong fought on, a grim, lost battle. For an endless space torn out of time they dived earthward. They forgot even the Zero as they watched the shore line become yellow, solid rock and earth reaching up for them. Then, in a last intolerable shock of noise and force, Gong brought them in.

Lorens lay on his side, pinned against the wall of the cabin by one of the bales of freight. He swallowed and tasted the sticky sweetness of blood which filled his mouth and dribbled down his chin. To try to move was as instinctive as to open his eyes or swallow the stream which kept filling his mouth. But he was securely wedged in and helpless.

After a moment or two of sheer panic, it did not seem to matter so much. When he opened his eyes and raised his head, the crumpled walls of the plane whirled about.

The second time he aroused it was all light and air about him. He was lying on his back in the shadow cast by a tilted wing, a folded coat for a pillow. Gong knelt a short distance away, bowing his head while Carla pulled a bandage into place about his forehead. Reddish stains made a pattern down the front of her dress, and a deep scratch was outlined in dried blood on her cheekbone.

“That’s the stuff!” The pilot fingered the bandage when she had finished. “Thanks, Miss Cortlandt. If that — that — ” he gulped, then continued with restraint, “Jap comes back again maybe I can see enough to nick him one with the rifle!”

“With that?” Lorens’ voice had started out well, deep as usual in his throat, but when it reached his lips, it was scarcely more than a husky whisper.

“Oh.” Carla came running and fell on her knees beside him. Gong followed, his mouth stretched in what he must have intended to be a reassuring grin.

“So you’re in the land of the living again,” he said.

Lorens interrupted, “What is the damage?”

Gong shrugged. “The old girl is washed out — teetotal. I’ve a cracked head and general contusions. Miss Cortlandt

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