Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 (Mg(12), no-sex, rom)
   Eiwentok Anchorage, Northern Marshall Islands, January 1943
   I rouse myself from sleep and shake off momentary vertigo as I prepare
to get out of my hammock.  I'm only wearing boxer shorts and there's a
light covering of sweat on my body and even the slight coolness of the deck
doesn't help as the equatorial heat penetrates everything.
   My room is in the stern of the seaplane tender.  Most of the tender is
in the shade of camouflage nets, or nearby palm trees.  Still, even in
January, the outside tempature is in the lower eighties.  It is three in
the afternoon.  My name is Frank and I'm a Catalina pilot, make that a
Black Cat pilot.
   The Catalina has been around since the late 1930's.  It is an excellent
plane in many different applications.  The Black Cat is the newest of those
applications.  My Catalina is painted black.  At night, my plane becomes a
hunter.  Stocked with several types of weapons, including state of the art
radar, my co-pilot and I become lethal hunters of Japanese submarines,
merchant ships, and supply depots.
   After a bathroom break and shower I find myself in the messhall for
breakfast.  It is there that I find my co-pilot, let me tell you about her.
Lia is a stunningly beautiful twelve year old girl.  She is the daughter of
a missionary, now missing.  Lia became my co-pilot after showing up at the
base one day several months ago.  She wanted to serve and fly.  The
Commander politely laughed off her request, then told a military Policeman
to run her off.  He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.  That was a big
mistake.
   She spun out of his grasp, then executed a beautiful spinning leg sweep
that dropped him.  She took a feline cat stance and let him get up and come
at her.  She stung him and stayed out of his grasp.  He continued to come
at her and she continued to sting him.  After several minutes of this, she
had bloodied his nose and mouth.  Finally, the Commander called no joy to
the fight and let her stay.  Soon after she requested a chance to fly and
proved she had the ability to fly a plane.
   My plane arrived with a full crew, but a day after arriving I lost my
co-pilot to a snakebite.  My navigator came down with yellow fever and he
was evaced to the US.  My bombadier got drunk and drowned.  A new crew was
requested, but buracracy set in.  War waits for no one, so Lia became my
co-pilot and crew.  We are part of a squadron of five Black Cats.  Every
evening we get missions.  Every evening, Lia and I get the type of mission
that doesn't require a full crew.
   After breakfast, we make our way to the briefing room.  The other four
crews get their missions and Lia is handed a packet.  North of our
anchorage there is a new airfield at Abraktu Atoll.  Staffed with Japanese
fighter planes, it is surprising that it hasn't hassled us yet.  A request
was sent into Task Force 38, but 38 is engaged elsewhere, so it falls to
us.
   An hour later, we are in the plane going over our supplies and our track
to and from our target.  It is just after nine when we fire up the engines
and taxi out of the anchorage.  The moonlight sparkles in Lia's eyes as I
prepare to throttle up.  We are both in black jumpsuits for our mission and
she looks especially delicious.  For a second I contemplate a three day
pass with her in a hotel room, but I clear my head and focus on the mission
at hand.
   I push in on the left engine throttle and she gooses the right engine.
Black Cat zero five gains speed and starts cutting through the waves.  Lia
and I pull back on the yokes.  Finally zero fives loses the suction of the
water and lifts into the night sky.  We are at a forty five degree angle
until we reach our designated altitude of five thousand feet.  As we level
off, Lia uses her red flashlight to check the map, then reminds me to take
a heading of three forty nine.
   There is a three quarters moon out tonight.  It's brightness shimmers
off the ocean and helps in our navigation.  Lia looks out at landmarks,
checks her map, and nods her head.  The only talking during the flight is
when she gets thirsty inflight and offers to get both of us fruit juice she
stored onboard.  We sip the juice and keep our heads in the game.  Finally,
she gives me a thumbs down, meaning we are nearing our target and we need
to descend.
   Both of us strain our eyes.  Lia points at the Atoll in the distance-her
eyesight is better than mine.  We ease out of the sky and gently touch the
water.  We slow and Lia jumps out of her seat.  She bolts forward to the
bow and pops the hatch at the nose.  She leads me forward with hand
gestures and tells me when to slow.  There is a reef a distance from the
island and that is where we will anchor.  Lia raises her hand, then hits
the hull telling me to stop.  Lia gets out the "anchor" and drops it
overboard (our anchor is a cinder block attached to a nylon rope).
   We break out our two man raft, load our supplies, double check our
weapons, and take our bag of time bombs.  Loading the raft is a bit tricky,
but ten minutes later we fight the tide paddling in.  We get a bit winded
but keep the beach in sight as we paddle quietly in.  We watch carefully
for sentries on patrol.  We hope the sound of the engines didn't carry. 
The sound of the surf nearly overwhelms our senses, but we are grateful as
the raft touches the sand.
   We exit the raft and crouch, weapons at the ready-just in case.  There
is no movement around, and no sound but the waves.  We lift the raft and
run towards a spot between several palms.  There is a tan and brown colored
camouflage tarp in the raft.  We take our supplies out of the raft and
cover it with the tarp.  Ready for our mission, we pause to check the map,
local landmarks, and compass.  Lia points to the distance.  Crouching, we
begin a short journey to the airfield.
   Less than half an hour later, we find the flight line.  Staying near the
treeline we move as quietly as possible towards where the fighters are
parked.  We catch carefully for the inevitable sentry.  and we duck behind
a tree as he appears.  He looks in our direction, takes a drag off a
cigarette, then goes on to finish the cigarette before he moves on.
   We continue to move closer to the fighters watching for the sentry's
return.  As near the first fighter we lie prone on the ground and look for
the sentry.  We finally see him walking between the planes.  Lia quietly
gets up on the wing of a fighter and takes her cat stance.  The cruching
noise of sand between leather and concrete tells us he is nearing.  As he
clears the plane he looks in Lia's direction, and sees her as she pounces,
but he is too late to react.  She latches onto his head and shoulders and
curls into a ball as she propels him backward.  Slamming his head into the
concrete, she injures him severely, leaving him unconcious and bleeding
from his ears, nose, and mouth.
   We quickly and quietly go about our work, placing a time bomb on each of
the planes.  We also find a gas truck and stationary tank, to which we
affix with three bombs.  Our work done, we make our way back to the dying
sentry.  We drag him off into the treeline, then head for our raft.  As we
near the beach, we find a horrible surprise.
   A platoon of Japanese Marines are on the beach.  We crouch in the trees
and watch.  The Marines seem to be milling about, waiting to be told what
to do.  We can see the craft they arrived in.  We marvel that somehow they
missed the cat out beyond the surf line.  Our weapons at the ready, we can
do nothing but sit quietly still and pray not to be noticed.  One Marine
heads briefly in our direction, but only to pee before he rejoins his unit.
   The Marines mill about as if awaiting orders.  They are close to where
the raft is stored and are in between us and the cat.  I had hoped to be on
our way out before the bombs went off, but now all we can do is count the
remaining precious seconds before the explosions start, which is coming
soon.
   In situations like this, each second seems like an eternity.  Each
breath you take seems like a betrayal of the silence that you hope conceals
your presence.  You swear you can hear your heart beat.  It's now three in
the morning, the tempatures are cool, there's a nice breeze coming off the
ocean, but I'm sweating profusely.  Finally, when it seems like I can't
take it anymore, the bombs go off.
   The Marines, needless to say, are startled.  At first they crouch, then
start jabbering amongst each other.  At last, they run off in the direction
of the airfield.  Lia and I instantly make our move.  We run to the raft,
sloppily discard the tarp, run into the ocean, jump in the raft, and paddle
like hell.
   If paddling was an Olympic exercise, right now we would be international
contenders.  It helps that the tide is still going out as we make quick
time.  When we get to the reef, the cat is going with the tide and
straining against the anchor.  Lia starts to climb, but I grab her foot and
throw her up into the hatch.  I'm right behind her as she tries to run to
the cockpit.  I grab her and yell at her to cut the anchor.
   I get into my seat and hit the ignition switches.  The engines whine,
then sputter to life.  As I fasten my harness, Lia gets in the cockpit and
belts herself in.  I goose the left engine to turn us away from the reef.
When we have turned, Lia and I trade a look, then she gooses her engine. 
The cat picks up speed and cuts through the waves.  I hear a couple of
pings behind us, meaning we are being shot at, and hit, but seconds later
we are losing the suction of the water and lifting into the black void
which is the night sky.
   We both take a deep breath, and I see a smile crease her face for a
second.
   "Course one six nine" she says pointing at the compass.  I turn the yoke
and make the correction.  As we get on course, it appears on our radar
screen and Lia is pointing at it.  The radar contact is probably the ship
that dropped off those Marines, but before I begin an attack run I want to
make sure that it's not ours.  I begin a course glide and Lia gives me a
look.  My return look tells her I don't need to be second guessed.  I hear
her sigh.
   We are at two hundred feet as we pass right over the ship and confirm
that it is a Japanese merchant, a maru.  I turn right and begin a 270 three
quarter turn to line up for an attack.  Lia is out of her seat and heading
for the bombadier station.  When she gets there she yells:"Steady her".
   We have a pair of 500 pound bombs, which is excellent for taking out a
maru, or taking out a submarine.  If I had a full crew, the navigator would
be manning the bow gun to rake the deck and suppress any anti aircraft fire
we might receive.
   "Steady", Lia yells again, then "Pickles away" as she releases the
bombs. The plane, suddenly a thousand pounds lighter, lifts and I pull back
on the yoke.  Just then it sounds like someone is hitting the hull with a
hammer as we take some serious fire.  Lia screams, but before I can do or
say anything, one of the bombs hit, and there is an instant secondary
explosion as the bomb hit some live ordinance.
   "LIA", I yell back.  "I'm o.k.", she answers.  "Get your butt up here."
   I return the plane back to the proper course and climb to five thousand
feet.  Lia appears in the cockpit, but she's moving slowly, and I notice
she's favoring her right side.
   "Hey" I say to her.  "I'm o.k." she replies again.  "Bullshit" I answer.
   It's going to ruin my night sight for at least a half hour, but I turn
on the cockpit light.  I put the plane on auto pilot and take a look at
Lia. She's got a tear in her jumpsuit above her right shoulder, and I see
blood.  I get the first aid kit and take some gauze out.  I put the gauze
on her shoulder, and she flinches and yells.
   "I need to take a look", I tell her as I unzip her jumpsuit.
   I reach in and pull the fabric from her shoulder.  She's flinching in
pain and her face registers the degree of the discomfort she feels.  Then I
find it, it's a bullet wound.  I dress the wound as best I can, then pull
the jumpsuit back.  I ease back into my seat and kill the light.  I take
the auto pilot off, check the course, then make sure the throttles are all
the way to the stops.
   I take her tiny soft hand in mine, tell her to stay with me, then break
radio contact to let base know that I have a situation on my hands.  Then a
horrible thought hits and I realize I have to put the plane on auto pilot
again and leave Lia.
   I go into the area behind the cockpit and find my worst fears.  There
are holes in the hull from the anti aircraft fire.  This means I won't be
able to pull up to the tender.  I return to the cockpit, find Lia still
concious, and I radio in the bad news.
   "Do what you gotta do", they radio back.
   "You o.k.?" I ask Lia.
   She gives me weak smile.  We both know I'm going to have to beach the
cat near the tender.That means a rough landing, and in her condition Lia is
going to get bounced around.  I apologize and she gives my hand a gentle
squeeze.
   The forty five minutes it takes me to get back to base eat at my soul. I
was never attached to any of my crew, but I discover I have feelings for
her.  At long last, base comes into sight.  I do some Kentucky windage and
descend to bypass the tender and head for the beach.  On water, the cat
glides, but we hit the beach with a jolt.  Lia is concious, but just
barely.
   I run to the back hatch and look out.  Two medics are jumping into a
launch and heading our way.  I run back to the cockpit and ease Lia out of
the seat.  Lia groans softly as I take her to the back hatch.  The medics
are there as I get her to the hatch.  They take her out of the plane and
lay her on the ground.  They check her shoulder, then put her in the
launch.
   The next 12 hours are an eternity, but because I can't focus it seems to
be a blur.  They only work on her an hour, but then sedate her.  They also
give her three units of blood.  Coffee becomes my best friend.  After the
longest twelve hours of my life, the nurse finally lets me see her.
   She has tubes draining into both of her arms.  Her shoulder is heavily
bandaged.
   "Hey Frank" she weakly says as I come into the room.  Depite her
condition she smiles, and her smile warms my heart.  "I'm not flying
without you" I tell her.  "You better not" she warns.
   I lean in and steal a kiss, then I hug her and hold her.  Finally, the
nurse makes me leave.  The Commander is waiting outside.  He asks about her
and I fill him in.  Then he surprises me with an announcement.
   "Fifth Air Group came back with the BDA from your raid.  There was total
destruction.  Group is going in with a squadron to take out their runways
and living quarters.  I'm putting both of you in for the DFC.  By the way,
since your plane is shot up, you're grounded until she's back on her feet."
   We exchange a look and a knowing smile.  I feel tired, it's time to
sleep.  
  
Lia Model in Black Cat Zero Five