may have to be put over the side on rafts or merely in life jackets, is another story.
All of these problems, and others as urgent, were present in the sick bay of the Pecos. With luck, and no Japs to interfere, the Pecos might expect to make a west Australian port in a week. There the injured could be moved to a hospital. Meanwhile, there was the need to treat burns, overcome shock, attend to those urgently in need of surgery, set fractures, and prevent the other injuries from growing worse.
It lacked a few minutes of noon when the ship's siren warned all below decks that the enemy had returned. Less than a minute later the first bomb hit the ship. It tore a hole amidships, where a fire started. The tanker's anti-aircraft guns barked and yapped viciously. At the same time, she began to curvet and prance like a frightened horse, as the skipper endeavored to keep her from being an easy target.
There were nine attacking planes — undoubtedly from the same carrier that had sighted the American ships at Christmas Island the day before. Now they had come back with a fresh load of death. According to ritual, they separated into threes, and then peeled off one at a time from this formation. Meanwhile, high overhead, and well out of reach of anti-aircraft fire, a scout plane hung against the blue, cloudless sky, keeping watch. "Photo Joe," the men nicknamed him.
There was a horrible, mathematical accuracy about the method of attack. Down came the planes, launching their missiles, only to rise and come back again to let go the rest of the load. When all nine had discharged their explosives, they took wing back to the carrier to reload, leaving the scout plane on watch.
"Like a damned buzzard," was the way Yon put it.
They made three runs, with about an hour between the second and third. First and last, they hit the tanker five times, with six near-misses that sent up columns of water twenty feet higher than the deck, and dropped back on it with the crash of thunder and
