Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

Tony was reloading the chute with the second dozen flares.

I can’t believe we haven’t been hit!

There was a faint but perceptible yellow brightness, reflected off the underside of the upper wing, and then a much brighter glow as the magnesium of the flares ignited.

He dropped his eyes in ritual habit to the control panel. There were red lights all over it, OIL PRESSURE FAILURE being the most significant of them.

The engine coughed and died.

The wind whistling through the guy wires of the wings was eerie.

“Tony!” Clete called. “Dump the flares, we have engine failure.”

“What?”

“Dump the goddamned flares, and put your goddamned life jacket on!”

He made a shallow turn to the left, away from the Reine de la Mer and its cannon and machine guns.

The engine nacelle suddenly glowed and then there were flames licking out its rear.

Tony came and stood behind him, trying to tie the cords of the ancient, cork-filled life jacket.

“Jesus!”

“I’m going to have to put it in the water,” Clete said. “If those flames reach the fuel tanks, we’re fucked.”

He pushed the nose over and watched the airspeed indicator climb to the red mark and then beyond.

He was hoping that the rush of air would extinguish the blazing engine. It didn’t. The fuel lines were apparently ruptured and feeding the fire.

“There was a submarine down there,” Tony said.

“There was supposed to be,” Clete said.

“I mean one of theirs, alongside that fucker.”

“Go back and brace your back against my seat,” Clete ordered.

Clete brought the Beechcraft out of its dive. If the wings came off, there would be no chance for them at all. As opposed to one chance in, say, two million.

The flame from the engine now licked at the windshield, blackening it, distorting it, finally burning through in front of the co-pilot’s seat.

“Shit!”

The altimeter showed three hundred feet.

He pushed the nose down, watched the water approach, and praying that he had judged the distance with some accuracy, pulled the nose up and waited for it to stall.

Just as he noticed that the flames from the engine were playing less fiercely than before against the windshield, the Beechcraft stopped flying. It fell to the left, and a second later the left wingtip struck the water and the plane cartwheeled.

It stopped upside down, then started to sink by the nose.

He tore himself free of the lap belt, aware that he had cut himself somewhere, fell from the seat, and made his way back to Tony. Tony was groggy, but awake enough to be trying to make his way to the open door.

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Clete followed him, deciding that wherever the Lusitania life belt he’d stored behind the co-pilot’s seat was now, he had no chance of finding it. He went through the door as the fuselage turned upward, then settled into the water.