London, Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer watched the play of searchlight
beams, and the glow of burning buildings in the distance. The sound of
the bursting bombs was like the dull rumble of thunder far away. But
every now and then when the wind changed slightly, they caught the faint
chatter of the machine guns of night-flying Spitfires and Hurricane
pilots hunting out the raiders high up in the sky.
For several minutes they had been standing there watching the sight and
not speaking. There wasn't anything to say except express the desire to
be up there doing their bit along with their R.A.F. comrades. And to
express such a wish would have been just a waste of breath. Even though
it had suddenly been granted, neither of them would have accepted. They
had their own job to do. They had pledged themselves to carry it through
to a successful end, and neither of them would turn back now even though
he were given the opportunity.
One hour ago they had reported to the squadron leader of this Bombing
Command unit. He had of course been informed of the flight they were to
make, but only up to the point where they would bail out somewhere close
to Antwerp. He had welcomed them gravely, but they had not missed the
gleam of quiet admiration in his eye. The squadron leader had
introduced them to the pilot and crew of the Wellington bomber in which
they would make the flight. Flight arrangements had been quietly
discussed, and they had been supplied with parachute packs, and oxygen
masks and tanks. That done with, the pilots and crews scheduled to make
the raid had retired to the Ready-Room for last minute instructions,
leaving Freddy and Dave to discuss last minute items between themselves.
There had been nothing for them to discuss, however. Every possible
angle of their coming venture had been hashed over and over during a
second meeting with Colonel Fraser and Air Vice-Marshal Saunders. A
detailed picture of Pierre Deschaud was stamped in their brains. They
had poured over a detailed map of the Scheldt River waterfront until
they knew it by heart. Every little thing that might help, Colonel
Fraser had told them. Ten times, no, a hundred times, they had gone
carefully over the whole thing from beginning to end. There was nothing
for them to discuss between themselves, now. There was nothing to do but
wait until the four plane flight of Wellington bombers, powered by twin
1000 horsepower Bristol "Pegasus" engines, was ready to take off.
"I bet those guys are busting to ask us a million questions," Dave
eventually broke the silence between them. "You could see it in their
eyes when we were introduced."
"Well, you certainly can't blame them," Freddy replied with a chuckle.
"Just look at these duds we're wearing. And by the by, you certainly
won't break any girl's heart as a Belgian peasant boy, my pal. Frankly,
you look a sight."
"Listen to who's talking!" Dave snorted. "That dizzy-looking get-up of
yours is the one thing that has me worried about this flight."
"Ah, so the chap _is_ worried!" Freddy murmured. "I thought so!"
"Darn tooting!" Dave said. "One look at you and both of the Pegasus
engines on the bus are liable to up and stop working just like that. And
then where'll we be? See what I mean?"
"I doubt if they'll even get us off the ground if you get close to
them!" Freddy scoffed. "So be sure and stay well back out of sight. But
to be serious, Dave, what do you really think of our chances? Oh, I know
we'll go the limit, but what do you really think?"
Dave didn't answer for a moment. He turned his back to the scene of
night aerial warfare to the south and stared unseeingly at the four
"Wellies" with their propellers slowly ticking over.
"That's a tough question, Freddy," he finally said. "To tell you the
truth, I really don't know just what I _do_ think. As a matter of
fact--No, skip that."
"Skip what, Dave?" Freddy prodded earnestly. "What were you going to
say? I really want to know."
Dave looked at him and smiled a trifle wryly.
"Maybe I'm getting old too fast, Freddy," he said. "Or maybe I'm just
getting too many cockeyed ideas for my age. But from what I've already
seen of this war, nothing is absolutely certain. I mean, you can plot
and plan how you're going to do a thing until you're blue in the face;
get every little thing all set so that it's--well, so that it's in the
bag, as we say back home. Then, _zingo_! Something pops up that knocks
all your plans completely haywire. And--Oh, nuts! I guess I'm like a kid
whistling in the dark."
"And I feel exactly the same," Freddy said quietly. "But go on. What
else, Dave?"
"Oh, skip it!" Dave grunted. "Maybe I'm just getting cold feet at the
last minute."
Freddy stepped close to him.
"Would you like me to bash you one, my American pal?" he asked sharply.
"Well, just stop talking that way about yourself. Cold feet? What rot!
After what I saw you do at the Dunkirk show? Rubbish! No, Dave, don't
talk that way to _me_. Now, what else were you going to say?"
Dave grinned and playfully rasped his knuckles across Freddy's jutting
chin.
"One in a million, that's you," he said softly. "One in five million, or
name any figure. Well, it's the old hunch business working again, if you
must know, Freddy. I mean, everything seems too pat, too cut and dried.
I've got the hunch that something we couldn't even dream of is going to
pop up and dump us into a mess of trouble before we're back in England
again."
"And right you are!" Freddy breathed softly. "I have a feeling just like
that, myself. Got it first this afternoon, but I didn't say a word for
fear the colonel might take it the wrong way. He might have thought I
was hedging and trying to back out. You know, make excuses?"
"Nobody would ever think you were trying to back out of anything!" Dave
said loyally. "But what was it that popped into your mind, anyway?"
"Pierre Deschaud," Freddy said.
Dave shot him a puzzled look.
"Huh?" he echoed. "Pierre Deschaud? So what?"
Freddy hesitated a moment and fumbled with the hem of his coarse peasant
jacket.
"Sheer rot, probably," he said after a moment. "But a chap is bound to
think of things, you know. Colonel Fraser admits that word from Deschaud
cannot get through to him except by one of the colonel's agents. He also
admits that the last five agents who have gotten in touch with Deschaud
have failed to return. They have either disappeared or died, or both.
Well, that makes me wonder a lot."
"Well, he said the Nazis were smart and clever guys," Dave pointed out.
"Sure he did," Freddy nodded. "But don't you get the idea, Dave?"
"The old brain has swallowed up so much today, it's a blank," Dave
confessed. "What are you driving at, anyway?"
"What proof is there that Pierre Deschaud _is still alive_?" Freddy
asked suddenly.
Dave gasped and went back a step as the real significance of the words
came home to him.
"Holy catfish!" he eventually breathed. "That _is_ a thought, isn't it!"
"And one worth a lot of consideration, too," Freddy nodded. "As I said,
it may all be a lot of rot, but chew on this a bit, Dave. It is possible
that the Nazis have trapped and caught this Pierre Deschaud, but aren't
saying anything about it. Maybe they are using him, or somebody exactly
like him, as bait for the colonel's agents. Don't forget, the last five
agents were caught!"
Dave swallowed hard and wiped a hand across his forehead, which had
become just a wee bit moist--and not from the warmth of the night air,
either!
"Gee, you think of the nicest things!" he muttered. "But you could be
right as rain, Freddy, and no fooling. We've got to watch our step. And
_how_ we've got to watch it! Pick up the marbles, Freddy. You've got the
old brain, and no fooling! Any other ideas?"
"No, that one's enough," Freddy said grimly. "Yes, we've got to watch
our step, but--well--that is--I mean, it doesn't make any difference,
Dave, does it?"
"Any what?" Dave echoed, and stared at him. "You mean, should we call it
off? Hey! One more crack like that, and--Oh, just the old kidder, huh?"
Freddy was chuckling as he grabbed Dave's arms.
"I'm sorry, Dave," he said. "I just couldn't pass the opening. Your face
looks so funny when you suddenly get mad. Of course I didn't mean a
thing, and I apologize."
"Well, that's better!" Dave growled. Then, grinning slowly: "You did
have me going for a second, there. I really thought you were serious,
you old tease, you! I must be slipping, not to have got wise at once.
I--Uh-uh! I guess this is it, pal!"
The last was caused by the approaching figure of the pilot of the
Wellington in which they were to fly. The pilot was Flight Lieutenant
Wiggins, and though he wore a heavy flying kit, they knew that the
D.F.C. ribbon for air gallantry was under the R.A.F. wings on his tunic.
He came up, stopped, grinned, and jerked a thumb in the direction of
the waiting Wellington bombers.
"Hitler just called," he announced. "Says the weather is perfect over
Berlin, and will we please get it over with? So I guess we'd better get
along and please the little fellow, what? You ready?"
"And raring," Dave said with a grin.
"Absolutely fed up with standing on the ground," Freddy added.
The flight lieutenant chuckled and gave them both a keen look.
"I say, drop me a line after it's all over, will you?" he suddenly asked
as they started walking toward the planes. "You know my name and
squadron address. It should reach me right enough."
"A line about what?" Dave asked in an innocent voice.
"Come off it, my lad!" Flight Lieutenant Wiggins snorted. "You know what
I mean. The show you two are scheduled to pull off. We've been pulling
out our hair wondering what it's all about. That goes for the squadron
leader, too. He swears he doesn't know a thing."
"But that's rot!" Freddy exclaimed, and buckled his helmet strap tight.
"Didn't Hitler say he phoned, just now?"
"The blighter didn't say a word, except that the weather was wonderful
and would we please get on with it?" Wiggins chuckled.
"Well, there you are!" Freddy cried. "He's just a shy sort of chap, you
know. Probably was afraid that you'd pull his leg about it."
"Oh, quite," the flight lieutenant said with a gesture. "But just what
would I pull his leg about? Of course, if it's a deep secret, and you've
sworn to Winston Churchill not to breathe a word, why then--"
"But we thought _everybody_ knew!" Dave said in mock surprise. "Hitler's
become fed up. And he's mad at Goering, besides. Goering won't lend him
any of his medals any more. So Hitler's mad. He wants to come over here
and fight in the British army. Well, you could have knocked me down with
a feather when King George asked my pal and me to go over there and
bring him back."
"So there you are!" Freddy said. "All very simple. Nothing to it,
really."
"Sure!" Dave chuckled. "Get a copy of the London Times tomorrow. There
may even be pictures."
"Say, I'll jolly well do that!" Flight Lieutenant Wiggins said with mock
excitement. "And some day I'll tell my grandchildren that I shook hands
with the two chaps who nurse-maided Adolf Hitler back to England. So I
guess I'd better do that, now."
They had reached the side of the nearest Wellington. Flight Lieutenant
Wiggins stopped and in turn shook each boy warmly by the hand.
"Happy landings, lads," he said quietly. "Tally-ho, and all that sort of
thing, you know. Well, up into her."
A warm and exhilarating glow tingled through Dave and Freddy as they
climbed up through the belly door of the Wellington bomber and made
their way forward toward the navigator's cubbyhole just in back of the
pilot. The kidding with Flight Lieutenant Wiggins had removed a lot of
ugly thoughts. That was the old R.A.F. spirit. Perhaps not one of these
Wellingtons would return from their dangerous night raids over Germany,
but the pilots and the crews didn't talk about that. They didn't even
think about it. They were R.A.F., and there was a job to do. And that
was that. No fuss and feathers. No back slapping and brass bands.
Battling death and beating it at its own game was routine with them, and
they took it as such, with a smile and a joke on their lips.
When they were seated on the two small canvas stools, Dave reached over,
pressed Freddy's knee and winked at him in the pale glow of the single
light bulb fitted to a fuselage bracing strip. Freddy winked back and
smiled. A moment later the fuselage light winked out, and there was no
light save the pencil beam of the navigator's bulb, and the fused glow
of the instrument panel up forward. Flight Lieutenant Wiggins ran up his
engines, checked the radio, and then trundled his bomb-loaded ship to
the far end of the field and swung it around into the wind.
There he waited with idling engines for the three other planes in the
patrol to take up line-astern position. When they were in place and
ready, radio orders came from the field's Operations Office for the
take-off. Wiggins pushed throttles forward, and the two Pegasus engines
roared up in a mighty song of power. The Wellington quivered and
trembled for a moment as though it were reluctant to leave the safety
of English soil. Then slowly it moved forward down a long line of flares
set out on the field. With every revolution of its twin propellers the
plane picked up speed. Presently it was bouncing down that line of
flares on its wheels with the tail up. A moment or so more and Flight
Lieutenant Wiggins pulled back on the controls. The bouncing stopped,
and the Wellington went curving up toward the star-dotted night sky.
The instant the wheels were clear and the bomber was mounting up toward
Heaven, Dave twisted slightly so that he could peek out the navigator's
port and down at the shadowy mass that was England falling away from the
plane. For one brief instant stark fright streaked through his heart. It
passed, and a tight grin came to his lips. He turned his head and looked
past Flight Lieutenant Wiggins and through the reinforced glass nose of
the plane--and on into the future.
"Pierre Deschaud, here we come!" he whispered softly to himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
_Terror Rides The Night Sky_
England was far behind in the darkness. The altimeter on the instrument
board in front of Flight Lieutenant Wiggins said twenty thousand feet.
Both Dave and Freddy had long since stuck the oxygen tubes in their
mouths, as had also Wiggins and the members of his crew. And whenever
their heads felt a bit light they took a suck of the energy-restoring
air and instantly felt normal again. Dave had to grin whenever he looked
at Freddy and the others. In their helmets and oxygen masks, they looked
like a group of crazy creatures from Mars.
Presently they ran into a bit of weather. The plane heaved slightly, but
Wiggins kept it dead on its course. After another bit of time they ran
into high clouds. Dave saw Flight Lieutenant Wiggins speaking into his
radio mike and knew that the pilot was ordering the other planes of the
patrol to spread out so as to avoid collision while flying blind. The
nodding of Wiggins' head indicated that the other pilots were
acknowledging the order and obeying it.
For some fifteen minutes the plane flew blind through the clouds, then
came out into clear air again. Wiggins and the navigator checked their
position. Then Wiggins scribbled something on a piece of paper and
handed it back to the two boys. They glanced at the short message, which
read:
"Tired of looking at your funny faces. Time to make sure your
'chute packs are strapped on tight. You will probably need them on
the way down!! Cheeri-o!"
Dave and Freddy grinned at each other, then impulsively they clasped
hands warmly. No words were spoken. No words needed to be spoken. They
would have been empty and meaningless. The firm pressure of the other's
hand had told each far, far more than mere words. The first part of
their venture was quickly drawing to a close. In a short time they would
dive away from the droning Wellington into the black night that shrouded
German-occupied Belgium. In a few minutes--
But fate, perhaps, had suddenly decided not to let it be that way. Above
the drone of the twin Pegasus engines came a sharp staccato yammer that
made fingers of ice clutch at Dave's heartstrings. An instant later he
heard the loud voice of the gunner in the tail.
"A couple of the beggers have picked us out!" he cried. "There go the
blinking Paul Prys!"
At that moment the Wellington flew straight into a world of brilliant
white light. Nazi searchlights on the ground, or Paul Prys, as the boys
of the R.A.F. called them, had picked up the Wellington formation in
their revealing glare. Instinctively Dave and Freddy grabbed hold of
fuselage girders for support. And not a moment too soon, either. Flight
Lieutenant Wiggins had shoved the control stick forward and was dropping
the Wellington down into a roaring power dive. A couple of split seconds
after he started the dive, he sent the plane careening crazily off to
the left. The craft roared out of the searchlight beams and plowed away
through black night.
"Sweet going!" Dave heard his own voice shout in praise. "That's showing
the guys how good their Paul Prys are. Oh-oh! I had forgotten about
those birds!"
The last exclamation was caused by the staccato yammer of aerial machine
gun fire coming to his ears once again. And almost instantly the sound
of the guns in the tail of the Wellington was added to the chatter. Dave
and Freddy hugged their seats and felt very helpless and useless. They
were really passengers aboard the plane, and there was nothing they
could do but sit tight. Sit tight--and think.
That was the hard part. Thinking! Because their thoughts were far from
joyous ones. Dave's hunch had started to come true. In another few
moments they should have been floating down toward Belgium soil. But all
that was changed, now. Fate had guided night flying German planes to
their position in the sky, and those Nazi pilots were doing their utmost
to finish them off right then and there.
"Just as though they knew we were coming, and were hiding in the
bushes!" Dave muttered to himself as British and German aerial machine
guns hammered away at each other. "Just as though--Ye Gods! Could that
be true? Do the Nazis know that Freddy and I are--"
He cut off the startling thought short and gulped. Then suddenly the
whole night sky seemed to explode right on the tip of the Wellington's
nose. Colored light and sound raced back to crash against Dave and
Freddy as though they were things actually made of solid substances.
Dave braced himself and squinted forward. What he saw brought a sharp
cry to his lips, and he came up off his stool as though a coiled spring
had been released under him.
"We're hit, Freddy!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Wiggins and the
other chap caught some of that anti-aircraft shell."
Twisting past the navigator's cubbyhole, Dave went forward to where
Flight Lieutenant Wiggins sat slumped over against the controls. His
weight had forced the Dep control stick forward, and the Wellington was
now tearing down in a thundering dive. The second pilot had been knocked
clean off his canvas seat and was stretched out motionless on the
cockpit flooring. Bracing himself, Dave reached out and pulled the
unconscious Wiggins back in the seat with one hand. Holding the man
there, he reached down and grabbed hold of the Dep wheel and gave it all
of his strength. The nose tried to drag itself down to the vertical, but
Dave's pull on the stick was too much. Inch by inch the plane's nose
came up, and after what seemed like years the craft was climbing upward
at a slightly flat angle.
"Help me get Wiggins out of the seat!" Dave shouted to Freddy at his
elbow. "I'll take over while you fellows see if they're badly hurt."
"Right you are!" Freddy called out in a clear steady voice. "Here, I'll
give you a hand with Wiggins and this other chap."
Together the boys lifted and dragged Flight Lieutenant Wiggins and his
second pilot out of the cockpit and back toward the navigator's
cubbyhole. The navigator seemed too amazed to lend a hand at first.
"But who'll fly the bus, now?" he gasped when he finally found his
tongue.
"If she handles something like a Hurricane, don't worry!" Dave shouted,
and vaulted into the seat vacated by Wiggins.
The searchlights had once again picked up the Wellington, and Dave had
the crazy impression of flying right straight through the sun as he
hunched himself over the controls. A world of brilliant, blinding light
smote his eyes, and it was filled with the thundering roar of exploding
anti-aircraft shells, and the snarling yammer of death-spitting aerial
machine guns. Instinct and instinct alone guided Dave's movements as he
struggled to wheel and dive that Wellington out of the dazzling white
glare. He couldn't even see the instrument panel in front of him, the
light was so blinding. However, you don't need eyes to shove the control
stick this way and that. Nor do you need eyes to jump on left or right
rudder pedal.
Perhaps the designers of the Wellington bomber would have torn out their
hair in anguish at the way Dave Dawson booted their brainchild about the
searchlight-stabbed sky over Belgium. But Dave didn't give a thought to
that. Perhaps he didn't fly it real pretty like. But a twin-engined
Wellington loaded with bombs isn't exactly like a swift sleek Hurricane,
so what the heck? The idea was to cut away from those fingers of light
that pinned them against the heavens, and that was the only idea. How
the heck he brought it about didn't matter. That he could do it was
what counted.
And he did succeed. Without warning the Wellington sliced right into a
wall of darkness. Dave instinctively reached for the throttles to take
strain off the howling engines, but he checked his hand, and let the
plane roar deeper and deeper into that blessed sea of darkness. Then
presently, when he saw the searchlight beams being frantically swung
back and forth across the sky far in back of him, he put the ship in a
steady climb and twisted around in the seat.
That is, he started to twist around in the seat, but such movement
seemed to make the top of his head fly off. In a flash he realized what
was wrong. In the excitement his oxygen mask had slipped down off his
face and he could not reach the tube with his lips. Night air was
pouring through the shattered section of cockpit glass cowling where
fragments of shrapnel had struck, and the sensation was akin to a
million icy needles pricking the skin of his face and hands. He let go
of the controls, adjusted his oxygen mask and sucked the life giving gas
into his lungs. In a second or so he was a new man. He set the controls
for level flight, then twisted around in the seat and looked back.
Freddy and the navigator were bending over Wiggins and the second pilot.
Even as Dave looked, the flight lieutenant slowly sat up, made a wry
face, and put a hand to his head. Dave sighed thankfully.
"Well, he's pretty much okay!" he breathed. "So that's one of them to
handle this bus."
He turned forward for a moment to check the instruments, then scrambled
out of the seat and went back. Flight Lieutenant Wiggins saw him and
smiled thinly.
"Much obliged, old chap," he said, and slowly stood up. "Had a hunch you
two knew something about planes. R.A.F., of course."
The flight lieutenant paused and winked.
"But we won't say a word about what we know," he whispered. "Must keep
it very hush-hush, what? And, oh yes, I haven't thanked you for saving
our blinking hides, have I? Well, I thank you sincerely, and all that
sort of thing."
"Forget it," Dave said, and grinned at him. "I was only thinking of my
own hide. By the way, how's your pal?"
Dave pointed down at the second pilot, who was also sitting up and
holding his head in his hands.
"Who, Chubby, there?" Wiggins echoed. "Oh, never worry about Chubby when
he gets hit on the head. There's nothing inside to hurt, you see. On
your feet, Chubby. We've got to coast about a bit, and find out just
where the devil we are, and what happened to the rest of the patrol,
too. Then we'll let these two gentlemen off at their stop. Come along,
lad. After we've landed, I'll let you look at the cut on _my_ head."
Wiggins tapped his second pilot playfully on the shoulder, and then went
forward and took over the controls. The second pilot got to his feet,
looked at Dave and Freddy and shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of
despair.
"And to think I could have flown with dozens of other Wellington
pilots," he groaned. "But I had to go and pick a heartless beggar like
him. Ah me! Such is life in the R.A.F., lads. All work, and not the
slightest bit of appreciation from your superiors. Good luck!"