_Vultures Over Europe_
Comfortably settled in the pit of his Mark 5, but with every nerve and
muscle set for instant action, Dave veered slightly more toward the
southeast, and fixed his gaze on the yellow splashed horizon ahead. The
shadows of night were now far behind him. And so were England, and the
Channel. The Nazi defiled ground of Occupied France was under his wing,
and the blinding glare of a new day's sun was directly ahead.
Employing a trick first used in World War Number One, he closed one
eye and raised a thumb to a point some three inches in front of the
other eye. The ball of his thumb covered the sun and made it possible
for him to see around it. In a way it was like making a total eclipse
of the sun, and the light that splashed out from behind this thumb was
comparable to the solar corona of a total eclipse of the sun. In short,
it made it possible for him to search the sun flooded sky ahead without
staring straight into the blinding rays of the sun.
The action gained him nothing, however. If per chance there were Jerry
planes lurking up there in the sun, he didn't see them. He saw nothing
but golden sky marked by golden clouds. Nothing more. The heavens
seemed to be still asleep. And when he lowered his gaze and peered at
the ground below it struck him as though the earth were asleep, too.
True, he was flying at some twenty one thousand feet and the ground
below looked little more than a crazy quilt of a million different
shades. However, he could detect no signs of movement. No tongues
of flame spurting up toward him. And no rumbling _crunch-crunch_ of
anti-aircraft shells dirtying the clean air with their explosions and
black globs of smoke.
"Maybe they're not interested in small fry like us," he grunted to
himself. "Or maybe those photos Ball studied weren't kidding. Maybe
Jerry has evacuated this neck of the woods."
"And maybe you should stop mumbling to yourself, what?" spoke Freddy
Farmer's voice in his earphones. "Spot anything yet, Dave?"
Dave chuckled and put his lips closer to his flap-mike.
"Me?" he echoed. "When I've got you along? Look, pal, I'm expecting you
to earn your fare for this buggy ride. You're Little Sharp Eyes, you
know. We're counting on you, see? Isn't that right, Barker?"
"Oh, quite!" Barker's voice replied in the earphones. "After all, if
the chap can see to find his way over here and back _at night_, then it
should be simple for him with all this light."
"All right, drop it!" Freddy shouted angrily. "Knew blessed well
I'd never hear the last of that. But what could I do but confess to
Markham?"
"Lots of things, my dear fellow!" Dave said sternly. "For one, you
could have learned long ago that we've got discipline in this man's air
force. And for youngsters to take airplanes up at night and try to do
things that grown up pilots wouldn't even...."
"Listen to who's talking!" Freddy snorted. "Why I remember one time
when he...!"
"Save it!" Barker's voice cut in excitedly. "What's that about five
miles to the northeast? Do I see something moving, or is it just spots
in front of my eyes?"
All idea of further horse-play instantly bailed out of Dave Dawson's
mind. He turned his head sharply and peered hard in the direction
indicated. There was nothing to see, however. That is, as far as he
was concerned. Nothing but sun tinted dawn sky, and sun tinted patches
of cloud. For a second, though, he thought he did catch a glimpse
of something moving. Like a group of small dots that appeared and
disappeared in practically the same instant. But when he blinked hard
and took another look, the dots weren't there.
"Thought I saw something, too, Barker," he called into his flap-mike.
"But I guess they must have been spots in front of my peepers. How
about you, Freddy?"
There was no reply from the English youth. Dave turned and glanced over
at Freddy's plane to see his pal staring fixedly toward the northeast.
Several seconds ticked by and still no reply from Freddy Farmer.
"Hey, Freddy!" Dave called out again. "See anything, pal?"
"Shut up! Just a minute! I don't know, yet!"
A full minute did tick by before the English born R.A.F. ace spoke
again.
"You chaps were wrong!" he shouted. "They're not just spots. Four
Messerschmitts. One-Nine Fighters, I think. Yes, they're One-Nines. In
formation, and heading due west. See them?"
"If you're kidding us!" Dave growled, and stared until his eyes ached
from the strain. "I'll.... Pick up the marbles, pal. I see them, now!"
"So do I!" Barker cried out. "Let's go after the beggars. There are
only four. It should be jolly, eh?"
"It should be, but nix!" Dave snapped into his flap-mike. "They're way
off our course. And we're supposed to be making a rendezvous with some
bombers, you know."
"See?" Barker called out and chuckled. "Remember my saying I'd make a
mess of things? Right you are, _sir_! Quite right. We hold her as she
goes, eh, old bean?"
"Cut it out!" Dave growled, but he was smiling. "But we'll let the lugs
go. It would be nice, though, if they should come _after_ us. I don't
count much on just faking engine trouble and going down as though to
force land. Jerry knows darn well we make good engines. However...."
"Looks like you get your wish, Dave!" Freddy Farmer's excited voice
interrupted. "Guess they've sighted us. They're wheeling around in our
direction."
It was true. Dave saw it was true the instant he whipped his eyes
around toward the planes again. The four Messerschmitts had changed
course abruptly and were headed in their direction and gaining altitude
steadily. Dave took one quick look at them and then turned front and
peered ahead and down. A night ground mist was fast being "melted" away
by the dawn sun, and landmarks were beginning to stand out in clear
relief. His heart leaped as he sighted the Lille River, the hill range,
and the spread of swamp ground, and woods, marked on the map he carried
in his pocket.
Dead ahead, and perhaps two minutes by air, was the mysterious area in
Zone K-24. Dead ahead was the sky "graveyard" of ten Lockheed Hudsons.
Dead ahead was the testing ground of Adolf Hitler's newest weapon of
unrestricted warfare. Dead ahead, life and victory? Or failure, and
death?
Those and countless other thoughts whipped and raced through Dave's
brain as he stared hard at the "objective" of their special patrol.
At the same time he automatically slid the safety catch off the red
trigger button on the control stick, and placed one finger lightly
against the trigger lever for the high speed camera attached to the
belly of the plane.
"Hold her steady, fellows," he spoke into his flap-mike. "Carry right
on as though we didn't see them. Let them get altitude, if they want.
We should worry. But the instant they start pumping lead start the
fancy business. Okay?"
"Right you are!" Barker replied.
"Who fakes being hit first?" Freddy Farmer called out. "That's one
thing we forgot to decide."
"I didn't," Dave grunted. "I elected myself. When I go down, start down
after me as though for protection. But don't put yourself in a jam to
help me."
"That depends," Freddy said.
"Depends, nothing!" Dave barked. "Them's orders, Mister! Keep your own
eye on the ball. It's pictures we want, no matter who gets them. Fake
all you want to, but don't get behind the eight-ball so's you can't
take your own pictures. And one more thing."
"Good heavens!" Barker groaned over the radio. "Hasn't everything been
decided?"
"Not this item," Dave replied. "If things get hot, each of us is to
hike for home the instant he's used up all his film. Get that? Never
mind what's happening to the other two! As soon as you've run out your
film, head for home, and in a hurry."
"Cheerful beggar, isn't he!" Barker said. "Right you are, though,
Dawson! Home it is when the photo job's finished. And, here they come!
In a bit of a hurry, too!"
Dave jerked his head around to see the four German Messerschmitt
One-Nines prop-clawing through the air at top speed. The Nazi craft
were a good three thousand feet higher up, and as the seconds ticked by
Dave expected to see the four planes drop noses and come down in a gun
chattering attack.
No such thing happened, however, and a disagreeable empty sort of
feeling came to his stomach. Both hands gripping the stick, and every
nerve tingling for action, he watched the Nazi ships roar right up to
them, but still keeping their superior altitude. Not even when they
were directly above did any of them wing over and come streaking down.
Instead, the flight of four ships banked slightly and started circling
around in the air as though they were riding escort on a flight of
their own bombers.
"Come down, you bums!" Dave grated through clenched teeth. "Come down
and let's get going!"
It was just a waste of breath, however. The Nazi planes stayed right
where they were, neither gaining or losing altitude. The empty feeling
in Dave's stomach started to spread throughout his body. And he felt
the familiar eerie tingle at the back of his neck. In a crazy sort
of way he imagined the Nazi pilots just sitting up there aloft and
laughing at him. Laughing at him while he helplessly awaited the attack
that would make it possible for him to spin down low and get close up
shots of the mystery terrain below.
"Those chaps are the yellowest Luftwaffers I ever met, I swear!"
Barker's voice broke the radio silence. "Altitude, and everything, yet
the beggars don't make a move. What say, Dawson? Shall we climb up and
mix it with the blighters? We're not getting anywhere buzzing along
like this, you know."
Dave didn't answer at once. He took his gaze off the Messerschmitts
overhead and looked down at the ground. The mystery area was well under
his wing, now. As a matter of fact, in a couple of more minutes the
area would be well astern of his tail. If they didn't work it now to
go down for pictures they would be forced to turn back and reappear
over the area. And that wouldn't seem like an accident to even a Nazi.
On the contrary it would be a dead give away that the three Royal Air
Force planes just weren't passing by en route elsewhere. It would
be proof positive that the British lads had simply over-shot their
objective.
"Yet, if we go up after those Jerries," Dave argued with himself, "it
may look kind of funny, too. Or would it? Nuts! Supposing we were en
route to pick up some of our bombers? It wouldn't look too out of line
for us to start a scramble on the way. Heck, no. It.... Nuts! We've got
to do it, whether it looks funny or not."
With a nod for emphasis he swung the stick from side to side to waggle
his wings.
"Tally-ho, fellows!" he bellowed into his flap-mike. "They don't seem
to want company. So they get it. Up and at 'em, and do your stuff!"
The last had hardly flown off Dave's lips before he hauled the
Spitfire's stick back into his stomach and went ripping straight up at
the vertical. The terrific force of the zoom tried to drive him right
down through the floor of the cockpit. The muscles of his chest and
stomach were tied into knots, and for a couple of seconds or so a sea
of rippling grey light clouded over his eyes. It faded away, however,
and he saw the belly of a Messerschmitt One-Nine dead ahead of his
nose.
Instinctively he started to jab his trigger release button, but checked
himself in time.
"Nix!" he muttered angrily. "Pick him off and the other three may
scram. The idea is to get them to tangle with you, and make _you_ head
for the ground. Darn it, though! What a perfect target that lug's ship
makes!"
Dave groaned sadly, and booted right rudder slightly so that the plane
above slid out of his sights. Then he jabbed the trigger button and
sent a two second burst of machine gun and 20-mm. aircraft cannon
shells whanging upward into empty space. As he cut his fire and started
to level off at the top of his zoom, he heard the chatter of Farmer's
and Barker's guns going into action. And the deeper note of their
aircraft cannon. But as he anxiously snapped his gaze at the four
Messerschmitts that were now cutting capers in the air he saw at once
that Freddy and Barker had also purposely missed.
"You guys will never know how lucky you are!" he shouted at the Nazis.
"By rights there should only be one of you up here, now. But, come on.
Give us the old razzle dazzle. Mix it up! We've got work to do, and
we're in a hurry."
"No use!" Barker's voice sang out over the radio. "Look! The blighters
are running away. Four to three, and they won't even take a chance. Of
all the blasted scared rabbits I ever saw! Can't help it, Dawson! I've
got to settle one of the beggars."
Before Dave could open his mouth, Barker's plane spun around like a top
and dropped right down on the tail of one of the Messerschmitts now all
diving full out toward the ground below. The leading edges of Barker's
guns spurted flame and sound. Tracer smoke cut paths across the air and
became lost to view in the fuselage of the Messerschmitt One-Nine. Less
than a split second later the German plane shot out crazily to the side
as though it had glanced off an invisible guard rail in the heavens.
For perhaps fifty feet it slid through the air, then as though by magic
the fuselage broke in two right in back of the cockpit.
The two halves of the plane started to fall away from each other. Then
smoke and flame belched out of the engine half. In the swirling black
smoke Dave saw the figure of the pilot push up out of the cockpit and
dive over the side. The German was like a bound up bundle of cloth
tumbling down through the air. Then white puffed upward, was caught by
the air, and mushroomed out into a parachute envelop.
"Hey! Look out, Jerry!"
The wild cry burst impulsively from Dave's lips, but even though the
parachuting Nazi had heard him there was nothing he could have done.
One of the other Messerschmitt pilots, apparently rocketing his plane
earthward in terror, plowed straight into the parachute silk of his
Luftwaffe comrade. The whirling propeller chewed the silk to shreds,
and sliced through the tangle of shroud lines like a knife. By a
miracle the blades missed the Nazi pilot. But that didn't help him
any. His body turned over once in the air, and then fell like a rock
straight down.
"One less, poor guy!" Dave grunted and dropped the nose of his own
plane. "But I guess that's the kind of a chance you take when you fly
with yellow-bellies. Look at them skip for it!"
Dave spat the last out in disgust as the three remaining Messerschmitts
continued racing earthward as fast as their whirling props could take
them. Not a single German had fired a shot. Freddy, Barker, and he had
done all the attacking, and all the shooting. And now the Nazis were
diving downward for dear life.
"A break for us, anyway, fellows!" Dave shouted the thought aloud into
his flap-mike. "It's more or less what we wanted. Stick with them but
don't pick them off too soon. Okay? Got your camera trigger fingers
ready."
"Right-o!" came Barker's voice in the earphones.
"And itching!" Freddy chimed in.
Dave nodded and swept the ground below with his eyes. The altimeter
still showed some fourteen thousand feet of air space below him, but
objects on the ground were becoming clearer by the minute. With a start
of wild excitement he saw that the patch of woods was more than just
that. There was something down under the branches of the trees. Several
"somethings" in fact, though he could not see clear enough to tell just
what.
And as he moved his gaze a bit to the south the swamp ground seemed to
look just a bit strange. He didn't know just why. Perhaps it was just
a crazy hunch, or his imagination playing him tricks. Or the terrific
diving speed of the plane doing things to his eyes. Yet, nevertheless,
the expanse of swamp ground suddenly didn't seem to look just right.
There was also something about the hill range to the east that caught
his eye. There were three or four blackish smudges on the western
slopes. However, as he stared at them the truth leaped into his brain,
and the icy fingers of fear began to curl around his heart.
"The Lockheed Hudsons!" he whispered hoarsely. "Those smudges are burnt
timber and ground. They probably mark the spots where the Lockheeds
crashed and burned up!"
The possibility that such was the truth caused something to snap in
his brain, and a film of red rage to steal over his eyes. He braced
himself in the seat, and lined up one of the diving Messerschmitts in
his sights.
"One more won't change anything!" he grated. "And it will pay back a
little for those lads!"
As he spoke the last he jabbed the trigger release button and held
it pressed for three long seconds before the sane side of him could
force him to quit it. The three second shower of bullets and aircraft
cannon shells was more than enough. Though history will never be able
to relate it, it is quite possible that the Nazi pilot in Dave's sights
never knew what struck him. One instant he was diving for his life,
and the next he was still diving, but his life was gone.
"Steady, Dave!" Freddy's voice cried out in his earphones. "What's
wrong, old thing? You all right?"
"Much better, now!" Dave snapped back. "_Much_ better. Okay! spread
out, and each head for the objective nearest him. But get down low,
right on top of it before you start working the camera trigger finger.
This is what we came for! Let her rip, fellows!"
Without giving the two remaining Messerschmitts so much as another snap
glance, Dave jumped on rudder and whipped the stick over a shade and
sent the Spitfire Mark 5 skidding crazily far off to the right. When he
was directly over the center of the stretch of swamp ground, he pulled
out onto even keel and throttled back to the three quarter mark.
Less than five hundred feet of air space separated the underneath side
of his wings from the ground. He clamped the camera trigger lever
tight against the stick, held the plane steady, and stared at the
ground. It was then he saw why the expanse of swamp ground had sort
of changed appearance during his dive earthward. Now he could tell
that it wasn't swamp ground below him. True, perhaps there was swamp
ground _underneath_, but on top was a covering of perfect camouflage.
A camouflage covering that completely hid the swamp ground, and which
seemed to be suspended above it at a height of several feet.
"Hangars?" Dave choked out the chance guess. "They've drained that
swamp, and those are underground hangars down there?"
He didn't have the chance to even guess at an answer to that one. He
didn't because at that precise instant came Freddy Farmer's wild cry of
alarm in the earphones.
"Dave! Dave! Up above you! The whole blasted Luftwaffe!"
He jerked back his head, looked upward, and a startled shout burst from
his lips. The sky above him was literally black with Nazi swastika
marked wings. He didn't even try to guess how many planes there were
up there. In fact, he didn't even think of guessing. His brain for the
moment was too stunned to function. His heart was a cold lump of ice
that zoomed upward to clog in his throat. He sat staring frozen eyed
at the horde of Nazi wings that came swooping down toward him like a
blanket of doom.