RUN TO COVER
Dorothy reached beneath her seat, brought forth a pair of field-glasses
and clapped them to her goggles. Focussed through the powerful lenses,
there was no mistaking the Mystery Plane. And although at this distance
it was impossible to see the pilot’s face, she could plainly distinguish
the barrel of a machine gun that poked its wicked muzzle over the
cockpit’s cowling.
“So the bearded aviator means mischief!” She returned the glasses to
their case. “That guy must be a cold-blooded dog to try anything like
that over a populated township. He’s likely to bite off more than he can
chew if Bill and I have any luck. If he cracks up, I shan’t weep.”
At first sight of the smuggler’s plane, she brought Will-o’-the-Wisp
back on an even keel, but now in order to get an unimpeded view directly
below, she sent the plane into a steep bank.
Bill, in the Ryan, with an altitude of some twenty-five hundred feet and
its nose slightly raised was streaking toward the smuggler.
Most air battles are fought in the higher ether, because combat flying
often necessitates acrobatics and the ordinary pilot wants plenty of air
below for such work. The smuggler being the aggressor in this case,
naturally started to climb when he spotted the Ryan. He hoped, no doubt,
not only to increase his altitude but to gain greater ascendency over
Bill before diving at the monoplane with his machine gun going full
blast.
It was time for Dorothy to act. As the smuggler’s plane began to ascend,
she sent her amphibian diving toward him at a tremendous spurt of speed.
The Mystery Plane nosed over and dove in turn at the Ryan, some five
hundred feet below.
“Ha-ha!” Dorothy shut off her motor and brought Will-o’-the-Wisp’s nose
gradually back to the horizontal. “Our scheme worked! That bird either
doesn’t know his business or he’s lost his nerve!”
A fighting plane attacking has as its objective a position directly
behind the hostile plane at close range. A position either above or
below the tail is equally good. From these positions the enemy is
directly in the line of fire, and in sighting no deflection is
necessary.
The smuggler’s maneuver showed Dorothy that he was a novice; for instead
of going into a climbing spiral which would have eluded her dive and
made it possible for him to attain a superior position over both planes,
he dove at the Ryan. This might have been a proper fighting maneuver if
Bill’s plane had not been nosing upward toward him; and had the Ryan not
been the faster of the two.
By this blunder he put himself in the direct line of fire from Bill’s
machine gun. And had that young man been minded to use it the battle
would have been over—almost before it started.
Seeing his mistake almost immediately, the bearded aviator broke his
dive by zooming upward. Again Dorothy’s plane dove for his tail and
right there he made his second error.
Instead of gaining altitude and position by making an Immelman turn,
which consists of a half-roll on the top of a loop, he pulled back his
stick sharply, simultaneously giving the Mystery Plane full right
rudder. The result was an abrupt stall and a fall off, and his amphibian
emerged from the resultant dive headed in the direction from which he
had first appeared.
Dorothy sent her bus spiralling downward, while Bill simply nosed his
Ryan into a steeper climb. By the time the Mystery Plane levelled off
from its split-S turn it had lost over a thousand feet. Granted he was
headed for home, if that had been his intention; now he was placed in
the worst possible situation with regard to his opponents. For instead
of one, both planes had attained positions above him.
For the next few minutes the man in the smuggler’s plane did his best to
out-maneuver the elusive pair whose motors roared above his head like
giant bees attacking an enemy. Never was he given a chance to better his
position or to gain altitude. Every time he maneuvered to place one of
the planes within line of fire from his machine gun, the other would
effectually block the move; the menacing plane would sheer off at a
tangent and its partner, crowding down upon his tail, would hurl forth a
smoke bomb. By the time he floundered through the cloud, his antagonists
would be back in their relative positions, again, the one directly above
his tail plane, the other slightly behind him to the right.
The bearded aviator knew that he was being outclassed at every move,
that gradually they were forcing him down to a point where he must land
or crash.
Both Dorothy and Bill knew exactly when the man in the plane below
guessed their purpose. For with a sudden burst of speed he shot ahead,
streaking in the direction of North Stamford like a ghost in torment.
“We’ve got every advantage but one,” mused Dorothy, widening her
throttle in pursuit. “He knows where he’s going—and we don’t. He’s up
to some trick, I’ll bet.”
That her thoughts were prophetic was made apparent almost immediately.
By shutting off his engine and by kicking his rudder alternately right
and left with comparatively slow and heavy movements, the smuggler pilot
sent his plane’s nose swinging from side to side. This evolution, known
as fish-tailing, he executed without banking or dropping the nose to a
steeper angle. Its purpose is to cut down speed and to do so as rapidly
as possible.
The Mystery Plane slowed down as though a brake had been applied,
sideslipped to the left over a line of trees and leveled off above a
field enclosed by a dilapidated stone fence.
“Confound!” exclaimed Dorothy, with a glance behind. “He’s going to land
and both Bill and I have overshot the field!”
Nose depressed below level, a lively flipper turn to left brought
Will-o’-the-Wisp sharply round facing the field again with its wings
almost vertical. Immediate application of up aileron and opposite rudder
quickly brought the amphibian to an even keel once more. Then Dorothy
nosed over, went into a forward slip, recovered and leveled off for a
landing.
As the wheels of her plane touched the ground, she saw the Ryan come to
a stop on the grass some yards to the right. Just ahead and between them
was the Mystery Plane. It lay drunkenly over on one side, resting on its
twisted landing gear and a crumpled lower wing section.
Dorothy stood up in her cockpit when Will-o’-the-Wisp stopped rolling
and saw the smuggler-pilot vault the wall at the far corner of the field
and disappear into a small wood. Bill was walking toward the disabled
amphibian. She got out of her plane and hurried toward him.
“Pancaked!” she cried, pointing toward the wreck as she came within
speaking distance.
“You said it—” concurred Bill. “That guy was in such a hurry he leveled
off too soon. Usually I don’t wish anybody hard luck but that bird is
the great exception. Too bad he didn’t break a leg along with his plane.
Now he’s beat it and—”
“We are just about where we were before,” she broke in.
“Not quite, Dorothy. The Mystery Plane is out of commission.—I wonder
where we are?”
“Somewhere in the North Stamford hills.”
“I know—but whose property are we on?”
“Haven’t the least idea.”
“I can’t see any houses around here. Did you notice any as you came
down?”
Dorothy shook her head and laughed.
“My eyes were glued on this field,” she admitted. “I was too busy trying
to make a landing myself to take in much of the landscape. Wait a
minute, though—seems to me I caught a glimpse of the Castle just before
I put Wispy into that reverse control turn. Yes, I’m sure of it.”
“The Castle?” Bill frowned. “What in the cock-eyed world is that?”
“A castle, silly!”
“Make sense out of that, please.”
“Sorry. You’re usually trying to mystify me—I just thought I’d turn the
tables for a change.”
“Oh, I know—I’ll say I’m sorry or anything else you want. Only please
tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Well, it seems that about fifteen or sixteen years ago, somebody built
a castle about two or three miles from North Stamford village. It’s less
than five miles from where we live. Not being up on medieval
architecture I can’t describe it properly, but Dad says it is the kind
that German robber barons put up in the fourteenth century. Anyway, the
Castle is built of stone with a steep, slate roof, which spouts pointed
turrets all over the place. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been built
by a German—it certainly looks as Heinie as sauerkraut!”
“Who lives there?” asked Bill.
“Nobody, now. During the war, Dad told me, the place was suspected to be
a spy-hang-out or something like that. Anyway, there was a lot of talk
about it. What became of the owner, whoever he is, I don’t know. The
place has been rented several times during the past few years. It is
quite near the road. I drove past it just the other day on my way to and
from Nance Wilkins’ tea and the old dump looked quite empty and
forlorn.”
“Well, that’s that,” said Bill. “This bearded guy may have been heading
for your Castle, but I doubt it. Fact is, he probably decided to land at
the first convenient place when he found we were too much for him, and
decided to trust to his legs for a getaway.”
Dorothy had been swinging her helmet by its chin strap in an
absent-minded manner. Now she raised her eyes to his.
“What are we going to do about it?” she inquired. “We can’t try to break
into the Castle in broad daylight.”
“Hardly. And after our experience with the bank gang, we’ll do no more
snooping around strange houses on our own. I am going over to that
little wood where our friend ran to cover. Maybe I can find some trace
of him. You stay here with the planes.”
“Why can’t I go with you, Bill?”
“Because that smuggler may simply be hiding in the woods in hopes that
we’ll come after him and that we’ll leave these airbuses unguarded. Then
when we’re gone, he’ll come back here, grab one of them and fly quietly
home.”
“All right. I see.”
“Have you got a gun?”
“That small Colt you gave me is in Wispy’s cockpit.”
“Get it and keep it on you—and if that guy shows up, don’t be afraid to
use it.”
Dorothy shook her head. “I never shot at anybody in my life—”
“Don’t shoot _at_ him—_shoot_ him. You might have to, you know.”
“But surely, Bill—”
“Oh, I don’t mean for you to kill the guy. Plunk him in the leg—disable
him. If you have any qualms about it, just remember that machine gun in
his bus here. The man is as deadly as a copperhead and twice as
treacherous. Look out for him.”
“I will. But su-suppose you get into trouble, Bill. How long do you want
me to wait here before I come after you?”
“My dear girl,” Bill was becoming impatient. “I’m just going to try to
find out where that lad is headed. I won’t be gone more than ten or
fifteen minutes.”
“Yes. But suppose you _don’t_ come back here!”
“Wait for half an hour. Then fly back home and tell Dad what has
happened. He’ll know what to do. Don’t get nervous—I’ll be all right.
So long. See you in a few minutes.”
With a wave of his hand, he ran across the field and Dorothy saw him
hurdle the low wall and disappear between the trees of the wood where
the bearded aviator had run to cover.