"But--well, after that little talk with the colonel last night, I was
quite steamed up, as you would say. Very mysterious, and exciting, and
possibly dangerous, if you get what I mean."
"I do," Dawson grunted. "But all it is to me now is mysterious. You can
have my share of the excitement and danger, if any. I'm just full of
beans, though, I guess. After some of the close shaves you and I have
had, routine stuff just gets me down, but quickly! But there have been
two bright spots in this thing so far, thank goodness."
"Bright spots?" Freddy Farmer echoed. "Then I must have been looking the
other way at the time. What do you mean?"
"At Miami and San Juan," Dawson replied. "The way those two commanding
officers tried to pump us as to what the sealed envelopes contained. It
was nice to look very wise and not tell them a darn thing. It was fun to
see somebody else floundering around in the dark. Misery loves company.
Say! Know what I hope, Freddy?"
"I wouldn't even dare guess!" the English-born air ace replied. "What do
you hope?"
"That the lad we contact at San Fernando has a copper disc with numbers
that add up to forty-five!" Dawson told him.
"What?" young Farmer gasped. "Forty-five? But, Dave, the number is--"
"Sure, forty-one!" Dawson cut in. "But don't you catch on, pal? If the
number is forty-five, it means that the lad is a phoney. And that means
that maybe we'll get some excitement out of this aerial messenger boy
job."
"Rot, and very much so!" Freddy snapped angrily. "Come off it, Dave!
This is very serious business, and you are absolutely balmy to even hope
that things will go wrong. Just remember what Colonel Welsh said, Dave.
If one of these sealed envelopes should fall into Axis hands, he'd
rather put a bullet in his brain than go on living. Stop being a blasted
fool, old thing! It's not a bit like you at all!"
"Okay, okay, papa!" Dawson chuckled. "Consider that you have up-ended me
and given me the shingle where it counts most. Just the same, I hate to
think of going stark, raving mad in the cockpit of a Wright-powered
Vultee."
"Well, if that's all that's bothering you, you can put it out of your
mind at once," Freddy snapped, "because you were that way a long, long
time ago!"
"Oh, yeah?" Dawson shouted.
"Yeah!" Freddy Farmer replied. "But definitely!"
They left it that way for the next fifteen minutes or so. At the end of
that time the Vultee was well out of sight of all land, and Dawson was
keeping it on course with instruments. At the end of that time, too, the
southern part of the heavens began to mist and fog up and gradually
change to a copperish gray. The straight line that marked where the blue
of the sky ended and the copperish gray began told Dawson that a line
squall was moving across the Caribbean. But five minutes later the
little twinge of uneasiness that had come to him melted away, because
the copperish gray moved westward and not up northward toward the
Vultee. However, because of the silly mood that had gripped him since
leaving Puerto Rico, he had to voice a crazy thought.
"Wouldn't you know, not even a storm to give us something extra to do!"
"Eh, Dave?" he heard Freddy Farmer say. Then a second later, he felt
Farmer's hand tapping him on the shoulder, and heard his pal's excited
voice crackling in his inter-com phones. "Bear ten degrees eastward,
Dave! There's something down there on the water. Can't see it clearly
yet. Looks like a bit of rag being waved about by somebody."
Dawson changed the Vultee's course, and at the same time twisted around
in the seat and glanced back at Freddy. Then he turned front and peered
ahead and down in the direction of the English youth's pointed finger.
He squinted his eyes slightly and even shielded them against the golden
sun with his free hand. But for all he could see, he might just as well
have kept both eyes shut. There was just blue Caribbean, turned golden
here and there by shafts of sunlight dancing off the surfaces of the
rolling swells.
"I know you can see through a brick wall, Freddy," he said, "but if you
can see anything down there, then I'll eat it!"
"It will be quite a meal!" Freddy Farmer cried. "Because it happens to
be a life raft! And there are chaps on it. Yes, four chaps! And one is
waving his shirt, or something. Blast those dirty U-boat blighters!"
"Never mind the U-boats!" Dawson growled. "Just stick to the raft. Where
the heck is it? I think you're seeing things. I--Hold it, everybody;
hold it! I see it now, Freddy! I wasn't looking far enough out. Yeah!
That's a raft sure enough. Boy! I bet this sun is doing plenty to those
birds!"
As Dawson spoke, he watched the small raft riding the rolling swells of
the blue Caribbean, as helpless as a leaf. As he stared at the four
figures in the raft, his anger boiled and the blood throbbed in his
temples. Dirty U-boat blighters, and how, as Freddy had said. Of all the
fighting forces to come out of Nazi Germany, the U-boat commanders and
crews were the worst. Human life, and particularly the lives of women
and children, meant even less to them than it did to the Gestapo. Steel
sharks of the sea, they were called. To call them that was an insult to
a real man-eating shark. There just wasn't any name to call those who
manned Nazi U-boats, because there is no name in any language that
adequately describes them.
Yes, the dirty U-boat blighters! Down there on the bobbing raft were
four who were no doubt victims of a terrible life-and-ship-destroying
explosion that had probably come in the dark of night. As those and
other bitter thoughts raced through Dawson's mind, he impulsively eased
back the Wright-Cyclone's throttle and slanted the nose of the Vultee
downward.
"How I wish this was a flying boat, and we could pick up those poor
beggars!" he heard Freddy Farmer groan.
"You and me both!" Dave agreed. "We have a radio, thank goodness. So we
can get help sent out before those fellows have to spend another night
at sea. I wonder how long they've been floating around?"
"Quite some time, I fancy," Freddy Farmer said. "The chap waving his
shirt seems to be the only one with any life in him. The three huddled
down in the raft might as well be dead. Sights like that one make me
thank my lucky stars I'm in the air end of this blasted war."
"You can say that again for me!" Dawson echoed. "At least in the air you
get it clean and fast. Mostly, anyway. Check and double-check! The boys
that really deserve the medals and the praise in this scrap are the
merchant marine fellows. They have nothing to fight back with except a
pea-shooter at the stern, and maybe one on the bow. They're perfect
floating targets twenty-four hours a day. If their engines break down,
heaven help them! Yes, my hat is off to those fellows, and I don't mean
maybe. I--Hey, Freddy! See that? He's trying to send us a message with
his shirt, isn't he? He seems to be waving it down to the right more
than down to the left."
"That's right!" Freddy Farmer cried. "That's the old International Morse
code done with a flag. To the right is a dot, and to the left is a dash.
And straight down in front means the end of a word. Now, where's my
blasted pencil, and I'll put it down. There he put it down in front
three times! That means the end of the message. If he'll only repeat
it, I think I can get it."
The man standing on the tiny raft seemed to wait a moment or two, as
though he were striving to rally his waning strength for another effort.
Then he started waving his shirt again. It was a short message, and both
boys got it without bothering to jot down each letter. The message
signaled was:
FLY OVER LOW PLEASE, IMPORTANT
"What do you make of that, Freddy?" Dawson asked, and dipped the
Vultee's nose even more. "Does he think we're a rescue plane that's come
to drop food and water, poor devil?"
"I don't know," the English youth replied. "Possibly. Or maybe there's
something on the raft he wants us to see. The only thing to do is to go
down and find out. I say! I've just remembered! I have some chocolate,
Dave. I'll tie it up in my handkerchief and try to drop it right onto
the raft, if you get us down low enough. But, for heaven's sake, don't
hit the raft, or the water!"
"Aw gee!" Dawson grated at him. "And that's just what I was planning to
do, too! You spoil all my fun, you dope! Act your age, will you?"
"Just don't take us down too low," Freddy Farmer reminded him evenly.
Dawson opened his mouth to make a fitting retort. Instead he shrugged,
let Freddy's remark slide, and concentrated on getting the Vultee down
as low as he possibly could. When he had reached an altitude of some ten
or fifteen feet, he throttled the Wright Cyclone until it was just a
shade on the good side of stalling. He guided it toward the tiny life
raft. The shirt-waver had ceased his signaling and was crouching down on
the raft as though he were afraid Dawson was going to bounce the
Vultee's belly off the top of his hatless head.
"So you're also silly enough to think I'll come too close?" Dawson
growled, as he experienced a moment of annoyance. "Well, relax, fellow!
Just relax, and let's have a look at the meaning of that message. Okay,
Freddy! Get set to drop that chocolate!"
As he spoke, he impulsively started to jerk his head around. Some inner
warning cut short his effort, and it was that inner warning that
unquestionably saved his life, and Freddy Farmer's life, too. In other
words, just as he was about to turn his head for a look at Young
Farmer, all four men on the raft sprang to crouching positions. Each
gripped a sub-machine gun in his hands and blazed away at the coasting
Vultee!
True, Dawson's sudden inner warning had helped, but it was his
instinctive reaction to sudden danger that actually saved his life and
Freddy's. In less time than it takes to bat an eyelash, he had smashed
the throttle wide open with one hand and was hauling the Vultee around
in a wing tip water-kissing turn with the other. Had he started to climb
at that same time, the Grim Reaper still might have claimed them both,
because the four crouching figures on the raft had automatically pointed
their machine guns skyward.
As it happened, though, Dawson held the Vultee in a tight turn until its
tail was toward the raft. Then he quickly flattened out, shot forward
for a split second, and banked the Vultee over on its left wing tip. He
banked it to the right wing tip and hauled the craft up in a twisting
power zoom toward the sun-filled heavens. Only when he was well out of
range and had leveled off did he let the clamped air out of his lungs
and shake the cold beads of sweat from his forehead.
"Suffering rattlesnakes, Freddy!" he choked out. "Was that a nightmare,
or did it happen? Those bums let fly at us, Freddy! All four of them!"
There was no answer from young Farmer, and in the length of time it took
Dawson to twist around in the seat, he seemed to die a thousand deaths.
His fears were unfounded, however. Freddy Farmer was very much alive. No
bullet had snuffed out his life, though the left side of his glass hatch
was covered with a million tiny cracks. Amazement and utter bewilderment
were all that was wrong with the British-born air ace. He sat rigid in
his seat, staring at Dawson as though he had never seen him before in
his life. His face was white under his sun-and-wind bronze, and his
mouth hung open as though he had intended to yell, but had been shocked
into forgetting all about it.
"Hey, Freddy, snap out of it!" Dawson shouted, and rocked the Vultee
violently.
The English youth stared blankly for a second longer. Suddenly he
blinked, and his whole body shook like a leaf. The breath came from
between his lips in a whistle that Dawson could almost hear above the
roar of the Vultee's Cyclone.
"The blighters! The low-down dirty beggars! They shot at us;
They--they--" Young Farmer choked on his words, and his eyes opened
still wider in amazement.
It took a half second or so for Dawson to realize that Freddy was
looking at something forward and downward. Automatically, he twisted
around front and looked down. He let out a bellow of surprise. Down on
the Caribbean was a Nazi U-boat breaking surface not over fifty yards
from the floating life raft. Unable to move a muscle, he stared as the
conning-tower hatch opened and a couple of men spilled out onto the wet
deck and hurried toward the bow. The undersea killer veered over toward
the floating raft.
What he saw made Dave fighting mad. He shook with anger, and a red film
seemed to slide over his eyes.
"So?" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "So it's like that, huh?"
It was just like that. No sooner had the words left Dawson's lips than
the U-boat's bow gun belched flame, and the sky a hundred yards or so
off the Vultee's right wing tip seemed to explode in a roar of sound and
a great puff of oily black smoke. An instant later, another bit of sky
seemed to explode. This time the puff of oily black smoke was high above
the Vultee. This was because Dawson had turned the nose of the plane
downward and was thundering straight at the U-boat at almost rocket
speed.
"So you want to play, do you?" He shouted the crazy words. "Well, so do
we! And how! Here, catch, you tramps!"
The Vultee's wing guns punctuated his words with a chattering blast of
sound that made the aircraft tremble violently. Straight lines of silver
tracers cut down at the two men crouched behind the guard of the
U-boat's bow gun. They would have done better had they dived overboard
and down under the U-boat's keel. The bullets from the Vultee's wing
guns found them and smashed them to the steel deck. Tapping rudder a
bit, Dawson veered the plane's nose a shade to the right and blazed away
at the open conning tower hatch. A man crawling up out of it was flung
head over heels clear of the U-boat's side and down into the water as
though by some invisible giant.
By then the Vultee's prop was about ready to chew into the conning tower
itself, and Dawson had to haul the nose up and go curving around and
away. That maneuver permitted Freddy Farmer to go into action with his
rear guns. As Dave jerked his head around for a split second, he saw the
four men on the raft trying to scramble up to the U-boat's wet deck,
only to go toppling over backwards like tenpins and disappear beneath
the surface of the water.
"There, you rotten beggars, you'll not do that again!" the English
youth's voice rang loud in Dawson's inter-com phones. "Not by half, you
won't!"
"The sub's crash diving, Freddy!" Dawson yelled as he saw the hatch
close and the nose of the U-boat slip down under water. "Oh, gosh! If we
only had a depth charge or two! Oh, how I hate to let that snake get
away!"
As the wishful words spilled off his lips, he was in the act of doing
what little he could. That was wheeling around and down for another run
over the crash-diving U-boat, and letting fly with all his guns at the
top half of the submerging craft. He might possibly hit some part that
would check the dive and force the U-boat back to the surface. That was
a slim, slim hope, and it died completely as the entire craft slid out
of sight, leaving behind an empty life raft and seven bodies.
With a groan Dave cut his fire, and hauled the Vultee up out of its
dive and onto even keel. He stared down at the floating bodies, gulped,
shuddered slightly, and drew a hand across his goggles, as though that
would wipe away the scene below and make everything as it had been
before. It didn't, of course, but when he took another look downward he
found it hard to believe that Death had been whispering so close. Then
he snapped out of his trance.
"Get the nearest patrol base on the radio, Freddy, and report that
U-boat's position!" he spoke into his inter-com mike. "There's just a
chance that it may have to surface soon, and somebody else can nail it."
"Right-o!" Freddy Farmer called back. "But, gosh, I would love to be
that somebody else! Or--or has this just been a crazy dream, Dave? It
doesn't make sense! Those were blasted Nazis on the life raft.
Like--like a confounded decoy, or something. I--"
"_Decoy?_" Dave Dawson gasped, and sat up straight in the pit. "Holy
smoke! Do you suppose so? Sure, you must be right. Look, Freddy! Report
that U-boat's last position. Then we'll get out of here, but fast!
Something is kind of screwy, and I don't like it, but plenty I don't."
As Dawson nosed the Vultee around and onto its course for San Fernando
on British-owned Trinidad, he impulsively lifted his free hand to his
chest and pressed it against the two sealed envelopes and the little
vial of acid that were in his inside tunic pocket.
CHAPTER SIX
_Changed Orders_
The U. S. Army Air Transport Command at San Fernando comprised the
entire south side of the Trinidad air base. Dawson spotted the American
flag atop the Administration Building from the air. After his recent
experience, a great sense of relief and joy flooded through him at the
sight of Old Glory waving proudly in the breeze. And not only that, but
the sight of Old Glory meant also that this crazy aerial messenger-boy
mission was one-half completed. Three more stops and they would be at
Natal. There they would meet Colonel Welsh and, please, please, God,
find out what in thunder this secret sealed-envelope business was all
about.
"And if he doesn't tell me," Dawson muttered as he let down the Vultee's
wheels and nosed the craft earthward, "it's going to be the end of a
beautiful friendship as far as I'm concerned. Right! He's got to give us
a tiny inkling, at least or--or--Well, I sure hope he does, anyway."
"So do I, old chap!" he heard Freddy Farmer echo his hope. "I also want
to see his face when we tell him what we have to tell. You haven't any
new ideas, have you, Dave?"
"Dawson shook his head. During the remainder of the flight to this next
stop, both had taken the U-boat experience apart and had carefully
examined it piece by piece. It was all to no avail, in regard to
reaching any definite conclusion. True, the logical conclusion was that
the life raft had served as a decoy to bring them down so low that its
occupants could shoot them into the water. When that had failed, the
lurking U-boat had surfaced to try its luck with its bow anti-aircraft
gun. If that was the correct conclusion, it made everything even more
screwy. Colonel Welsh was the only man living who knew why they were
making this crazy flight. He had told them so. How could a Nazi U-boat
at sea learn the secret they shared with Colonel Welsh? And--
"Gosh!" Dawson gasped. "But no! Heck, no! That would be even screwier!"
"What, Dave?" Freddy asked. "You do have a new idea?"
"Not exactly," Dawson replied. "Just a chilling thought. Do you suppose
those birds on that raft were _really_ torpedo survivors, and in their
crazed state took us for a Nazi plane and--"
"What utter rot, Dave!" Freddy Farmer interrupted. "Don't be silly, old
thing! Of course not! Would four torpedo survivors bother to take four
sub-machine guns onto a life raft with them? Certainly not! Come out of
it, Dave! They were Nazis, sure enough. They were from that U-boat, too,
and set adrift to have a go at us."
"But how--" Dawson began and cut himself off short. "Oh, skip it! If I
let myself think any more about the crazy business, I'll forget what I'm
doing and crack us up."
"Then for goodness' sakes don't think of it!" Freddy Farmer cried in
alarm. "I fancy I've had excitement enough for the rest of this day! So
forget things and keep your eye on that field down there."
Dawson did just that, and a couple of minutes later he set the Vultee
down light as a feather and taxied it over toward the Administration
Building. He braked to a stop eventually, unsnapped his safety and
parachute harness, and climbed stiff-legged down onto the ground. Freddy
Farmer joined him, and they were just starting to get some of the flight
stiffness out of their legs when a major came out of the Administration
Building and walked over to them.
"Captains Dawson and Farmer?" he asked with a smile.
"Yes, sir." Dave replied with a salute. "I'm Dawson. And you are Major
Parker, Yank commandant here, sir?"
"That's right," the senior officer replied. "Welcome to Trinidad. Word
came through that you were making a survey flight along our South
American bases. I think you'll find we're not doing so badly here at San
Fernando. Here, this came through about half an hour ago. It's addressed
to you both. Needless to say, we didn't try to decode it. I don't
believe we have that code in the base book, anyway."
The major held out a small yellow envelope. Dawson took it, ripped it
open, and withdrew a single sheet of paper. His heart did a loop in his
chest when he saw that the coded message was signed, "Tiger." That was
the signature Colonel Welsh used whenever he contacted the boys in
secret. The major had been quite correct, too. The code used by Colonel
Welsh was not to be found in the regular base code book, because it was
a special one that the colonel had made up himself. This code was not
known by more than half a dozen men, two of them being Dawson and
Farmer. The value of such a code was that it was so made up that a
decoding book, or decoding wheel, was not needed. Once you knew the
code, you could read messages from the memory of what the various
letters and numbers and symbols meant.
Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer looked at it together, while Major Parker
politely stared off across the base field. The true meaning of the
message became instantly apparent to them. Translated in their minds, it
read:
"Halt flight San Fernando. Arriving by air midnight. Serious
emergency developed. Maintain constant alert. Destroy evidence if
necessary. Important!
WELSH"
Dawson read the coded message three times, absently pulled off his
helmet and goggles, ran his fingers through his hair, and glanced
sidewise at Freddy Farmer.
"And that is strictly that," he said. "But I wonder what?"
"I don't know," the English-born air ace replied with a shrug of his
shoulders. "Frankly, though, I don't think I'm annoyed by this message.
Fact is, I'm just a bit glad. Much rather see him tonight, instead of
waiting until we get to Natal."
Dawson grinned faintly, and nodded.
"Yeah, I get what you mean," he murmured. "Maybe there's a connection
between this and what happened a while ago, eh?"
"If not, I'll be very much surprised," Freddy Farmer said slowly. "And
yet I may be a bit balmy to say that. How could there possibly be any
connection?"
Dawson shrugged, but made no reply. He stuffed the coded message into
his pocket, and turned to where Major Parker was inspecting the Vultee.
"Thanks for giving us the message, sir," he said. Then he added with a
grin, "It sort of looks as though we've been fired, you might say. Our
superior officer is joining us here at midnight. Would it be all right
for us to eat in the Officers' Club and sort of kill time until he gets
here?"
"Certainly, Dawson," the major replied at once. "The place is yours.
Help yourself to anything you like. So your survey flight is called off,
eh?"
"Well, temporarily, anyway," Dave replied. "But don't ask me why,
because I wouldn't know, Major."
"Okay, I won't," the other smiled. "I'll ask you this, instead. What
kind of trouble did you run into on the way down here?"
"Trouble, Major?" Dawson echoed, and stared at him hard.
"These holes," the senior officer replied, and pointed to a cluster of
four bullet holes six inches in from the Vultee's left wing tip.
"Somebody been sticking a pencil through the wing skin, eh?"
"No; Nazi slugs," Dawson told him. "We--we came across a surfacing
U-boat about eighty miles out. It crash dived right after it sighted us,
but it threw up a few slugs in the meantime. We got a couple of its
crew, though. We radioed Puerto Rico patrol base and gave them the
U-boat's position. Have you heard any report that she was caught and
nailed?"
"None," the major said, and then pointed across the field. "We wouldn't
get that sort of thing, anyway. This is a British-owned base, you know.
That we're here is a sort of lend-lease in reverse, you might say. And
radio stuff such as your call would be picked up by them over there. Too
bad, though, you didn't have a couple of depth charges aboard."
"You're telling me, sir?" Dawson echoed with a grim laugh. "I'd have
given my right eye for just one! I don't think I hate anything so much
as I hate the U-boats."