pressed his trigger release button. His four Vickers guns cowled into
the wing spat flame and sound, and a German Henschel, in the act of
banking off to twist back and charge downward, was caught square in the
burst of bullets. The Nazi craft seemed to jerk sideways for a split
second. Then almost instantly it continued around and down--and kept
right on going down, leaving behind a long trail of oily black smoke.
"And then there were five!" Freddy sang out. "Well done, Dave. Uh-uh!
No you don't, my little Italian bambino! I've been waiting for you. Oh,
very much so!"
Freddy Farmer's rear guns barked out their message of war, and one of
the Italian Bredas was smacked on the wing like a clay pigeon. It acted
as though it had been hit by a couple of battleship salvos instead of
machine gun bullets. Or perhaps it was because the Italian pilot at the
controls went a little bit crazy in his frantic efforts to yank his
plane out of Freddy's deadly fire. At any rate the 870 hp. Gnome-Rhone
fitted Italian Breda went spinning nose over rudder post across the
sky. The violent maneuver was too much for the ship. The monoplane
wings sheared off as though some invisible giant had slashed them off
with a knife. Instantly the wingless fuselage pointed its nose downward
and dropped like a bomb.
Freddy didn't wait to see if the pilot and gunner were able to bail
out. The two other Henschels had swerved in close by then and were
spraying the Skua with a shower of hissing bullets as Dave slammed the
plane through a full roll and then took advantage of the British ship's
superior speed and power and zoomed straight up at the vertical. The
zoom maneuver completely threw the Henschel pilots off guard, and as
the Skua rocketed upward Freddy swung his guns around and raked one of
the Henschels from prop to tail. The German craft seemed to stop dead
in midair. Then the starboard strut between the right bottom and top
wings buckled in the middle as though hit with a sharp axe. A second
later the two wings folded together. The plane lurched drunkenly off
to that side and then slowly rolled over and down into a spin. That's
the last either of the boys saw of it. There was still one Nazi and two
Italian planes in the air, and the loss of the three other ships seemed
to add to the savage fury of the attack of their pilots and gunners.
They slashed up toward the zooming Skua with all guns blazing. Dave and
Freddy heard the nickel-jacketed bullets rip and chew their way into
their plane. Twice the Skua seemed to falter, but each time it kept on
going upward. Finally Dave shook his head and kicked the plane over and
down out of its zoom and sent it corkscrewing off to the left.
"Can't shake those guys!" he shouted back at Freddy. "They must have
hopped up their engines, or something. Anyway, they've got more speed
and power than I figured. We've got to fight it out with them, Freddy.
There's no chance to shake them off."
"Okay by me!" the English youth shouted back. "Just beginning to enjoy
myself, anyway. Tell you what, Dave! Go after that German beggar. If we
put him out of business I fancy those Italian lads won't hang around
very long."
"Just the idea I had in mind!" Dave said with a nod. "Mussolini's
pilots are tough on pigeons and maybe crows, but that's about all.
Okay, there's the little Nazi. I'll smack him and force him to turn
off. Then you give him the works as we go by. You know, the old team
work!"
"Right you are!" Freddy cried, and crouched over his guns. "The old
team work it'll be!"
Stepping hard on rudder, Dave sticked the Skua up on wing and hauled it
around in a vertical bank to the right. The terrific speed of the turn
caused his eyeballs to start to roll up backwards in their sockets, and
for a split second or so he almost went blind, or had a "black-out,"
as the R.A.F. expression terms it. He eased off the speed of the turn,
however, and the pinkish haze that was starting to film his eyes faded
away until he could see clearly again.
"Hey, no more of that!" came Freddy's warning shout. "You'll have us
blind as bats, maneuvering at such speed. Then we'll be easy pickings
for those lads."
"Sorry, Freddy!" Dave sang out, and started to drop the nose. "Forgot
for a second I had you along. Won't do it again."
"Be sure you don't!" Freddy cried. "Okay, Dave, let him have it! I'm
all set for the finishing touches."
Dave didn't even hear the last. He had hunched forward and was
giving every bit of his attention to the last Nazi Henschel biplane
reconnaissance ship that was banking over and off the top of a power
zoom. The instant it was square in his sights, he jabbed the trigger
release button. He saw his tracers slice into the plane just in back of
the B.M.W. 132 radial engine. Before he could rudder enough to bring
the pilot's cockpit and the observer-gunner's cockpit into his sights,
the German had wheeled to the left and down.
At perhaps a thousand other times that would have been the perfect
maneuver for the German pilot to make. This time, however, was the
exception. In fact, because of the Skua's terrific diving speed, the
German pilot actually made the worst maneuver possible. Dave simply
held the Skua in its thundering power dive and let Freddy Farmer do the
rest. And the English youth was not asleep. He brought his guns to bear
on the Henschel as they flashed by and practically cut the Nazi ship in
two with his steady, relentless, furious fire. Flame shot out of the
Henschel and leaped up toward the sky. A huge ball of smoke completely
enveloped the plane. When the wind caught the smoke and blew it away,
the Henschel just wasn't there any more. It was simply a shower of
smouldering embers slithering down toward the blazing sands.
"I thought so, I thought so!" Freddy's wild cry came to Dave's ears.
"There they go! And will you just look at those blasted beggars hop it!
Three cheers for Mussolini and the Italian Air Force!"
Dave pulled the Skua out of its dive and twisted around to look in
the direction of Freddy's pointed finger. What had been two Italian
Breda Sixty-Fives a few moments before were now just two dots against
the brassy Libyan sky, and becoming smaller and smaller as they moved
swiftly toward the west. Even as Dave watched them, with a scornful
grin of his lips, the two dots faded out of view completely.
"So now what?" he presently asked Freddy. "Do we head for the Tripoli
area, or do we start drifting northward toward the nearest British
outpost?"
The English youth didn't answer at once. He leaned forward and looked
over Dave's shoulder at the instrument board. He frowned slightly and
absently fingered the high speed aerial camera fitted to the right side
of his cockpit and pointing downward through a port opening in the
floor of the pit.
"I see that we've still another hour's flight in the petrol tanks,"
he said, looking at Dave. "Another hour before we have to head north
for the Victory rendezvous. If you're asking me, I say let's head for
Tripoli. Let's have a look along the coast, anyway. Hey! What the
dickens are you chuckling at, you funny-looking ape?"
Dave wiped the grin off his face and looked surprised.
"Who, me?" he asked innocently.
"Yes, you!" Freddy said with a nod. "Out with it! What's so funny?"
Dave chuckled again and pointed at Freddy's hand still fingering the
camera.
"You," he said. "What a guy! With maybe the fate of the entire Middle
East hanging in the balance, all the lad can think of is taking
pictures!"
"Rot!" the English youth exploded, but a faint flush seeped into his
cheeks. "But, blast it, that's part of the job we're supposed to do,
isn't it? And we both agreed that was our last chance, didn't we?"
"Okay, okay, little man!" Dave said, and raised a hand in token of
surrender. "Keep your shirt on, and stop biting my head off. So help
me, I'll find something for you to snap with your precious camera.
I'll--"
Dave never finished the last. At that moment the Bristol Pegasus engine
in the nose coughed and made a rasping sound that sent cold chills
slicing up and down Dave's spine despite the burning glare of the
desert sun. He locked eyes with Freddy for a brief instant and then
twisted his head front and looked at the instrument board. The answer
showed on the dial of the oil pressure gauge. The needle was swinging
around the dial toward the zero mark like the floor indicator of an
express elevator on the way down to street level.
"Well, I guess the blighters were darn good shots, at that," he heard
Freddy comment as the engine coughed a couple of times more and then
began to die out in a long metallic sigh.
An instant later it was as though an invisible little imp hiding under
the engine cowling had stuck the end of a parted oil line through the
instrument board into Dave's cockpit. A spurt of hot black liquid
went streaming out and down past his legs. He jerked his legs aside
in a flash, whipped off the ignition and yanked back the throttle in
practically a continuation of the same movement. Then, as the oil
ceased spurting back into the pit, he sticked the plane down into a
long flat glide and turned to Freddy again.
"Can I let you off any place, sir?" he asked with a tight, forced grin
on his lips.
Freddy blinked as though forcing back the tears of bitter defeat and
failure that sprang to his eyes. Then he grinned weakly, and nodded.
"Why, yes, if you'll be so kind," he said. "On the deck of an aircraft
carrier named Victory. You wouldn't mind?"
"_I_ wouldn't mind a bit," Dave replied. "But these horses we have
up front don't want to work any more. Seriously, Freddy, what do you
think?"
"About what?" the English youth asked in an innocent tone.
Dave scowled at him.
"Cut it out!" he growled. "You know what I mean. Okay, if you won't
talk, then I will. We've got to destroy this ship, haven't we? Okay.
I say the heck with bailing out and dropping down with all the stuff
we'll need down there in the desert. Also, it may be hard to fire the
ship before we go over the side. Let's land the bus and take our time
selecting the stuff we want to take on the tramp back to--"
Dave stopped short, swallowed hard, and cast a quick glance down at the
vast expanse of desert sand waiting below to receive them.
"Stuff we need on the walk back to the nearest British outpost," he
finally finished the sentence. "Well? What do you say?"
"The same thing," Freddy said, and made his lips smile. "Didn't you
hear me? Besides, I never did like jumping by parachute. Scares the
life out of me, you know."
Dave looked at the cool, calm expression in the English youth's eyes,
and at the grim set of his jaws.
"Yeah," he murmured with a chuckle. "I just bet bailing out scares the
pants off you. And probably eating an ice cream soda does the same
thing, you old soldier. Okay, then, we'll take the bus downstairs and
sit down on the sand."
The two boys smiled at each other, but each could see that there was
no joy in the other's eyes. Instead there was a look of bitterness and
helpless rage that neither could keep from showing through. The one
thing they had feared most had come to pass. Their Skua wasn't of any
more use to them now. They were on their way down into the middle of
a desert wilderness. And after what. Nothing. They had accomplished
nothing during the three hours and some odd minutes that had passed
since taking off from the flight deck of the Victory. For all the good
they had accomplished, for all the enemy information they had obtained,
they might just as well have stayed aboard the carrier.
It was no use trying to dodge the truth. They had failed in their
mission completely, and now they were on their way down to battle for
their lives against the enemy desert and the enemy sun.
"Thumbs up, Freddy!" Dave suddenly said in a steady voice. "We're not
admitting defeat yet--no, not by a darn sight."
"Certainly not!" the English youth echoed. "I've always wanted to see
what it was like in the middle of a desert, anyway. So take me down, my
good man. I want to stretch my legs."
Dave grinned and winked and then turned front and gave his attention to
flying. He circled the ship around and headed it due north at a gliding
angle that was just a degree or two above the stalling point. Safety
lay to the north, and the farther he could stretch the plane's glide in
that direction the less the number of miles Freddy and he would have to
plod over the desert sands.
Holding the ship steady, he hunched forward in the seat and stared
hard and long at the uninviting expanse of desert that stretched out
on all sides toward the four horizons. Half a dozen times he thought
he saw dark splotches down on the sand--dots and darkish shapes that
might possibly mark the location of a village, or perhaps even an Axis
(German-Italian) desert outpost. But when he tried to get a better
look, the rays of the sun reflecting upward from the shimmering sand
made his eyes smart and water, and everything to swim around in his
gaze.
Inch by inch he eased the plane downward as slowly as he dared,
and used every bit of his flying skill to stretch the glide as far
northward as possible. No airplane, however, can remain aloft without
the use of its engine, and the Skua's engine was dead for keeps. And
so after a certain length of time the desert was only a few hundred
feet beneath the wheels he had cranked down out of the wing. At that
low altitude the desert ceased to be flat and smooth as a sheet of ice.
Dave saw that it was very much ridged by sand dunes built up by desert
storms. And he saw also that there actually was considerable shrubbery
about. But of course it was desert growth, and so bleached and whitened
by the hot rays of the sun and the drifting sand that the stuff blended
in perfectly with the sand. Unless you were practically down in it, you
could very easily miss it altogether.
"Okay, Freddy, hang onto your hat!" Dave shouted as he eased the plane
up out of its gliding angle and prepared to sit down on the sand. "This
is it. Here we go!"
"Fire away!" came the English youth's reply. "I'm hanging on!"
For a couple of split seconds the plane hung motionless in the air as
though it were suddenly reluctant to settle. Then it sank down the few
remaining feet, bounced lightly twice, and rolled forward to a gentle
stop. Dave didn't have to bother about applying the wheel brakes. The
wheels sank two or three inches into the sand, and that action served
enough for brakes.
As soon as the plane came to a full stop, Dave and Freddy started
gathering up what few things they had brought in the event of just such
an emergency as this. They tossed their helmets onto the cockpit floor
and put on the small but very useful army pith helmets. They wiggled
out of their parachute harness, and fastened their precious water
bottles to their belts. They made sure that they had taken out every
bit of the compact emergency rations brought along, and checked to make
sure that they had knives, compass, and their automatics.
Finally they had everything they needed. Dave started to leg down onto
the sand, but suddenly dropped back in his seat and stared at Freddy
out of miserable eyes.
"I once saw a man shoot a horse that had broken its leg," he said in
a strained voice. "He was really and truly crying as he pulled the
trigger. I was pretty young at the time, and I couldn't figure out why
he'd shoot the horse if it made him feel so badly. I thought at the
time he must be crazy, and I got scared pink and ran all the way home
without stopping. I know now why he shot that horse, and--and I guess I
sort of know, too, just how he felt."
Freddy swallowed and nodded silently. Dave impulsively reached out and
touched the cockpit rim with his hand.
"Sort of like that horse, old girl," he mumbled in a low voice. "We
can't leave you here to fall into enemy hands. So we've got to put you
out of the way--yeah, sort of out of your misery, I guess you could
call it. The desert, and the Nazis, would only do you harm, if they
found you. So--so long."
"Let's get on with it, Dave," Freddy said after a moment's silence, and
legged out onto the sand.
Five minutes later the Bristol-powered Blackburn Skua was an inferno of
flame and black smoke that towered high up into the brassy desert sky.
Dave and Freddy were many yards away, heading northward. Not once did
either of them turn their heads to look back at the blazing plane that
the fortunes of war had forced them to destroy and abandon.
CHAPTER EIGHT
_Blazing Sands_
"Well, I've had my fill!" Freddy gasped. "I can jolly well tell you,
I've had my fill."
The two pilots had been tramping across the sand for a little over
two hours, and Freddy Farmer had suddenly come to a halt and wiped a
bucketful of sand-washed sweat from his face. Dave stopped and looked
at him questioningly.
"Fill of what?" he asked. "What do you mean, or is the sun getting you?"
"I said I'd always wanted to see what it was like in the middle of the
desert," the English youth replied with a grimace. "Well, I've had a
look, and I can tell you I'm fed up with it, no end. How far do you
think we'll have to go with this sand walking business, anyway?"
"Oh, not so far!" Dave said in a cheery voice. "Eight or nine hundred
miles, I guess. Maybe an even thousand."
Freddy shot him a look of withering scorn.
"Only that far?" he snapped. "I thought it would be at least a couple
of thousand miles. If what you say is true, we should be there by
sundown, easy. But, no fooling, Dave, I'm done in something awful. I
could sit down and rest for a week."
"Me, too, Freddy," Dave agreed. "But if we sit down here on the sand
under this sun, we'll be fried to a crisp. Come on, fellow, up and at
'em, huh?"
"Who said anything about sitting down here?" Freddy said indignantly,
and pointed. "Look over there. Lots of desert bush, and plenty of shade
for both of us. What do you say?"
Dave scowled and looked in the direction of Freddy's pointed hand. He
himself was also desperately tired, and he knew that to continue on
under the blazing sun would take more out of the two of them than they
could spare. Yet some inner force urged him to go on; to keep Freddy
moving forward. Why, he had not the slightest idea. There was just some
little voice within him that begged, pleaded, and commanded him to keep
on moving northward.
"They sure look inviting, Freddy," he said in a weary voice as he eyed
the huge clump of thick desert bush about a hundred yards away. "But
I've got a hunch that we should keep going."
"You and your hunches!" Freddy groaned. "What difference does half an
hour make, I'd like to know? Don't get the idea I'm being a quitter,
Dave. Nothing like that, really. Fact is, I'm trying to be sensible.
We're not trained for this sort of thing. If we bite off too much at
one time, we may pay dearly for our foolishness. Let's rest a bit in
the shade of those bushes, such as it is, and then have another go at
this blasted tramping."
"Okay," Dave finally relented. "I guess you're right at that. No
sense burning ourselves out this early in the game. Okay, we'll--Hold
everything, Freddy!"
As Dave shouted the last he put up both hands as a shield for his
aching eyes and peered hard toward the northwest.
"What is it, Dave?" Freddy cried eagerly. "What do you see?"
"I don't know," Freddy said slowly. "I'm not sure at all. Take a look
in the direction I'm pointing, Freddy. Call it a mile, or so, over
there. What do you make of that darkish streak over there? Say! That's
a ledge of rock, and covered with desert bushes, or I'm a Chinaman."
Freddy cupped his own hands to his eyes and strained them in that
direction.
"You're no Chinaman, Dave!" he cried presently. "That's rock sure
enough. Looks like a plateau split right down through the middle, but
you can't tell in this blasted sun."
"What do you say we make for it?" Dave said. "If it's what it looks
like, it'll give us more shade than those desert bushes over there. And
the sun is getting close to high noon in that darn sky up there. In an
hour or so your bushes won't be worth a darn. What do you say? Shall we
pull up the old socks and try to reach that place, huh?"
Freddy sighed and shrugged resignedly.
"Right you are," he murmured. "But I certainly wish I could learn to
say no now and then to your wild propositions. I'd certainly save a lot
of wear and tear on myself. Right-o, my little hero. Lead the way. I'm
right at your heels. Phew, if these poor blistered feet of mine were
only walking the flight deck of the Victory right now. How wonderful,
how delicious that would be!"
"Shut up!" Dave growled at him, and started plodding across the
seemingly endless expanse of sand. "You'll have me blubbering like a
kid in a minute."
A little under an hour later, the two boys had very definitely learned
something else about the Libyan desert, or any other desert, for that
matter. It was that, when you think some spot is a certain number of
miles away from you, you can just multiply your guess by at least six,
and the answer will _still be less_ than the actual distance. The glare
of the sun, the shimmering heat waves rising up from the sand, plus the
flatness of the desert, fool you completely when it comes to judging
distances between two points.
"This is sure a long mile!" Freddy broke a five minute silence. "Or
have we been walking in circles? My compass says not, but maybe the
heat's got it, too."
"You and me both!" Dave groaned, and nodded his head. "It's been
looking only a mile away for the last twenty minutes. I'm sorry,
Freddy. I guess the desert is a tricky spot. How're you doing? We've
got to keep going now, you know. If we stop, we're done for."
Freddy wiped hot hands across his equally hot face. There was not even
the comfort of sweating, now. No sooner did a bead of sweat ooze out on
their bodies than the heat dried it up. From head to foot every square
inch of their skin felt like a piece of bacon in a frying pan that a
good housewife forgot all about before she left for the movies. Even
though they wore desert sun glasses, their eyes felt as though they
were exposed to the direct rays of the brassy ball of fire in the sky.
Each step was an effort, for their leg joints seemed sapped of all body
lubricants. And every now and then, to add to their torture, a little
flurry of wind would spring up as though by magic and hurl a swirling
cloud of hot stinging sand directly into their faces. However, each new
little discomfort that rose up to torture them only served to feed fuel
to the flame of resoluteness and grim determination that burned within
them.
"Am I right or wrong, pal?" Dave asked when Freddy did not speak.
"Your turn to shut up!" the English youth grunted. "I'm not quitting
until you do, my American friend. Matter of fact, though, I think the
blasted spot does seem a bit closer."
"Me, too," Dave cried, and increased the pace. "Come on, Freddy. The
old whirlwind finish. Yes, it _is_ closer. I'd say only about--"
"Don't say it!" Freddy begged. "Let's stop guessing and not break our
hearts. Let's just walk. What's the matter? Can't you go faster than
that?"
Dave grinned happily as the English youth increased his stride and went
sailing into the lead. Just like old Freddy Farmer. Groans and gripes
a bit, and then before you know it he's making you look like the one
who's groaning and griping.
"Tough guy, huh?" Dave chuckled, and drew up on a level with Freddy's
shoulder. "Maybe you want to sprint the rest of the way? Well, skip it,
pal. This pace is fast enough for me. Boy! Only a couple of minutes
more. And look, Freddy! It's like a regular cliff. Two cliffs, with a
valley in between. Gosh! What do you know! A canyon cut into this darn
flat desert."
"Think again, Dave," Freddy said with a smile. "Better still, turn
around and take a look. I did. We've really been walking uphill, to the
top of a plateau formation of ground. Those cliffs are the two sides of
a crack that time has made in the plateau formation of ground. Just as
unexplainable as why you suddenly come across an oasis with water and
palm trees in the middle of a barren desert."