said. "The one by his right hand. It was completely marked and showed
the whole plan of attack. It was hard reading the notes he'd made
because they were upside down to me. But I got most of them after a
while, and filled in the rest with guesses. At the end there he saw me
looking at the map and realized how I had found out so much. If only I
hadn't let him catch me. I had the beggar mighty worried. I'm sure I
had him actually believing that there was another plane with us, and
that it got back to Wavell's headquarters. Blast the luck, anyway!"
"Well, I sure take the booby prize!" Dave groaned. "Sure, I saw the
maps, but I was just dope enough not to give them a thought. Old Freddy
Farmer with the hawk eye--and brains. But how come he figured you spoke
German?"
"The maps, Dave, the maps!" Freddy said patiently. "All the notes
and stuff were in German. He realized at once that I had read and
understood them. Don't you see?"
Dave groaned again and threw up his hands in a gesture of despair.
"Look, Freddy," he said, "if I turn around will you give me a good
swift kick? Boy, am I slipping! Yeah, I guess you were crazy to select
me to come along with you on this trip. I'm a lot of help, I don't
think!"
"Now, just cut that out!" Freddy snapped at him. "No one runs down
my best pal to my face, not even you. It was just by luck I happened
to notice the map, anyway. And look what small good it's done! That
cold-blooded beggar wasn't fooling us, Dave. He's just the type to do
what he says he'll do. And it's all my fault. If I'd only kept my mouth
shut."
"It's your turn to lay off running down my best pal," Dave told with a
grin. "What's done is done, as they say. We've just got to figure some
way to beat him. One thing, anyway. We know the whole set-up now. Gosh!
If we could only get hold of that map and get out of here--"
Dave let the rest trail off into silence and stared moodily out the
opened front of the tent. The Germans were making an inspection of
their equipment after the night's march across the desert. Fuel supply
trucks were being unloaded, and squads of soldiers were refueling the
tanks and armored cars and troop transports, while others were checking
engines and guns, and making sure that everything was in order.
The two boys watched them for several moments, then suddenly Dave
leaned close to Freddy and spoke in a whisper.
"We've got about one chance in a thousand, Freddy," he said, "maybe not
even that much of a chance. But we've got to do something, and do it
darn soon. Got any ideas, or suggestions?"
"Not a one," the English youth replied instantly. "But I can tell you
have. What is it?"
"While one of us keeps this guard busy," Dave said, "the other has got
to sneak over there to that fuel supply truck and touch off the gas and
Diesel oil it's carrying, and get back here. Then in the excitement
that follows, we've got to reach the headquarters tent, grab that map
and get away in the Messerschmitt. What do you think?"
"I think it's like trying to fly to the moon," Freddy grunted. "But
that doesn't mean I'm not game to try it. Just how do you expect to
keep the guard busy while one of us sneaks over to that fuel truck?"
Dave didn't answer at once. He sat watching the squads of German
soldiers move farther and farther along the line of trucks. Presently
they were hidden from view at the far end of the line. He touched
Freddy's arm, put a cautioning finger to his lips, and rose slowly
to his feet. Before the English youth could stop him, Dave had moved
forward with the speed of striking lightning. The guard had his back
to them and was staring out across the camouflaged desert camp for
a moment before resuming his pacing. In that split second of time
allowed, Dave Dawson acted. He flashed out his right hand and plucked
the guard's Luger from its belt holster before the German realized what
had happened.
"Turn, and you're a dead man!" Dave warned him in German, and backed
into the tent.
The guard checked his half turn and froze, the hands gripping his
Mauser rifle turning white at the knuckles.
"Just keep walking up and down," Dave spoke to him in a steady, deadly
voice. "Go ahead and raise an alarm if you want to, but it won't do
_you_ any good, see? Your pals may shoot us, but _you'll_ be dead
before they can start shooting. Go ahead, now. Walk up and down some
more--and hold that rifle just like you're doing. _Barrel pointed up!_"
As Dave held his breath, the guard hesitated a moment. Then his desire
to go on living won out. He started pacing up and down in front of the
prison tent, holding his rifle so that the barrel pointed to the sky.
"Good grief!" Freddy breathed softly. "I never would have believed it
possible. That was wonderful, Dave. Phew! It was--it's left me weak as
a kitten. It--"
"Then get strong, and pronto!" Dave ordered, and thrust the Luger into
his hands. "I'm on my way to the fuel truck. Shut up, and don't argue.
You keep that guard occupied. Don't let up on him for an instant. If
worse comes to worse--shoot and duck out the back of this tent and
head for the rear of the headquarters tent. Your shots will bring them
running, I hope, and we'll still have a chance. But watch the guard and
keep telling him how a bullet hurts. He's yellow, or he wouldn't have
folded up just now. Okay, I'm on my way. Luck to us both, pal!"
Freddy started to open his mouth to protest, but Dave silenced him with
a quick shake of his head.
"About time I did something for our team," he grunted, and moved toward
the front of the tent. "You just hold everything. Be right back."
He took another step and flashed a searching look outside. The Germans
checking their equipment were well out of sight by now. As a matter
of fact, he didn't see a sign of a single German save the guard who
marched slowly up and down with eyes that were saucers of fear.
"You're doing fine," Dave grunted at him in his own tongue. "Just keep
it up. My pal is the best shot in the British army. He could split your
backbone in two from that distance without half trying."
The guard shivered slightly but did not turn his head. Dave threw a
final wink and a grin back at Freddy, and then went out of the tent and
off toward the left with the speed of a shell leaving the muzzle of
a gun. Legs working like piston rods, and body bent well forward, he
streaked across a fifty foot open stretch of sand to the safety of the
first of the parked tanks. There he halted for a brief instant, tore
off a large piece of his shirt and pulled an army clip of waterproof
matches from his pocket. Then he streaked forward again toward the
nearest fuel truck. Tins of gas and oil had been taken out and placed
on the ground. He grabbed hold of one and, working with the speed of
lightning, untwisted the cap and soaked his torn piece of shirt with
gas. Then he placed the piece of cloth close to the pile of tins.
Crouching down, he struck one of his matches, tossed the flame down
onto the gas-soaked strip of shirt cloth, spun around in a continuation
of the same movement and raced for dear life back toward the prison
tent.
He was still several strides from the tent when the flames reached the
first of the gas tins. It exploded in a roar of sound, and brilliant
orange red fire leaped up into the sky. Even as Dave dashed into the
tent and snatched the Luger from Freddy's hand, a second and a third
tin of fuel exploded. Dave didn't take time out to watch the fireworks
display. As Freddy gaped at him open-mouthed, Dave twisted back toward
the guard, who stood staring dumb-eyed at the flames, and cracked him
back of the ear with the barrel of the Luger. The German slowly folded
up and dropped to the ground without a sound.
"So he won't shoot when our backs are turned!" Dave barked at Freddy,
and dived for the rear of the tent. "Come on, and put plenty of speed
into your legs. It's make or break for us now!"
The English youth needed no urging. He dived after Dave, and they both
squirmed out from under the rear side of the tent like a couple of
snakes fleeing a flaming jungle. By then the whole desert camp was in a
terrific uproar. Troops and officers were racing madly toward the fuel
truck, which was now a towering column of flame and pitch black smoke
that reached high up into the sky. Hoarse shouted orders flew thick and
fast, and the soldiers fell upon nearby equipment like mad demons and
tried to haul it farther away from the blazing inferno.
All that Dave and Freddy saw out of the corners of their eyes as
they raced zigzagging toward the rear of the headquarters tent. They
actually passed German troops rushing toward the fire, but not one of
the enemy soldiers so much as gave them a glance. All eyes were riveted
on the towering column of flame and smoke.
In less time than it takes to tell about it, Dave and Freddy had darted
and twisted around tanks and armored cars and reached the rear of the
headquarters tent. There they halted and strained their ears for any
sounds inside. It was impossible to tell if there was anybody inside,
however, because of the terrific din that rolled across the desert camp
in ever increasing waves of sound.
Dave nodded to Freddy, gripped the Luger tightly, dropped to his knees
in the sand and whipped up the bottom edge of the tent canvas. One
look and wild joy flooded his face. Freddy saw that look and didn't
bother to ask questions. Seconds later both were inside the empty tent
and stuffing maps and papers inside their shirts. Another few seconds
and they started to turn around and skin out the way they had entered.
At that exact instant, however, a blurred figure came racing into the
tent. Dave saw the flash of a gun coming up and let his body drop. At
the same time he shoved Freddy with his free hand, and swung his Luger
and pulled the trigger with the other.
Two shots blended together as one. Death hissed past an inch from
Dave's nose and bored a hole in the rear wall of the tent. The blurred
figure screamed with pain, dropped his gun and clutched wildly for his
right shoulder. It was not until then Dave recognized the pain-twisted
face of the German major.
"For the two punching bags you made out of us!" Dave barked at him in
German, and then practically slid out under the rear tent flap on his
stomach.
Leaping to his feet, he paused long enough to give Freddy a hand up,
and then led the way at top speed toward the extreme rear of the camp.
Once he reached it, he swerved sharply to the right and ran along
behind a line of parked troop trucks. Presently he pulled up to a
panting halt beside the last truck. The burning fuel truck was now far
to his right and to his front. Directly in front of him, though, and
not fifty yards away, was the Messerschmitt One-Ten. There wasn't a
soul near it. Every jack man in the camp was busy fighting tooth and
nail to stop the blaze of the fuel truck from spreading. Dave reached
back and gripped Freddy's arm.
"I'll dive for the controls," he said, talking fast, "You dive for the
rear pit and the guns. They've stopped the engines, but I'll kick them
into life, and taxi away from here. You hold them back with your guns
in case they start after us. Can't taxi too fast because of the sand.
And I don't dare take off at once. Want to give the engines a little
time to get turning over sweet. Okay?"
"Okay!" Freddy breathed. "And you'll get the Victoria Cross for this,
if I've got anything to say about it."
"Just the flight deck of the Victory will be okay by me," Dave said
grimly. "Right! Here we go!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
_Vulture Wings_
The fifty yards to the unguarded Messerschmitt One-Ten seemed more like
fifty miles to Dave as he and Freddy sprinted across the sand. His
heart hammered against his ribs, and not just because of his running
efforts. With every step he expected to hear the roaring challenge and
the sharp bark of rifles and Lugers speeding bullets toward him. With
every step, also, a hundred wild, crazy thoughts flashed through his
brain. Was the Messerschmitt in condition to fly? Was there enough gas
in the tanks to take them to British held ground? Would the engines
start? Would he be able to make a good desert take-off? Hundreds and
hundreds of wild thoughts, each one stabbing his brain like a pin point
of fire.
And then, suddenly, they had reached the German plane and had vaulted
into the cockpit. Dave's fingers fairly flew to the starter buttons,
the throttles, and other gadgets all marked in German. A soul torturing
eternity dragged by, and then the twin 1150 hp. Daimler-Benz engines
roared into life. The instant he heard the first peep out of the
engines, Dave kicked off the right wheel brake, gunned the engines
slightly and started the One-Ten moving around to the left. Every ounce
of his flying skill was in his fingertips as he nursed the throttles
and got the plane to moving faster and faster. Whether they had been
seen, whether they were already being pursued and fired upon, he did
not know. He didn't even bother to find out. He simply concentrated
every bit of his effort on taxiing the Messerschmitt away from the
desert camp and "nursing" the throttles so they would get maximum power
out of the engines.
One moment--two--three--Finally the One-Ten was fairly skipping across
the surface of the sand. A high dune rose up straight in front of Dave.
He gulped, swallowed and pulled back hard on the control stick. The
wheels seemed to stick to the sand for one last moment, then the plane
practically leaped into the air, and the dangerous sand dune rushed
by underneath. Dave whistled, wiped sweat from his face, and twisted
around in the seat to look back. The desert camp was rapidly falling
away and down. The column of flame and smoke from the burning fuel
truck still mounted into the sky. He saw several other tongues of flame
spitting his way, and realized at once that they were Germans trying to
knock them out of the sky with rifle and machine gun fire. The bullets,
however, weren't even coming close. And Freddy, hunched over the rear
guns, wasn't even bothering to pull the triggers.
A moment later the English youth let go of his guns and turned front to
grin happily at Dave.
"Clean as a whistle, Dave!" he cried. "The beggars are only just now
realizing what happened. Good grief, don't ever remind me that this
actually happened, because I won't believe you. Talk about your fairy
stories! This is certainly one nobody would ever swallow."
"Oh, that was child's play!" Dave chuckled, and made a mocking bravado
gesture. "You should see me when I'm really hot, pal. Heck! That was
just fun. Let's go back and do it all over again just to make them
madder, huh?"
Freddy made a face and stabbed a finger to the north.
"Just get going _that_ way, and quickly, my friend," he said, "or I'll
boot you out of that seat and take the controls myself. No, thanks!
I've jolly well had all I want of the nasty Nazis for a while!"
Dave laughed and sticked the Messerschmitt out of its roaring power
zoom, then banked around toward the north. He took one last look back
at the desert camp that was now little more than a darkish patch on the
distant desert, and then turned front and gave all of his attention to
the instrument panel. The things he noticed brought a happy smile to
his lips. The tanks were full, the engines were performing perfectly,
and there was not the slightest indication that the plane would not
carry them safely to British-occupied Bengazi.
Fate, however, had decided that such was not to be their good fortune.
Fate, assisted by the radio back at the desert camp, and three
Messerschmitt 109 single seater fighters sent streaking away from the
nearest Nazi air base. Fate, plus the marvel of radio, plus the speed
of Messerschmitt 109s. What Dave's instruments told him really didn't
have anything to do with it at all.
The first indication that all was not to be nice, pleasant sailing came
at the end of some thirty-five minutes, when Freddy suddenly banged him
on the shoulder and pointed up and off to the left. He looked in that
direction and saw the three dots high-tailing down out of the dawn sky
with the speed of comets gone absolutely crazy.
"Company, Dave!" Freddy shouted. "The blighters got on the radio, of
course, and contacted Tripoli air base. Looks like we're in for a bit
of trouble."
"Not Tripoli," Dave said with a shake of his head. "Those birds
couldn't have come this far so soon. Sure, they probably got on the
radio, but to some spot much closer. If you ask me, it looks as if
they've started moving the planes up closer. Set up a few emergency
fields out in the desert so they wouldn't have to fly so far to give
air support to the ground forces."
"That's probably it," Freddy agreed. "But right or wrong, it doesn't
make any difference now. Think you can skip past before they catch up
with us?"
Dave stared at the three dots coming down from the left and then
glanced ahead at the seemingly endless expanse of desert. It stretched
to the north as far as he could see, and there wasn't a single sign of
any British outpost or desert village garrison. He couldn't tell for
sure, though, because a strange copperish color was crawling up over
the northern horizon.
"No, we can't fly away from them," he told Freddy with a shake of his
head. "We'll have to make a running fight of it, and hope for the
best. Okay, Freddy, they're asking for it, so let's give it to the
bums."
Freddy made no answer. He went back to his guns and checked them to
make sure everything was in order. Dave fed the two Daimler-Benz
engines every ounce of gas they would take and eased the nose up to get
as much altitude as possible before the three Messerschmitt 109s could
close in from the left and give battle. The lull before the battle
lasted less than a minute. Flying by hand, Dave kept his eyes glued
on the diving attackers, and was set and ready the instant he saw the
little stabbing tongues of flame dart out from the nose of each German
plane.
In that instant he acted, and at lightning speed. He tossed the
Messerschmitt One-Ten up over on wingtip and pulled it around in
a steep bank and headed straight for the three One-Nines. It was
obviously not what the German pilots had expected. They had undoubtedly
counted on Dave to wheel around the other way and attempt to race away
from them. So when, instead, they saw the "victim" plane flash around
toward them and open up with a withering fire from the nose guns and
two 20-mm. cannon, they broke diving formation at once, and each pilot
tried frantically to skid out into the clear.
Two of the planes succeeded in doing just that. The center plane of
the formation, however, was doomed. Dave had it square in his sights,
and a blind man could not have missed from that distance. His savage
fire covered the German plane like a tent. The craft staggered forward
a short distance, then suddenly fell off on one wing and went down,
leaving behind a long trail of oily black smoke.
"Let that teach you to stay home where you belong!" Dave shouted
impulsively, and pulled up for more altitude.
"And you, too, my little Jerry!"
Freddy's words were drowned out by the yammer of his guns. Dave jerked
his head around in time to see a second Messerschmitt appear to fly
right into an invisible meat chopper. The left wing came off and broke
up in a hundred pieces. The fuselage buckled just in back of the
cockpit, and the right wing crumpled like so much tin foil. Never had
Dave seen a plane come apart so completely in the air, and he gazed
pop-eyed at the shower of debris slithering downward.
"Man, oh, man!" he gasped aloud. "What are you throwing at him, Freddy?
Naval shells?"
"Wondering, myself!" the English youth called back in an awed voice.
"Good grief, that ship must have been made of cardboard!"
"Or maybe china!" Dave added. "Gee, I never--"
The savage chatter of German Rheinmettal-Borsig aerial machine guns
didn't give him a chance to finish. The third Messerschmitt One-Nine
had cut around in a flash turn and was boring in with all guns blazing.
A handful of death slammed into Dave's plane, and he felt the One-Ten
shake and shiver under the savage impact of the shower or bullets. He
jumped on the left rudder with every ounce of his strength and slammed
the plane around in a turn that made a pinkish haze rise up before his
eyes. Just the same he held the plane in the turn as long as he dared.
Then, just before the terrific turning force would have rolled his
eyes back and made him temporarily blind, he eased out and zoomed for
altitude. Five hundred feet higher he flattened off at the top of the
zoom, banked to the left and looked down and back for a sign of the
Messerschmitt One-Nine.
It wasn't there, gun spewing up after him, however, and he swallowed
in relief. That surprise attack had come much too close for comfort,
and he was positive that had the German followed up his advantage one
Dave Dawson, and one Freddy Farmer, would have been in a mighty bad fix
right then. Then Freddy's hand rapped him on the shoulder.
"Don't look down, look west, Dave!" the English youth called out.
"There he goes, and bad luck to him, I say. The blighter took twenty
years off my life. I could have reached out and caught his bullets as
they went by."
"Reach out?" Dave echoed, and watched the attacking plane race farther
and farther westward. "Boy! If I hadn't ducked I _would_ have caught
them with my _head_! Well, it's nice the guy decided he'd had enough,
anyway. Now, we can--"
But it suddenly wasn't so nice after all. The German pilot had gone
racing away, but he had left his calling card. And the gods of war,
wherever they were sitting huddled together, laughed with glee at the
unfortunate turn of events. The right engine (right outboard engine)
started sputtering out its story that it was all through for the day.
Dave instantly cut the ignition and throttle to prevent the possibility
of fire. With the right engine gone, the force of the left outboard
engine tried to veer the ship around in that direction, and Dave was
forced to put on a lot of opposite rudder to keep the plane flying
straight.
That, however, didn't help much. With one engine completely dead, the
plane began to lose altitude slowly. Even with the left outboard
engine running full blast, the Messerschmitt One-Ten became logy in
the air, and it was all Dave could do to keep it on an even keel, and
stop it from whipping over and down into a spin. Presently, after he
had almost lost control a couple of times, he was forced to nose down
slightly and keep the nose down. He turned around and shook his head
sadly at Freddy's bitter expression.
"This doesn't seem to be our lucky day, either," he said. "We have a
little altitude, but not much. In ten minutes or so we'll be down so
low we'll have to land. These jobs just won't fly on one engine. Would
you like to take a stroll on the nice desert, my little man?"
Freddy groaned aloud and flung a look of hate down at the stretches of
desert sand below.
"If I come out of this alive," he declared in harsh tones, "I'll shoot
the blighter who even mentions the word, sand, to me. Well, tough luck
for us, Dave. Thank goodness, though, that beggar got scared and went
barging on home. I fancy he'd be enjoying himself a lot right now, if
he had hung around."
"Being a Nazi, he sure would," Dave nodded. "Crippled ships are
their favorite dish. It was the same in the First World War, too, I
understand. What a race of people! But, darn it, this desert landing
burns me up. And I don't mean that as a wise-crack. It's getting to be
a habit with me. I probably won't know what to do if I ever see a real
airdrome or carrier flight deck again. I wonder how far we are from the
British lines."
"A long, long walk over this blasted desert, I'm afraid," Freddy said
gloomily. "And we've got to get there long before dawn tomorrow, too,
or the information we have won't be worth much. It will take a few
hours at least for the British garrisons west of Tobruk, at Derna and
Bengazi, to fall back to the main body, or they'll be cut off by the
Germans blocking the way at Tobruk."
"That's right," Dave said, and guided the plane downward. "And that's
exactly what the Nazis plan to do to make their attack a complete
success: smash right through the middle of the British defenses; cut
British strength in half, and then mop up a half at a time. But, darn
it, we can't let them get away with that even if we have to run all the
way to Tobruk, or some British outpost that has a radio. No, darn it,
we'll beat those Nazis yet. We're not through, and all washed up."
"Well, we are with this airplane, anyway," Freddy grunted. "Here comes
that blasted desert. Oh, how I hate the very sight of sand! But don't
think I'm giving up hope and quitting, Dave. Don't crack us up. I'm
just talking aloud, you know."
"It'll be a rainy day when you up and quit, Freddy," Dave said with a
chuckle. "Don't worry. I feel just the same way. I could chew nails
plenty right now. Oh well, hold your hats, children."