to hear that from you. Just the same, I hope you _don't_ have to use
your guns, either of you. It'll be a mighty big responsibility you'll be
flying with tonight, Captains. Don't either of you forget that for a
single instant!"
"Quite, sir," Freddy said evenly, and there was no twinkle in his eye
now.
"Also, check," Dave grunted, and meant it.
The senior officer glanced at his watch and nodded.
"That's all, then," he said. "Captain Jones, the Field Flight Officer,
will show you the two planes you're to fly. Better look him up and test
hop the two ships to make sure they're in condition for the ocean hop.
And in case I don't see either of you again, good luck, both here, and
on the other side. I'll be keeping my eye on the communiqu├ęs."
The two youths thanked him, saluted, and went outside.
"Well, we're going to England," Dave said when they were alone and
walking along the edge of the field. "We know that much for sure,
anyway."
"Right you are!" Freddy cried happily, and did a little jig to express
his feelings further. "Home to dear old England. I can hardly wait...."
"For a pot of that dish water you call tea!" Dave interrupted with a
laugh. "Well, there's the Atlantic out there, pal. You can start
swimming right now, if you want."
"I don't," Freddy snapped. "The blinking Navy can have the water. I'll
take the air. But I wasn't fooling in there, Dave. I really do hope we
meet up with a couple of Nazi beggars in Messerschmitts."
"And they call the Germans blood-thirsty!" Dave jeered good-naturedly.
"What a guy! One minute he's singing songs of his dear old homeland,
and the next he's saying how he hopes to knock off a brace of Germans on
the way. You want everything, don't you?"
"Very much so!" the English-born ace cracked at him. "Particularly if
it's Nazi pilots and observers. I want all I can get of those dirty
blighters."
"Well, I guess I'm with you there, pal," Dave chuckled. "The fewer
Germans I can leave living in this world, the better I'll like it. Well,
let's go hunt up this Captain Jones and get a look at those two winged
babies we've got dates with tonight."
CHAPTER FIVE
_Dead Man's Wings_
A thin pale line of light marked where the eastern horizon met the night
sky. Settled comfortably in the pit of his Lockheed P-Thirty-Eight, Dave
Dawson nodded his head and half raised his free hand in a form of
salute.
"Greetings, dawn," he murmured. "Nice to see that you're with us again.
Now if you'll just brighten up enough to let me make sure that that
really is Freddy's plane off my left wing, then everything will be
pretty okay."
For a little under six hours he had been driving the Lockheed across the
cold grey waters of the North Atlantic with only the dark of night, the
stars, and an occasional blink of Freddy Farmer's navigation lights for
companionship. The take-off at Botwood, and the flight up to now, had
been totally without incident or accident. Now, though, dawn was coming
up in the east. The light of a new day was spreading across the face of
a war-torn world. And in time of war no man can tell what the new day
may bring for himself, or for anybody else, for that matter.
"But we should be overtaking the ferry bombers soon," he grunted the
thought aloud. "And at least that will be something to break the
monotony. Boy! I sure take my hat off to the ferry pilots. Night after
night, tooling planes across to England, with nothing to do but sit and
let her ride the air. Personally, I'd go nuts. But--Ah, there you are,
Freddy, old pal. It really has been you all the time."
He spoke the last as sufficient dawn light spread up out of the east to
permit him a good look at the other P-Thirty-Eight that was keeping pace
on the left. The two air aces waved to each other, and waggled wings in
salute. But neither of them spoke over the radio, for that was the one
fixed rule of ferry flying across the North Atlantic. Maintain radio
silence at all times, and keep it! Too many Nazi stations were open and
waiting to pick up ferry plane radio signals and take a cross bearing on
their exact position, and send out their shore-based long range fighters
to reduce the number of planes that were heading for England.
And so the two youths simply saluted each other silently, and drew in
to closer formation--where they could make faces at each other, and go
through the kind of gestures that only airmen understand. After a few
minutes of that long distance horseplay, however, they tired of it. And
both of them concentrated on searching the brightening skies ahead for
their first glimpse of the bombers being ferried over. It wasn't long
before Freddy Farmer's eagle eyes scored another "first."
Dave saw him waggle his wings vigorously and point ahead and a bit to
the left. He looked in that direction, and just when his straining eyes
were about to smart and water he saw the cluster of black dots outlined
against the light in the east. He counted them, and heaved a little
impulsive sigh of relief when they totalled twenty-one. Twenty-one
bombers had taken off from Botwood. He stared at the dots, watched them
grow larger and take on their rightful outlines, and wondered in which
one Major Barber was riding. He didn't wonder in which ones the advance
contingent of Commandos was riding, because he knew that. Every one of
the ferry bombers had some of the Commandos aboard.
"And it's up to me and Freddy to see that they reach England in good
shape," he grunted aloud. "Well, no reason why we can't see that they
do just that. The way I feel now, I'm set to tackle a couple of dozen
long range Nazi fighters. And Freddy must feel the same. So that makes a
total of forty-eight we could take care of nicely, and I doubt that
Goering would send out more than that number. Hold it, kid! Are you
trying to get a little vocal cord exercise, or are you trying to prove
to yourself you're quite a hot pilot? Why not shut up and tend to your
knitting, and let come what will come?"
With a tight grin and a nod for emphasis, he continued flying toward the
group of ferry bombers. Presently he waggled his wings at Freddy and
signalled with his free hand. The English youth answered with a nod of
his head, and the pair took up escort positions above and to the rear of
the twenty-one planes winging down the home stretch to England.
Some twenty minutes ticked past, and suddenly Freddy Farmer came
swerving in sharply toward Dave's plane. As Dave saw his pal cut in, the
back of his neck started to tingle, and his heart started to pound a
little harder against his ribs. He knew at once the reason for Freddy's
sudden maneuver, but as he swept the dawn-tinted skies ahead with his
eyes he was unable to spot anything to justify it. But that didn't stop
the tingling at the back of his neck, nor the increased pounding of his
heart. Freddy, of course, had sighted enemy aircraft, and that he
couldn't see them didn't mean that Freddy was all wet.
Anyway, he stopped peering at the skies ahead and looked at Freddy
swinging in to wingtip nearness. Across the short stretch of air space
that separated them he saw the flush of excitement in Freddy's face, and
he imagined that he could see the bright, brittle light of battle in his
pal's eyes. Freddy had shoved open his "greenhouse" and was sticking an
arm up through the opening and pointing wildly ahead and a degree or two
to the south.
Dave squinted in that direction, and squinted hard. But all he got for
his efforts was an ache in his eyes. He could see absolutely nothing but
the advance glare of the new sun that was racing up out of the east.
True, his imagination caused him to "see" all sorts of other things. But
he had only to brush a hand across his eyes, or blink, and the "other
things" wouldn't be there any more.
Then, suddenly, he saw them!
Three moving dots, so low down that they were practically in line with
the horizon, and completely backgrounded by the yellowish orange rays
of the coming sun. The instant he spotted them he pinned them in his
vision, and breathlessly waited for the moment when they would take on
sufficient outline for him to tell their type. On impulse he bent his
lips to the flap mike to ask Freddy the obvious question. But he checked
himself in time, and spoke not a word. Radio silence had been the order.
And radio silence it had to be, even if the whole darn Nazi Luftwaffe
was tearing out for a crack at the ferry bombers.
"They could be R.A.F. planes headed out to give us a hand with the
escorting," he murmured.
Even as he spoke the words, however, he knew that he was simply
whistling in the dark. If it had been decided for R.A.F. planes to fly
out from England and meet them, they would have been informed of that
fact before leaving Botwood. No, those three dots weren't R.A.F. planes.
So there was only one answer. They were Nazi long range fighters, and
Colonel Stickney's words about German Intelligence not being stupid were
bearing fruit. Word of this ferry bomber-Commando aerial convoy to
England had reached German ears. And there were three Nazi planes
tearing out to do something drastic about it.
For a moment or two Dave took his eyes off the three dots rushing up out
of the dawn light and glanced at the bomber formation prop-clawing
toward England. Ice coated his heart, and his throat became dry and
tight. Twenty-one bombers heading for England, unarmed. Twenty-one
bombers, each of which carried its crew _and_ a certain number of highly
trained Yank Commandos!
"And it's up to Freddy and me to see that they get there!" Dave muttered
grimly.
In the next instant a wave of blazing anger swept through him. What did
Colonel Stickney think Freddy and he were? A whole confounded fighter
squadron? It wasn't fair to give them complete charge of such an
important aerial convoy. More fighter pilots should have been sent along
to help them out, just in case. Doggone it! What did they think Freddy
and he were? Cats with nine lives apiece? Darn it...!
The wave of anger vanished just as quickly as it came. A cold calmness
took charge of Dave, and he deliberately reached up his free hand and
twisted the ring on his electric trigger button to "Fire." Then he
turned his head and glanced over at Freddy. A set grin was on the
English youth's face, and as their eyes met Freddy lifted his right
hand with the fingers closed and the thumb sticking straight up. Dave
nodded and returned the thumbs up sign.
"After all, there're only three of them," he grunted, and switched his
gaze back to the advancing dots. "If Freddy and I can't handle three of
the tramps, then we just don't belong!"
The dots were no longer dots. They had taken on definite shape and
outlines. And they were as Dave expected them to be, three long range
Messerschmitt One-Tens. At that very instant the two wing planes broke
away from the center plane to opposite sides, and took up positions for
a three direction attack on the ferry bomber formation. Dave shot out
his hand and shoved the throttles of the P-Thirty-Eight's Allison
engines wide open. Then he eased the nose up a hair, and with Freddy
right at his wingtip he went streaking up over the ferry bombers and
straight for the center Messerschmitt.
Not a word, of course, had been spoken between them. But there was no
need for words. Too often had they tackled three enemy planes in spread
out line formation not to know exactly what should be done, and to do it
instinctively. And so, wingtip to wingtip, they slammed straight at the
center Messerschmitt as though it were the only enemy craft in the air,
and they were bent on its immediate destruction.
When they were still a ways from it they both opened fire and sliced a
shower of hissing bullets across the sky. If they got any lucky shots
into the center Messerschmitt, they didn't know. But hitting it was not
their big idea. On the contrary, they counted on exactly what happened.
The pilot of the center Messerschmitt didn't like the idea of two
P-Thirty-Eights boring in at him. He started to return the fire, then
lost heart and slammed down in a sharp dive.
But even before the German broke away from the fight, Dave and Freddy
were completing the rest of their maneuver. Like streaks of greased
lightning, each whirled off to his side and went thundering in for a
broadside attack on the two other Messerschmitts about to close with the
helpless ferry bomber formation. Maybe the pilots of those two Nazi
planes figured that they had actually remained hidden in the rays of the
dawn sun. Maybe they figured that Dave and Freddy had decided to make
sure of at least one victim, and pray the other two would miss the
bombers and over-shoot and have to come back. In fact, maybe those Nazi
pilots figured a lot of things. The point is, though, they figured all
wrong. For a couple of moments they had a chance at the bombers that was
as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. But in the next they had a couple
of flying wild men on their necks.
The impulse to twist around and see how Freddy was making out with his
man was strong in Dave as he went cutting in at his victim with all guns
blazing. Naturally, though, he didn't dare take out even that small
amount of time. Even if Freddy and he got their respective
Messerschmitts there was still a third boiling around some place in the
sky. And so he tore in savagely, and thrilled with wild joy as he saw
his tracers cutting into the Messerschmitt from its two spinning props
clear back to the double-finned tail. The Nazi gunner-observer returned
his fire, and the pilot tried to whip around and into the clear. For all
the good it did him he might just as well have climbed out and tried to
walk the dawn sky back to Germany.
The Messerschmitt seemed suddenly to fly smack into an invisible brick
wall in the sky. The plane fell off sharply to the right, and came way
up by the nose. For a brief instant it hovered there in the air. Then
red flame belched out from the two underslung Benz-Daimler engines, and
in the next split second the whole business was just a mass of fire
slithering down toward the rolling grey-green swells of the North
Atlantic.
"Save a seat for Hitler, where you're going!" Dave yelled as he pulled
his P-Thirty-Eight up and around. "He'll be joining you before very
long. And--"
The rest died in his throat, and his heart seemed to zoom up and jam
against his back teeth. It was at that moment that he saw Freddy
Farmer's plane flip-flopping and half spinning down out of the sky as
though either it were completely out of control--or its pilot were dead.
And thundering down with blazing guns after Freddy were the two other
Messerschmitts.
"No, no, it can't happen!" Dave sobbed wildly, and whirled off his climb
and down into a dive. "Freddy boy! What happened? They didn't get you!
_They didn't get you!_"
Those and other words of anguish spilled off his lips as he hammered his
Lockheed down in a wing-screaming dive. So great was his excitement, and
so great the terror that clutched at his heart, he failed to see that
Nazi bullets weren't coming very close to Freddy's plane. As a matter of
fact, the Germans were shooting half-heartedly. With the Lockheed headed
straight for the North Atlantic, they figured that the finish of their
victim was inevitable.
But they hadn't figured on Dave, nor the terrific diving speed of his
plane. As a result the "fun" for one of them was short-lived. Though
his heart shed tears of blood for Freddy Farmer, Dave's grip on the
controls was rock steady, and his eye to the ring sight keen and sharp.
A two second burst from his guns was all that was needed. A longer burst
would have been sheer waste of ammunition. The Nazi's wing came off as
though hacked clean by a knife. What was left spun like so much stiff
paper tossed into a whirlpool, and then broke up in a shower of flying
wreckage.
One Nazi less, but what of it? Freddy was but a couple of hundred feet
from the water now, and still flip-flopping helplessly downward with the
remaining German pecking away at him. Stark reality was like white hot
knives twisting about in Dave's heart and in his brain. Tears flooded
his eyes, and he unconsciously hammered his free fist against the
already wide open throttles.
"Dear God, please no!" he sobbed. "Don't take Freddy. Don't take Freddy
away. I need him! England needs him. The whole decent part of the world
needs him. Please don't...!"
Dave never finished the last, for at that exact instant a miracle seemed
to take place right before his startled eyes. Freddy Farmer's plane
stopped flip-flopping and spinning around abruptly. As though someone
had reached down and stopped it, the Lockheed came up onto even keel.
But it did much more than that! It came up past even keel and on up into
a power zoom. Its guns yammered out sound and flame, and perhaps for the
infinitesimal part of a split second the pilot of the third and last
Messerschmitt was the most stunned and bewildered man in the whole wide
world.
But only for that flash of time. In practically nothing flat he was no
longer capable of thought, and less of action. He was just a dead man
hunched over the controls of a diving plane--that is, the
bullet-shattered wreckage of a diving plane. Before he had had the
chance to blink or move a muscle, Freddy Farmer had pinned him cold to
the dawn sky. And, not a little bewildered himself, Dave saw the
Messerschmitt fall apart in mid-air, and Freddy Farmer, grinning from
ear to ear, come tearing up past him and level off the top of his zoom.
Automatically, Dave pulled up out of his own dive and swung around to
join Freddy Farmer. The English-born air ace was still grinning, and he
was holding up one hand, forming an "O" with thumb and forefinger, and
extending the other three straight upward. Dave gaped at him a moment
longer, and then shook his head to drive the cobwebs and mist away.
"So, just another Freddy Farmer trick!" he growled, and shook a fist at
the English youth. "I might have known that you were simply slipping out
of a tight jam. And to think I was beginning to pray for you--you bum!"
Freddy, of course, didn't hear the words, but he saw Dave's moving lips,
and probably guessed what they were saying. His mouth opened in silent
laughter, and he made a gesture with one hand, which was just the same
as his lips saying:
"Weren't getting worried, were you, old chap?"
CHAPTER SIX
_Nazi Wrath_
Like so many huge birds of prey coming home to roost, the twenty-one
ferry bombers slid down to a landing on the R.A.F. field at Land's End
at the southwest tip of England, and went trundling over to the tarmac
line and the waiting mechanics. When the last had touched earth, Dave
and Freddy cut their throttles and slid down also. They landed together
and taxied that way up to the line. When he reached it Dave cut his
ignition, climbed out and hurried stiff-legged over to Freddy's plane.
"What was the big idea of giving me such a case of heart failure?" he
demanded of his pal. "Holy smoke! That little business took fifteen
years off my life, if it took a day. In future, don't do that to me,
see?"
Freddy legged down and pulled off his helmet and goggles.
"You think I was just having sport?" he snorted. "Far from it, my lad.
I missed my man completely. A blasted good pilot he was, too. Next thing
I knew two of them had me all wrapped up and were ready to send me some
place I had no fancy to go to. Much, much too close for comfort, so the
only thing I could do was fake being hit and spin the bus downward. That
at least threw off their aim a bit. And when I pulled out and up in the
last second, they were--"
Freddy paused and grinned broadly.
"Well, the remaining blighter was too surprised to do anything about
stopping me," he said. "But thanks for taking care of that other beggar.
I might not have surprised both of them. Fact is, I fancy you saved my
life again, old thing. I'm grateful."
"You should get tossed in the duck pond for giving me such a scare!"
Dave growled, but softened it with a grin. "Well, here's England. Aren't
you going to drop down and kiss the ground, or something? _This_ is
England, Freddy!"
The English youth smiled, and there were stars in his eyes.
"Yes, England again," he whispered softly. "How wonderful to return to
it from uncivilized lands where they eat raw things and call them hot
dogs, and talk through their teeth, and drive ninety miles an hour even
to funerals! Yes, blessed England! It's like being reborn. Like--like--"
"Like waking up from a beautiful dream!" Dave snapped, and waved a hand
at the sky that was now overcast. "See? No sun over here! And just
thirty minutes off shore we had plenty of it. What have the weather gods
got against you English guys, anyway?"
Freddy didn't have time to think up a kidding come-back for that one.
They both turned at the sound of footsteps behind them, and saw Major
Barber hurrying over toward them. The Commando Chief was grinning from
ear to ear, and he looked as if he wanted to hug and kiss them both. He
didn't, however. Instead, he grabbed each in turn by the hand and nearly
shook his arm off at the shoulder socket.
"I hope some day it will be my chance to return that little favor of
life saving!" he cried. "And that goes for everybody aboard the ferry
bombers. I had a front seat, and what you two did sure was something to
see. You seemed to have a little trouble, Farmer. Hey! You didn't get
wounded, did you?"
"Him?" Dave snorted before Freddy could even shake his head. "The Nazis
haven't made that bullet yet. No, sir. He just wanted to show you how
fancy he could get when there're Messerschmitts around. I've just been
telling him that if he pulls that on me again, I'll probably shoot him
down myself. But it was pretty cute, wasn't it, Major? He should be
given his wings any day now, I say. Practically a fighter pilot."
"Don't mind Dawson, sir," Freddy spoke up. "He's always that way. Pretty
cool in a fight, but when it's all over he simply goes to pieces and
says the craziest things. No, I wasn't hit, fortunately. I had a close
call, though, and had to do a little something extra to get out of it.
We're all here, though. And that's that!"
"And it's plenty!" Major Barber said with a grim nod. "It proves this
sort of thing can be done on a large scale. That is--"
The Major paused and grinned.
"That is, if we have fellows like you two along," he added. "Well, stick
around for a bit, will you? I've got things to do, but I want to talk to
you again. There's the mess shack over there. I guess it won't make
either of you mad to take aboard some breakfast, huh?"
"Oh, quite, quite!" Dave mimicked at Freddy. "And, of course, a pot of
tea, what, old tin of fruit?"
Freddy Farmer groaned and shook his head, and looked helplessly at Major
Barber.
"It's so utterly useless and futile, sir!" he sighed. "I mean the way
Dawson murders the King's English. Something really should be done about
it. Would you suggest gagging him, sir?"
If the Major replied, nobody heard it. At that moment the air raid siren
mounted atop the Operations Office let forth with its blood-curdling
wail. Without thinking, both Dave and Freddy spun around and dived for
their planes. In nothing flat they were in the pits and rocketing their
ships across the field. As Dave pulled his clear and went twisting
around and upward, he snapped out of his action trance long enough to
look at the fuel gauge. A sigh of relief spilled from his lips when he
saw that he still had enough high octane for thirty-five minutes of
flying.
"And lots of things can happen in thirty-five minutes!" he shouted
aloud.
"Quite!" came the sudden and startling voice of Freddy Farmer over the
radio. "And there are the blighters! Off there to the southeast. Fancy
they got annoyed when they learned the bombers got through, and decided
to have a go at a ground strafe. Tally-ho, Dave! And there's the R.A.F.
chaps coming up to join in the fun. But we'll get first cracks at the
beggars."
"Sure, but remember about last time!" Dave shouted back at him. "No
funny business. Get your man this time, and no fooling around. Okay,
kid! Up and at 'em!"
As Dave snouted the last he lifted the nose to a steeper angle, and went
wing-screaming up toward a group of ten Nazi long range fighters that
were bearing down on the Land's End field. Twisting in the seat, he
glanced down back at the swarm of R.A.F. Spitfires and Hurricanes that
were racing up off the field. A pleasant warmth surged through his body,
and there was a glad song in his heart.