CHAPTER TEN

_Trapped In War Skies!_

Hugging the ground at the extreme end of the field wall, Dave and Freddy stared at the German plane not thirty yards away. The idling propeller filled the air with a purring sound that struck right to their hearts and sent the blood surging through their veins in wild excitement. The feeling of fatigue and body weariness had completely fled them, now. The thrill of the dangerous adventure ahead filled them with a renewed sense of strength, and fired them with grim determination.

Dave slowly rose up onto one knee like a track star on his mark at the starting line. He cast a quick glance back over his shoulder at Freddy, and nodded.

"Now!" he whispered sharply, and went streaking around the end of the field wall.

He reached the plane a dozen steps ahead of the English boy, and practically leaped into the pilot's cockpit forward. No sooner was he seated and snapping the safety belt buckle than Freddy was scrambling into the observer's cockpit.

"I'm in!" he heard the English youth sing out.

Shooting out a foot Dave kicked off the wheel brake release. Then he grabbed hold of the "Dep" wheel control stick with his right hand and reached for the throttle with his left and gingerly eased it forward. The B.M.W. engine instantly started to roar up in a song of power. Dave opened the throttle more and pushed the Dep stick forward to get the tail up as the Arado started forward.

"Hurry up, Dave!" came Freddy's wild yell above the roar of the engine. "They've seen us! They're running out of the house. They're shooting at us with rifles, Dave!"

Freddy could have saved his breath on the last. The sharp bark of rifle fire came plainly to Dave's ears as he hunched forward over the controls. And almost in the same instant he heard the blood chilling whine of nickel-jacketed lead messengers of death streaking past not very high above his head. Impulsively he ducked lower in the pit, and shoved the throttle wide open. The plane was already bouncing over the ground on its wheels, with the tail up, and then added gas fed to the engine caused the ship practically to leap forward like a high strung race horse quitting the barrier.

The sudden burst of speed flung Dave back in the seat, and for one horrible instant his hands were almost torn from the Dep wheel, and his feet yanked free of the rudder pedals. He caught himself in the nick of time, however, swerved the plane clear of a sudden dip in the surface of the field, and then gently hauled the Dep wheel back toward his stomach.

For a long moment the wheels of the plane seemed to cling to the ground. Then they lifted clear and the Arado went nosing up toward the golden washed blue sky. Clamped air burst from Dave's lungs like an exploding shell. He coughed, and shook sweat from his face, and held the ship at the correct angle of climb. The engine in the nose sang such a sweet song of power that for a moment or so it was in tune with the song of wild joy in Dave's heart. The Arado, as he had rightly guessed, was a cinch to handle. It was light as a feather and responded instantly to a touch on the control wheel, or on the rudder pedals.

As the plane climbed upward he twisted around in the seat and looked at Freddy. The English youth was staring down back at the field they had just left. Dave followed his look and saw the twenty or thirty figures garbed in German military uniforms on the field. At least half of them were firing furiously with rifles. The others were shaking their fists, and making angry gestures for the plane to return and land. Dave grinned and shook his head.

"You can just bet we won't come back!" he shouted into the roar of the engine. "We're not _that_ crazy!"

Freddy heard him and turned front. The English youth's eyes danced with excitement. He grinned at Dave, and then suddenly seemed to remember the little scene last night after Dave had removed the screws from the window frame. He clasped both hands above his head and shook them vigorously. His lips moved, and Dave just barely heard the words.

"Well done!"

Dave returned the grin and then twisted around front. The dash instruments, of course, were all marked in German, but he knew enough of that language to read them. The altimeter needle was quivering close to the six thousand foot mark. He decided that was high enough and leveled off the climb onto even keel. Then he took a moment or so to glance down at the ground below to try and get his bearings. The first thing he saw was a small village off to his left. One look at it and his heart leaped over in his chest. He saw the hill and the single main street along which trucks and armored cars and motorized units of artillery were passing in a steady, endless stream. The town of Estalle? It seemed to be almost directly under him. The truth made him shiver and lick his lower lip.

If that was Estalle and he was positive it was, he and Freddy couldn't have traveled more than eight or nine miles toward the north during their wild flight last night. Maybe twice that number of miles going around in circles, but certainly not more than ten miles in the direction they wanted to go.

A rap on his shoulder turned him around in the seat. Freddy was pointing at the village of Estalle and pursing his lips in a silent whistle. Dave got the idea and nodded, and wiped make believe sweat from his forehead with his free hand. Then he turned front and glanced at the sun in an effort to decide which direction was due west. Of course there was a compass on the instrument panel but something was obviously wrong with it. The needle was spinning around the balanced card dial.

That fact didn't worry him in the slightest, though. He remembered a tip a First World War flying ace had once given him about finding your direction in Europe when you were lost and your compass was out of whack. It was very simple, too. In the morning, if you could see the sun, all you had to do was keep the sun on your tail and you would be sure to be flying west. And so Dave applied the rudder until the sun was mostly on his tail, and gave his attention to the spread of ground ahead.

What he saw made him suck air sharply into his lungs. Rather, it was a case of what he didn't see. The entire western horizon seemed to be one huge cloud of dirty grey smoke streaked here and there with tongues of livid red and orange and yellow flame. It was as though the whole of Belgium was on fire. Closer to him was a long even-banked river that cut down across the countryside from the northwest to the southeast. He was staring hard at it thinking it was a very peculiar looking river when he suddenly felt Freddy hitting him on the shoulder again.

"That's the famous Prince Albert Canal!" the English youth shouted above the roar of the engine. "It's very strongly fortified. A sort of Belgian Maginot Line. The Germans can't possibly have crossed it, yet. If we can just get by there, Brussels is not very far off. We could land there."

"Germans not crossing it?" Dave yelled and pointed. "Look down there to the left. They're swarming across it like bees. Gee, there must be a million pontoon bridges thrown across that canal. And, gosh, look at all those Stuka dive bombers!"

It was all too true. Hitler's relentlessly advancing forces had smashed the Albert Canal defenses to smoking rubble, thus forcing the Belgian army to retreat to the south side of the Canal. And now as German troops, and their swiftly striking Panzer division were rushing across pontoon bridges to strike more blows at the Belgians, hundreds of Stuka dive bombers were blasting death and destruction into the ranks of the enemy. The sight of it all made Dave's heart turn to ice in his chest. History, terrible History was being written down there by the Albert Canal, and his heart was on fire with an even more blazing desire to do something for the cause of justice and civilization.

But first he had another job to do, and he lifted his gaze and peered at the smoke and flame filled sky ahead. Besides smoke and flame there were countless numbers of planes streaking and darting around in all directions. The air was practically filled with them. There was layer after layer of planes reaching from low down over the battle grounds right up to the sun. And insofar as he could tell at the distance not a single one of them was of Allied design. They were all German.

At that moment Freddy pounded on his shoulder for the third time. And the voice that screamed in his ear rang with fright and alarm.

"More speed, Dave! Look behind us. There's a plane, a Messerschmitt. I think it's chasing us. They might even try to shoot us down. What'll we do, Dave?"

"What'll we do?" Dave echoed and glanced back at the sleek needle shaped plane with its low monoplane wing. "We'll keep on going. They may not try to shoot at us. Once we get on the other side of the Canal, we'll be safe. We'll go down and land."

But even as Dave spoke the words to give good cheer to Freddy his own heart was pounding with fear. The other plane was drawing up on them as an express train overtakes a slow freight. He could see now that it was a Messerschmitt One-Ten. A moment later he saw the gunner-observer in the rear pit shove back his bullet proof glass cockpit hatch and stand up and wave signals with both his arms. Those signals plainly said for them to go down and land at once, but Dave pretended that he hadn't seen. He rammed the palm of his free hand hard against the already wide open throttle, as though if in so doing he might get increased speed out of the plane.

It was no more than a futile gesture, however. In the matter of seconds the Messerschmitt had pulled right up along side them. Dave turned and looked across the air space that separated the two planes. His heart zoomed up his throat so fast it almost bumped up against his back teeth. The German observer was still sending signals to land, but not with his arms and hands, now. He was doing it with the aerial machine gun fixed to the swivel mounting that circled the rim of his cockpit. He was pointing the gun at them and then tilting it down toward the ground as he nodded his helmeted head vigorously.

Dave stared at the gun as though hypnotized. The blood pounded in his temples, and his whole body was on fire one instant and icy cold the next. There was death staring straight at him, and he could hardly force his brain to think. He knew he couldn't just keep on flying. He had to do something or the German would open fire and turn their plane into a blazing inferno. On the other hand, his fighting heart refused to surrender and go back and face the ugly wrath of that Colonel Stohl. For this Messerschmitt had unquestionably been sent out after them at the Colonel's orders. Who knew? Perhaps Colonel Stohl had been the German he had seen climb out of the observer's pit of this very Arado he was now trying to fly to safety behind the Belgian lines. It would have been very easy for the German to phone the nearest air field and have a plane sent out after them.

_Tac-a-tac-a-tac-a-tac!_

Jetting tongues of flame leaped out from the muzzle of the machine gun in the other plane. The savage yammer sound smashed against Dave's ears even as he saw the wavy trails of tracer smoke cut across in front of the nose of his plane. The yammer of the gun snapped him into action and sent his eyes darting to the cowled nose of the Arado. His heart seemed to cry out when he saw that the plane carried no guns. On impulse he twisted his head around to Freddy's pit, but there, too, disappointment mocked him. The plane was not armed! It was probably just a courier plane used far behind the lines on safe missions only.

As he looked into Freddy's eyes he saw reflected there his own bitter thoughts. They were completely at the mercy of that Messerschmitt flying along wing to wing with them. Unskilled and untrained though they were in aerial combat, it was heartrending not to be able to put up some kind of a battle for their lives.

"It was a good try, Dave!" he heard Freddy call out. "But I guess it's no use, now. The beggars have us on the spike for fair. There's nothing we can do but go down and land, as they want us to."

As though the German in the other plane had actually heard the English youth's words, a second warning burst of shots rattled out to streak across in front of the Arado's nose. Unconsciously Dave nodded his head, and reached out his hand to haul back the throttle. His hand froze in mid air, instead. At that moment he had glanced down at the ground below and ahead. What he saw made fierce, frenzied determination explode in his heart!

They were almost directly over the Albert Canal. He could clearly see the Belgian troops digging in on the south side, wheeling guns into position, and throwing out rear guard action units. Not a mile, not even a half mile from safety. It was too much for Dave. The fighting American spirit of Lexington and Concord flamed up in his chest. He wouldn't do it! He wouldn't give in without a try. He'd fool those Germans in the Messerschmitt One-Ten even if it was the last thing he ever did. Let them try to shoot him down. Just let them try! There were German planes all around, now. And that fact alone was to his advantage. The Messerschmitt gunner would have to take care not to hit one of his own.

"Dave! He means it this time! We've got to turn back!"

He heard Freddy's voice as though it came from a thousand miles away. But he didn't pay the slightest bit of attention. Didn't so much as shake his head. His whole body was cold and numb with fear of what he was about to attempt. But in his brain there was but one thought; one great overwhelming determination of purpose.

He whipped out his hand and eased back the throttle and let the nose drop. At the same time he applied stick and rudder as though he was going to send the plane around and down in a gliding turn that would take them back east. As the plane started to turn he shot a quick side glance at the Messerschmitt. His heart was ready to explode with joy. The German observer had seen the movement of the Arado and wrongly guessed its meaning! The man nodded his head, and let go of his gun and sank down on his seat.

The instant Dave saw the German sink down on the seat he belted the throttle wide open again and shoved the stick forward until the Arado was prop howling down in an almost vertical dive.

"Hold fast!" he shouted at Freddy without turning his head. "They haven't got us yet, and they won't get us if I've got anything to say about it."

Bracing himself against the speed of the dive, and keeping his mouth open so that his eardrums would not snap and perhaps break, he held himself hunched forward over the controls, and fixed both eyes on the flame and smoke smeared ground below. The smoke and flames seemed to leap up toward him at rocket speed. Out of the corner of his eye he caught flash glimpses of Stuka dive bombers cutting through the air at terrific speed. Then from up in back of him he heard the deadly chatter of German aerial machine guns.

He didn't bother to look back to see if the Messerschmitt was on his tail. That would be but a waste of effort. Instead he jammed hard on the left rudder and sent the Arado swerving crazily off to the side. The guns above him continued to hammer and snarl, but he heard no bullets snicking past his ears. He could hear only the thunderous roar of his own B.M.W. engine.

Then suddenly the Prince Albert Canal flashed by under his nose and was gone from view. He was safely across it and right over the Belgian troops! However, it was simply a case of roaring out of one danger zone into another. He completely forgot he was flying a plane with German markings. Naturally, when the Belgian soldiers saw the Swastika painted plane streaking down at them they let go at it with everything they had.

Perhaps it was one of those freak things of war, or perhaps the gods were truly smiling upon Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer. At any rate not a single Belgian bullet hit the diving Arado, and a moment later Dave hauled the ship out of its mad dive and went streaking along to the rear of the Belgian lines. But before he had traveled more than a couple of miles he once more heard the snarl of aerial machine gun fire behind him. And this time there was more to it than just the sound!

The Arado suddenly bucked and quivered as though it had been smashed by the fist of some huge invisible giant of the skies. The vicious movement of the plane tore Dave's hands from the controls and flung him over so hard he cracked his head on the cockpit rim and saw stars for a brief instant or so. Then as his senses cleared again and he grabbed hold of the controls once more, the engine in the nose coughed and sputtered and shot out a cloud of black smoke ... and died cold.

Realization and action were one for Dave, and so the first thing he did was to yank back the throttle and cut off the ignition. When that was done he shoved the nose down and peered hopefully at the ground no more than five hundred feet below him. A groan of despair rose out of his throat to spill off his lips. He couldn't see a smooth patch of ground down there big enough for a fly to sit down on. True there were lots of fields, but they were pock marked from one end to the other with shell and bomb craters. There was one spot where he might possibly land without crashing too badly. But crash he would. That was certain. There was nothing to do but try it ... and pray!

"A crash coming, Freddy!" he yelled back over his shoulder. "Hold everything, and hang on hard!"