CHAPTER FOURTEEN

_Satan’s Signals_

EXACTLY THIRTY-SIX hours had passed since the arrival of Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer at the Air Corps Base at Colon in the Canal Zone. Thirty-six hours, during every minute of which they both yearned and longed for decisive action, or at least action of some kind. However, they had parts to play, and they played them for all they were worth. As two special pilots from Washington G.H.Q. they stepped right into the war activities of the Attack Squadron. They attended brush up classes, they took part in the many patrol conferences held in the field’s Ready-Room, and they went out and flew formation look-see patrols that carried them far out over the Caribbean, and to the north and south of the Canal Zone.

In short, they did everything to make it look as though they really were down there to learn, and report their knowledge later to Washington. But it was simply a part they were playing, and on the morning of their third day with the Attack Squadron they just couldn’t wait any longer. They were on the field, dressed for flying, and watching the routine dawn patrol take off, when Dave mentioned the thought that was ever constant and uppermost in their minds.

“We’ve got just one more card to play, Freddy,” he said in a low voice that didn’t carry beyond the ears for which it was meant. “I think we should play it. Take a chance, anyway, and try to find out if we’re right or wrong. I’ll go plain, raving nuts if we put it off any longer. What do you say?”

“I say, absolutely!” the English youth replied instantly. “One more day and I, too, will be fit for a padded cell, or something. What rotten luck! I mean, Marble being missing.”

“And how!” Dave grated softly, and stared up at the cloud-streaked Panama sky. “But pick up first prize. It’s yours, Freddy. You certainly called it right on Marble. We sure won’t learn a thing from him, because he isn’t here. But, gosh! I’m almost afraid to start out.”

“The southern Albuquerque Cays, you mean?” Freddy asked, and stared at him wide-eyed. “Why?”

Dave shrugged and gave a little shake of his head.

“Like going down to the post office to find out if the all important letter you hope is there _is_ there,” he said after a moment or two. “I mean, if the southern Albuquerque Cays turn out to be just a bust, then where are we? Right behind the old eight ball, and a complete wash-out to Colonel Welsh. Darn it, Freddy, I can take a licking with the best of them, and come up grinning--I hope. But if I fall down on this job I think I’ll just walk into the ocean and keep going.”

“I know just how you feel, Dave,” Freddy said, and sighed heavily. “The fact that we haven’t made any headway to speak of in this blasted mess makes it all the more important to us. But, good grief! We had so blasted little to start with in the first place. Of course I’m not complaining, nor trying to make excuses. Just the same, I think this is the first Intelligence job we’ve tackled where we absolutely bumped head on into a brick wall.”

“You’ve got something there, pal!” Dave grunted. “It’s been like shadow boxing, and trying to knock your shadow cold. You start a haymaker up from the floor, and suddenly your shadow isn’t there any more. Oh well, we’re not going to find out a thing just standing around here gabbing. That’s a cinch. Put on your bib and tucker, Freddy. We’re going to do a little sky cruising, and see what there is to see. And you know what I’m hoping, I guess?”

“Quite,” Freddy breathed softly, and tightened the chin strap of his helmet. “Right-o. Let’s get on with the blasted business. If we don’t find a thing, we can at least dive straight into the water, and make an end of our troubles.”

“And that’s an idea, _if_!” Dave grunted, and climbed up into the forward cockpit of the Vultee attack plane. “All aboard!”

A few moments later Dave took the Vultee off, got himself a bit of altitude, then started circling the field to create the impression to any watching eyes below that he and Freddy were just taking a breather hop, and checking their plane. Eventually he let the plane slide away from the Air Base, and guided it out over the reaches of the Caribbean Sea. Presently he spotted the dawn patrol ahead and a little to the south of his position. He climbed the Vultee to high altitude and brought it around and put it on a course that led toward the Albuquerque Cays. They were some two hundred and thirty miles away, and so it was lacking a few minutes of an hour when he finally sighted them ahead and low down on the horizon.

Sight of them made little shivers start rippling up and down his spine. His heart began to hammer, and his mouth and lips went slightly dry. For a moment he was filled with the insane and utterly ridiculous desire to bank around and fly away in the opposite direction. Fear that this last hope would fall through took charge of his nerves, and tiny beads of sweat began to break out on his forehead. He shook his head in an angry gesture and took a tighter hold on the control stick, as though in so doing he could prevent that other half of him from turning the plane away.

“Come on, stop being a silly dope!” he grated at himself. “You’re worse than a fellow with his first date with the beautiful girl who just recently moved into the neighborhood. Snap out of it, kid! What is to be, will be. And if it isn’t--then, so help me, it’ll be up to you to do something about it!”

“Do something about what, Dave?” he heard Freddy Farmer call to him.

He turned around and grinned at his English born pal.

“Just giving myself the old pep talk, Freddy,” he said. “Just promising myself that everything’s going to turn out okay. And how are all your friends?”

“I’ve known happier and more contented moments,” Freddy replied. Then, lifting a hand and pointing a finger forward, “Well, there they are, old thing, for what they’re worth. Better lose some of our altitude so’s we can take a good look around. These patches of cloud aren’t made of glass, you know.”

Dave nodded, turned forward, and throttled the Vultee’s Cyclone and let the plane nose down toward the expanse of deep blue Caribbean sea below. When he was at around five thousand feet he leveled off and headed straight for the Albuquerque Cays. Coming up on them, they looked like lush green and brown dots on a field of blue. And when he was directly over the first dot of the short curving chain of islands they didn’t look like very much more. He counted six of them, the biggest being the most northern one. But nowhere did he see any signs of life. For all you could tell a subterranean volcanic disturbance might possibly have pushed them up above the surface of the water overnight. Just patches of green and brown on a field of blue. Patches of green and brown that were edged here and there by strips of yellowish white, that were actually beaches.

For a good half hour Dave drilled up and down over the Albuquerque Cays searching every square inch of them with his eyes. However, as each second clicked away into the history of time, his heart sank lower and lower, and the flame of hope in him grew smaller and smaller. He didn’t dare turn around and look at Freddy, for he knew that he would only see his own misery reflected in his pal’s eyes. So he kept his face front and continued to circle about over the Cay chain. More time passed, and the hope in him died down to a tiny spark.

Throttling the Wright-powered Vultee V-12C attack bomber to cruising speed, Dave licked his dry lips, twisted around in the seat, and winked at Freddy Farmer in the gunner’s pit.

“How’s it go, pal?” he called out, and motioned downward. “Not nervous, or anything like that, are you?”

“Certainly not!” the English boy shouted back. “I stopped being nervous hours ago. Now I’m simply _scared stiff_ that we’re wrong! How do you feel?”

Dave shrugged and made a little gesture with his free hand.

“I’m not sure,” he said, “but I guess it’s something like the way a clay pigeon must feel. You know, hoping the guy with the trap gun will miss. But--but I’m afraid this is a waste of time, and that we’ve struck out.”

“Not any more!” Freddy shouted, and pointed to the left. “Look! Do you see it? Recognize the type?”

Dave instantly turned his head to face east, and peered hard at the cloud-dotted blue sky. For a second or so he didn’t see a thing but clouds and blue sky. Then suddenly he saw a dot moving along the underneath side of one of the clouds. But it was just a moving dot to him. A plane, of course. But as far as he was concerned, it could well be a free balloon at that distance. He looked back again at Freddy and was startled by the wildly excited look on his pal’s face.

“Recognize the type?” he echoed. “What do you think I’ve got here? An X-ray machine for distance. And what’s eating you? What’s making you so excited, for cat’s sake?”

“Who wouldn’t be?” the English youth yelled back at him, and stabbed the air with his pointed finger. “You should get some glasses. Dave, that plane up there is one of the new Nazi Arados! The folding wing type that they can carry aboard the larger type of German U-boats. You know, they use them for scouting convoys and stragglers left behind. That’s what that is up there--one of the new Nazi Arados! I could spot one of those in the dark. So I know I’m absolutely right!”

Dave’s mouth fell open in dumbfounded amazement, and for a second or two he couldn’t move, much less speak a word.

“What?” he finally bellowed. “A Nazi U-boat plane? You’re sure?”

“Yes!” Freddy barked at him. “Yes, for goodness’ sake, let’s do something about it before the blighter sees _us_, and hides away in one of those clouds.”

Long before Freddy Farmer had finished his words, Dave had whirled around front and was feeding the thundering Wright Cyclone every ounce of high test octane it could take. He hauled the Vultee around and stuck the nose up toward the clouds in the distance. He leaned forward against the controls and strained his eyes upward. It wasn’t until a few seconds had ticked by that he really got a good look at the plane’s silhouette stamped on a background cloud. But when he did get that good look, there was no longer the slightest doubt that Freddy had been seeing things.

It was a Nazi U-boat Arado, right enough. He could see the biplane wings, the rounded fuselage with the radial engine in the nose, and the war painted pontoon fitted underneath. He stared at it for several moments as the Vultee went prop screaming upwards. Then he impulsively lowered his gaze and swept the stretches of the Caribbean below him. But to his disappointment he didn’t see any U-boat on the surface of the water, or below it, for that matter. Nor was there any telltale thread-like wake of a periscope going through the water. There was nothing but just blue water, and not the sign of a single vessel of any description.

“More speed, Dave!” came Freddy’s excited cry to his ears. “I think the beggar has seen us. Yes, he has! And there he goes for that big cloud. Blast it! If only he were in range!”

Dave made no comment. His eyes were again on the tiny Nazi seaplane, and he could see it scooting upward toward the white fluffy belly of a great big cloud.

“Let him hide in it!” he presently growled. “We’ll go in after him and smoke him out. Get those rear guns ready, Freddy!”

“Think I’d forgotten them!” the English youth snapped. “You just get us up there. That’s all you have to worry about!”

Dave had to grin in spite of himself. Good old Freddy Farmer! As meek as a mouse when nothing special was happening. But let action show up and at the drop of a hat he was like a snarling tiger.

“If we don’t find him,” Dave grunted as he saw the tiny Arado slide up into the cloud and disappear, “I’ll probably have my hands full stopping Freddy from getting out and looking around. Well, here we go in after him. And if we smack into him, it’s going to be his job that’ll break up like toothpicks, not this tough Vultee.”

As Dave spoke the last he lifted the nose a bit more and then went slashing up into the cloud. In nothing flat he was tearing through a glistening white world that seemingly tried to crowd right down into the cockpit. Hand steady on the stick, and body bent well forward, he peered hard into the glistening mist, ready at an instant’s notice to fire his forward guns and swerve off sharply if the shadow of the other plane should suddenly loom up in front of his propeller.

However, no shadow loomed up before him, nothing but white mist that glistened in the blazing rays of the tropical sun. And then, suddenly, the Vultee went ripping up out of the cloud and into clear air. No sooner was he out in the open than Dave leveled off from his zoom, and twisted around and stared down back at the top of the cloud. It seemed almost to wink at him mockingly. There was no sign of hide nor hair of the Arado.

“Lost him, blast it!” Freddy Farmer grated.

“Keep your shirt on!” Dave snapped. “We’ll find him. He can’t be far. Just take it easy, and be ready to smack him when he comes up through.”

“_If_ he does!” the English youth groaned, and then fell silent.

Dave didn’t say anything, either. He simply tooled the Vultee back and forth over the cloud and kept his eyes riveted on its fluffy crest. Presently he slid down through it again to clear air below. In fact, he practically combed the cloud with the Vultee, but that was all the good it did him.

“Well, that’s a horse on me, Freddy,” he was eventually forced to admit sadly. “Sorry, Freddy. I guess he put one over on me and sneaked over to some other of these clouds. The darned plane is so small you could hide it under your hat.”

“Anyway, the venture had a promise of excitement,” Freddy grunted. “What now? I don’t think there’s any sense hunting around for the blighter. We could run out of gas trying to find him in all these clouds. Just our blasted unlucky day, Dave, I’m afraid.”

“It isn’t over yet!” Dawson grated, and banked the Vultee westward. “I’m going to have another look at those Albuquerque Cays. I--I refuse to give them up as a lost cause. I swear they’re right in the middle of this confounded mystery.”

With a savage nod for emphasis, Dawson sent the attack bomber rocketing back toward the short chain of green and brown islands sticking up out of the blue water. He was still half a mile from the most southern one when suddenly Freddy Farmer’s hand came crashing down on his shoulder, and the English youth’s voice cried out wildly in his ears.

“On this side of that first island, Dave! To the right! That strip of beach. There’s a crashed plane there. Can you see it? Its tail is sticking up out of the sand. And, I say! There’s something white on the beach. It looks like a letter--the letter H! What in the world is that supposed to mean?”

Dave was too excited to speak for a moment. He had picked out the wreck of the plane on the beach, and the big letter “H” on the sand close to it.

“That’s H for help!” he cried. “The pilot of that job must be still alive. Crashed and got marooned. And, Freddy! Unless I’m nuts, that broken off tail sticking up is the tail of a Vultee. Holy smoke! We must be blind not to have seen it before.”

“Worse than that!” Freddy shouted. “But I’d almost swear it wasn’t there. That’s impossible, of course. But I don’t see how we could have missed it. I--”

The English youth cut himself off short, and both of them stared down at the tattered figure of a man who came stumbling out of the thick underbrush waving both hands in a beseeching gesture.

“That settles it!” Dave cried. “That fellow does need help. And we’re going to give it to him.”

As Dave spoke the words he hauled back the Cyclone’s throttle and began to lose altitude fast. He let the Vultee glide out to sea for a bit, then banked around and headed toward the far end of the beach, away from the crash. There he banked once more until he was in line with the strip of packed sand beach. Then he let his wheels down, and glided gently forward and down.

His landing was perfect. Not a single bounce. He undid his safety and 'chute harness, and legged out of the plane with Freddy. The man in tattered clothes was stumbling toward them head down.

“Take it easy!” Dave called out cheerfully. “No rush, now. We’re here to take you off.”

“But there is a rush, my two little friends, a most urgent reason for speed. But first you will both put your hands in the air!”

For a second the sandy beach seemed to fall away from beneath Dave’s feet. He heard Freddy Farmer’s tight gasp, but he didn’t bother to glance at his pal. His eyes were glued to the man in tattered clothes before him. The man had jerked up his head at the last moment, and a small but very deadly Luger had suddenly appeared in his right hand as though by magic. And the muzzle of the Luger moved back and forth from Dave’s stomach to Freddy’s.