CHAPTER TEN

_No Man's Sky_

After carefully checking the readings of his "black light" instruments, Dave Dawson raised his eyes and scowled out at the ocean of inky darkness that seemed to sweep in on him from all sides.

"Right on course, unless these instruments are haywire, which of course they're not," he murmured. "But just the same, I'd sure like to get out of these darn clouds. The stuff must stretch all the way to China. Anyway, it's not raining. And that's something. But of course, Dawson, old chap, this isn't England, you know!"

As he spoke the words he absently fingered the switch button of his radio flap mike, but when he suddenly realized what he was doing he snatched his hand away as though the thing were red hot.

"Radio silence, at any cost, chump!" he growled at himself. "Not that all of Europe can't hear the racket the raiders are making. But orders is orders. And stop worrying about Freddy Farmer, too. He's right back there in this soup some place. You spotted his plane not over half an hour ago. So take it easy."

Yes, only half an hour ago Freddy Farmer had been right there in back of him, and a little to the left. Sure! But kingdoms have fallen, and nations crumbled in less time than half an hour. Was Freddy still back there in formation position, and was he simply hidden by the clouds? If only he could but speak a few words over the R.T. system, and find out. But he couldn't do that. On this flight he had to observe radio silence, at least until the target had been reached. True, Nazi aircraft detectors had picked them up long ago, and knew just where the gigantic aerial armada was even right now. But that wasn't why radio silence had been ordered. What the Nazis didn't know was that the armada was not heading for simply one target, but several targets. At a given time the armada would split up and follow several different courses. Radio silence, however, had been ordered so that no thoughtless slip of the tongue by anybody would reveal to Nazi ground stations, listening on the same wave band, that more than one target was to be bombed.

Yes, radio silence was the order, yet if anything happened to Freddy Farmer, if Dawson lost contact with his pal, and found Freddy's plane nowhere to be seen, come the first light of dawn, then things would be gummed up right at the start. One definite plan they had made was to stick almost wingtip to wingtip all the way to Duisburg. They planned also to fake being shot down at practically the same time. That way they would bail out close to one another, and it followed that they would not land very far apart on the ground. And just where they planned to land was all planned too. They had decided it after a careful study of the aerial photos of the Duisburg area. And from the detailed information that Major Crandall and Colonel Fraser had been able to give them concerning the sizes and locations of the so-called mystery factories in the Duisburg area. They had chosen the largest factory of the lot, not for its size, but because it stood alone on flat ground, and with a minimum of trees about it on which they might foul their parachutes, and be forced to dangle helplessly at the ends of their shroud lines until somebody came along and cut them down.

But it would be "spot" parachute jumping, and no question about that. Before hitting the silk they would have not only to locate their "objective" but to gauge the wind direction, and speed, and then bail out so that drift would not take them beyond their target, or cause them to drop far short. They had come right down practically on it. At least well within the double ring of guards posted about the place.

"And it's going to take some doing, too!" Dawson breathed, as he thought of the job ahead. "Some doing, and I don't mean perhaps. But that will be only the beginning. Jeepers--!"

He let his voice trail off, and gave a little half worried shake of his head.

"Was I a dope to think that maybe Freddy and I could pull this thing off?" he grunted a minute or two later. "It looked like a swell idea back there in England, but how does it look now? Don't ask, my friend, don't ask!"

With another shake of his head he shrugged off the bothersome thoughts and gave all of his attention to his flying. His watch told him that actually dawn wasn't very far off. And he felt pretty sure that if he were suddenly to fly out of this ocean of clouds into clear air he would be able to see the first faint thread of light on the eastern horizon. But it seemed as though he would never come out of the clouds. That he had been flying through them on instruments for all his life, and that he would go on that way forever.

"Of course it's nice to have this cloud protection against Nazi ground gunners," he told himself, and laughed a little nervously. "But there are a lot of us up here, and not a sky traffic cop in sight. Wouldn't it be sweet if I should suddenly tangle wings with some guy in this muck, and have to hit the silk? Or Freddy! That--Oh, cut it, Dawson! Don't be a jumpy old woman all the time, for cats' sake. After all, you've--"

But Dawson never finished the rest, for at that moment the clouds over Occupied Europe suddenly came to an abrupt end. He streaked out into clear night air, and as he had expected the new day was beginning to dawn far, far to the east. After making sure that he wasn't crowding the tail of the next ship in front of him, he twisted around in the pit, and stared back. Instantly a happy grin curled his lips, and a thin layer of ice slid off his heart and melted away. There to his right rear was the shadowy shape of Freddy Farmer's Mustang cutting along right with him as though the two planes were tied together.

"And me stupid enough to worry about Freddy, the hottest pilot ever to take off any field!" he chuckled. "Boy, would he ride me if I ever let him know about it. Okay, Freddy boy, so far so good!"

Well, maybe it was so far so good, up to that moment. A moment later, though, it seemed as though all the flak guns the Nazis possessed started to hurl up everything, including the kitchen stove. Dawson's formation was riding high ceiling cover, and as he peered down at the bomber formations a good five thousand feet below him the bursts of red, orange, and yellow flak fire gave him the impression of a huge fire-works factory exploding.

"Hitler's welcome!" Dave murmured. "Only I don't mean he's glad to see us. He'll be even less glad when--"

A bursting flak shell right under Dawson's left wing seemed to spew a shower of red and gold straight into his face. The Mustang lurched crazily off to the other side, and for one heart-chilling moment Dawson feared that the aircraft had been hit, and badly crippled. But such was not the case, fortunately. The bursting flak was farther away than it had looked, and it was simply concussion that sent the Mustang sliding off to one side. A touch of stick and rudder, and Dawson had it back into position in no time.

And then the radio silence was broken.

"Bandits ahead at six o'clock, fighter aircraft!" came the escort leader's voice over the air waves. "Same level but starting to dive on the big boys. Green and Blue Fighters go down and engage. Don't let the bums get through. Smack 'em. Other flights hold your altitude and course."

Dawson was flying in Red Flight of the formation, so he obeyed the latter order and held his altitude and course. Just the same it was not with a little envy that he watched Green and Blue Flights peel off and go wing-screaming downward. At first he couldn't pick out the Nazi planes against the eastern sky. But suddenly he did see them and his heart contracted slightly. There were at least a hundred of them, and even in the bad light he could tell that they were Focke-Wulf One Nineties, and the new Messerschmitt One-Nine F's.

"Just sitting up here waiting for us to come along," he grunted. Then, glancing down at the diving Mustangs, he said, "Give them the works, pals. Show them how we do it where we come from."

And as though the Mustang pilots had actually heard him, they pulled up out of their short dive and went thundering in at the Nazis with all guns blazing. And hardly had Dawson seen the silvery paths of tracer bullets cut across the sky before two Nazi Messerschmitts exploded in twin sheets of brilliant red flame that seemed to light up the entire sky for miles and miles around.

"How's that for apples, you mugs?" Dawson shouted spontaneously. "No like, huh? Well, there's more where that sample came from!"

"Down a thousand feet, all escort Flights!" the leader's voice barked in Dawson's earphones. "Number one point ahead. Get down a thousand feet, and stay there. Everybody keep their eyes peeled for bandits."

Dawson's heart skipped a beat, and he unconsciously turned his head and looked back at Freddy Farmer's dawn-blurred Mustang. Number one point ahead was the signal that the first break-up of the huge formation was about to take place. Some bomber formations would go south, and southeast, some would go north and northeast, and the bomber formation of which Dawson was a part of the escort would bang on dead ahead for the incendiary raid on Duisburg, and after that to its bomb target even farther east. And not only did the words, "Number one point ahead" mean the break-up of the gigantic formation, but they also meant that in twenty minutes by his watch Dawson, and Freddy too, would be directly over the Duisburg area.

"Twenty minutes more, and then it starts for keeps!" he breathed as he looked back at Freddy's plane. "Twenty minutes more, and then we show that we're good, or just a couple of bums. Boy, wouldn't I like to ask Freddy how he's feeling, and what he's thinking about just now. It's a cinch, though, he isn't feeling any more jittery than I'm feeling. And probably not half as much, knowing him as I do. Oh well, twenty minutes more."

Yes, twenty minutes more, but each sixty seconds seemed well nigh a lifetime to Dawson as he guided his Mustang eastward. At the end of two of the minutes somebody sang out the alarm that he had spotted another flock of Nazi planes at a higher altitude. And he was not wrong, as Dawson saw for himself a couple of seconds later. At least a hundred Nazi planes were circling about three thousand feet higher up. But as the minutes wore on they made no effort to try and slice down through the fighter umbrella and get at the big bombers. Maybe they saw that the fighters were the deadly Mustangs, and they wanted no part of them. Or maybe they were simply waiting for a more favorable moment in which to start their attack. Or maybe they were even waiting for reenforcements. At any rate they stayed right where they were and tagged the bombers and their Mustang escort eastward.

"Come on down and fight, you rats!" Dawson muttered time and time again. "If you think we're going to leave our big boys unprotected and go up after you, you're nuts. So come on down here, and mix it up, if you dare. Come on!"

Minutes, and a few more minutes, and then as Dawson glanced downward he discovered that they were over the Duisburg area. Because the light was still bad he could not pick out definite landmarks, but the general picture was that of Duisburg across the Rhine River from Krefeld. And even as he looked downward he saw the first shower of incendiary bombs strike and create the impression of a thousand street lights suddenly being switched on.

"This is it!" he heard his own voice cry. "This is the end of the line!"

And as though the Nazi fighters higher up in the sky had been waiting for just that instant, they peeled off and came down with guns blazing!