CHAPTER EIGHT

_Terror Rides The Night Sky_

England was far behind in the darkness. The altimeter on the instrument board in front of Flight Lieutenant Wiggins said twenty thousand feet. Both Dave and Freddy had long since stuck the oxygen tubes in their mouths, as had also Wiggins and the members of his crew. And whenever their heads felt a bit light they took a suck of the energy-restoring air and instantly felt normal again. Dave had to grin whenever he looked at Freddy and the others. In their helmets and oxygen masks, they looked like a group of crazy creatures from Mars.

Presently they ran into a bit of weather. The plane heaved slightly, but Wiggins kept it dead on its course. After another bit of time they ran into high clouds. Dave saw Flight Lieutenant Wiggins speaking into his radio mike and knew that the pilot was ordering the other planes of the patrol to spread out so as to avoid collision while flying blind. The nodding of Wiggins' head indicated that the other pilots were acknowledging the order and obeying it.

For some fifteen minutes the plane flew blind through the clouds, then came out into clear air again. Wiggins and the navigator checked their position. Then Wiggins scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it back to the two boys. They glanced at the short message, which read:

"Tired of looking at your funny faces. Time to make sure your 'chute packs are strapped on tight. You will probably need them on the way down!! Cheeri-o!"

Dave and Freddy grinned at each other, then impulsively they clasped hands warmly. No words were spoken. No words needed to be spoken. They would have been empty and meaningless. The firm pressure of the other's hand had told each far, far more than mere words. The first part of their venture was quickly drawing to a close. In a short time they would dive away from the droning Wellington into the black night that shrouded German-occupied Belgium. In a few minutes--

But fate, perhaps, had suddenly decided not to let it be that way. Above the drone of the twin Pegasus engines came a sharp staccato yammer that made fingers of ice clutch at Dave's heartstrings. An instant later he heard the loud voice of the gunner in the tail.

"A couple of the beggers have picked us out!" he cried. "There go the blinking Paul Prys!"

At that moment the Wellington flew straight into a world of brilliant white light. Nazi searchlights on the ground, or Paul Prys, as the boys of the R.A.F. called them, had picked up the Wellington formation in their revealing glare. Instinctively Dave and Freddy grabbed hold of fuselage girders for support. And not a moment too soon, either. Flight Lieutenant Wiggins had shoved the control stick forward and was dropping the Wellington down into a roaring power dive. A couple of split seconds after he started the dive, he sent the plane careening crazily off to the left. The craft roared out of the searchlight beams and plowed away through black night.

"Sweet going!" Dave heard his own voice shout in praise. "That's showing the guys how good their Paul Prys are. Oh-oh! I had forgotten about those birds!"

The last exclamation was caused by the staccato yammer of aerial machine gun fire coming to his ears once again. And almost instantly the sound of the guns in the tail of the Wellington was added to the chatter. Dave and Freddy hugged their seats and felt very helpless and useless. They were really passengers aboard the plane, and there was nothing they could do but sit tight. Sit tight--and think.

That was the hard part. Thinking! Because their thoughts were far from joyous ones. Dave's hunch had started to come true. In another few moments they should have been floating down toward Belgium soil. But all that was changed, now. Fate had guided night flying German planes to their position in the sky, and those Nazi pilots were doing their utmost to finish them off right then and there.

"Just as though they knew we were coming, and were hiding in the bushes!" Dave muttered to himself as British and German aerial machine guns hammered away at each other. "Just as though--Ye Gods! Could that be true? Do the Nazis know that Freddy and I are--"

He cut off the startling thought short and gulped. Then suddenly the whole night sky seemed to explode right on the tip of the Wellington's nose. Colored light and sound raced back to crash against Dave and Freddy as though they were things actually made of solid substances. Dave braced himself and squinted forward. What he saw brought a sharp cry to his lips, and he came up off his stool as though a coiled spring had been released under him.

"We're hit, Freddy!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Wiggins and the other chap caught some of that anti-aircraft shell."

Twisting past the navigator's cubbyhole, Dave went forward to where Flight Lieutenant Wiggins sat slumped over against the controls. His weight had forced the Dep control stick forward, and the Wellington was now tearing down in a thundering dive. The second pilot had been knocked clean off his canvas seat and was stretched out motionless on the cockpit flooring. Bracing himself, Dave reached out and pulled the unconscious Wiggins back in the seat with one hand. Holding the man there, he reached down and grabbed hold of the Dep wheel and gave it all of his strength. The nose tried to drag itself down to the vertical, but Dave's pull on the stick was too much. Inch by inch the plane's nose came up, and after what seemed like years the craft was climbing upward at a slightly flat angle.

"Help me get Wiggins out of the seat!" Dave shouted to Freddy at his elbow. "I'll take over while you fellows see if they're badly hurt."

"Right you are!" Freddy called out in a clear steady voice. "Here, I'll give you a hand with Wiggins and this other chap."

Together the boys lifted and dragged Flight Lieutenant Wiggins and his second pilot out of the cockpit and back toward the navigator's cubbyhole. The navigator seemed too amazed to lend a hand at first.

"But who'll fly the bus, now?" he gasped when he finally found his tongue.

"If she handles something like a Hurricane, don't worry!" Dave shouted, and vaulted into the seat vacated by Wiggins.

The searchlights had once again picked up the Wellington, and Dave had the crazy impression of flying right straight through the sun as he hunched himself over the controls. A world of brilliant, blinding light smote his eyes, and it was filled with the thundering roar of exploding anti-aircraft shells, and the snarling yammer of death-spitting aerial machine guns. Instinct and instinct alone guided Dave's movements as he struggled to wheel and dive that Wellington out of the dazzling white glare. He couldn't even see the instrument panel in front of him, the light was so blinding. However, you don't need eyes to shove the control stick this way and that. Nor do you need eyes to jump on left or right rudder pedal.

Perhaps the designers of the Wellington bomber would have torn out their hair in anguish at the way Dave Dawson booted their brainchild about the searchlight-stabbed sky over Belgium. But Dave didn't give a thought to that. Perhaps he didn't fly it real pretty like. But a twin-engined Wellington loaded with bombs isn't exactly like a swift sleek Hurricane, so what the heck? The idea was to cut away from those fingers of light that pinned them against the heavens, and that was the only idea. How the heck he brought it about didn't matter. That he could do it was what counted.

And he did succeed. Without warning the Wellington sliced right into a wall of darkness. Dave instinctively reached for the throttles to take strain off the howling engines, but he checked his hand, and let the plane roar deeper and deeper into that blessed sea of darkness. Then presently, when he saw the searchlight beams being frantically swung back and forth across the sky far in back of him, he put the ship in a steady climb and twisted around in the seat.

That is, he started to twist around in the seat, but such movement seemed to make the top of his head fly off. In a flash he realized what was wrong. In the excitement his oxygen mask had slipped down off his face and he could not reach the tube with his lips. Night air was pouring through the shattered section of cockpit glass cowling where fragments of shrapnel had struck, and the sensation was akin to a million icy needles pricking the skin of his face and hands. He let go of the controls, adjusted his oxygen mask and sucked the life giving gas into his lungs. In a second or so he was a new man. He set the controls for level flight, then twisted around in the seat and looked back.

Freddy and the navigator were bending over Wiggins and the second pilot. Even as Dave looked, the flight lieutenant slowly sat up, made a wry face, and put a hand to his head. Dave sighed thankfully.

"Well, he's pretty much okay!" he breathed. "So that's one of them to handle this bus."

He turned forward for a moment to check the instruments, then scrambled out of the seat and went back. Flight Lieutenant Wiggins saw him and smiled thinly.

"Much obliged, old chap," he said, and slowly stood up. "Had a hunch you two knew something about planes. R.A.F., of course."

The flight lieutenant paused and winked.

"But we won't say a word about what we know," he whispered. "Must keep it very hush-hush, what? And, oh yes, I haven't thanked you for saving our blinking hides, have I? Well, I thank you sincerely, and all that sort of thing."

"Forget it," Dave said, and grinned at him. "I was only thinking of my own hide. By the way, how's your pal?"

Dave pointed down at the second pilot, who was also sitting up and holding his head in his hands.

"Who, Chubby, there?" Wiggins echoed. "Oh, never worry about Chubby when he gets hit on the head. There's nothing inside to hurt, you see. On your feet, Chubby. We've got to coast about a bit, and find out just where the devil we are, and what happened to the rest of the patrol, too. Then we'll let these two gentlemen off at their stop. Come along, lad. After we've landed, I'll let you look at the cut on _my_ head."

Wiggins tapped his second pilot playfully on the shoulder, and then went forward and took over the controls. The second pilot got to his feet, looked at Dave and Freddy and shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of despair.

"And to think I could have flown with dozens of other Wellington pilots," he groaned. "But I had to go and pick a heartless beggar like him. Ah me! Such is life in the R.A.F., lads. All work, and not the slightest bit of appreciation from your superiors. Good luck!"

Dave and Freddy laughed as the second pilot slouched wearily forward to his canvas seat. Five minutes later Wiggins had made contact with the rest of his patrol, and had relocated his position. Another ten minutes and Flight Commander Wiggins turned the controls over to his second pilot and came aft to Dave and Freddy. He replied to their questioning glances with a nod.

"Right-o, chaps," he said. "We're at seventeen thousand and about six miles south of Antwerp. Chubby will cut the engines and take her down another couple of thousand. A free fall will take you out of the Paul Prys in case they hear us and start poking around. And many thanks again for saving the ship. Chubby and I will always think kindly of you, very much so. Well, good luck again."

"Don't thank us," Dave said, and jerked his head toward the tail. "Thank your tail gunner for driving off those night flying planes that were potting at you. What about the rest of the patrol? Did you contact them by radio?"

"Oh, sure," Wiggins nodded. "One reports getting a Messerschmitt, too. They've gone on. We'll catch up with them after you chaps have stepped off into space."

"You're continuing the patrol?" Freddy gasped, and looked forward at the shattered glass of the cockpit cowling.

Flight Lieutenant Wiggins followed his gaze and chuckled.

"Oh, quite," he said. "That hole's nothing. Besides, the night air will keep Chubby awake, you know. The blighter's always falling asleep and making me do all the flying. And also, I couldn't use up gas lugging these bombs all this distance without dropping them where they'll do the most good."

"And I hope every one is a direct hit!" Dave said grimly, making sure that his parachute harness was properly buckled.

"Me too!" Freddy chimed in. "And I'll give you one guess who I hope you hit right on top of the old bean, too!"

"My, my! What a cold-blooded chap!" Flight Lieutenant Wiggins said in pretended horror. "I don't believe he likes the nasty Nazis a single bit. Well, neither do I, for that matter. Right-o, Chubby! Dig the sleep out of your baby blue eyes, and slide us down three thousand. Our guests are leaving us."

The last was shouted forward. Chubby nodded that he had heard and eased back the throttles until the Pegasus engines were just a rumbling murmur. The nose of the Wellington dipped gracefully and the bomber slid gently down through the night sky. Dave and Freddy moved forward to the belly door that the navigator had opened up. There they waited until Chubby had pulled the bomber up out of its glide and was prop plowing along on an even keel. Dave looked at Freddy, and grinned.

"See you, you know where, pal!" he called out. "Watch out you don't float down on a church steeple. Those things are doggone sharp, you know."

"And you watch out, too!" Freddy cried as Dave got down and let his legs hang down through the opening. "And if you get lost, just send me a postcard. I'll come get you. Happy landings!"

"Ditto to you, Freddy!" Dave shouted, and let his body drop down through the belly door.