Dave Dawson on the Russian Front Part 20

In short, they watched the four mechanics walk to the base of the hill, watched a section of "hill" swing outward and upward a little way, and the four mechanics walk into the hill, and then saw the camouflage screening drop back into place again. A sudden and quite insane desire to have a look at all that was inside that hill surged through Dawson.

But, naturally, he killed the urge even as it was born, and simply promised himself that if he lived through the war, he would come back for a real inspection of this spot after it was all over.

"Well, don't look right now," he breathed softly, and pushed up onto his hands and knees, "but I think it's time for us to part company for a spell. Freddy, old pal, you hop for that first crate, and I'll hop for the one right next to it. Meet you in the air, kid. And don't wait to ask permission to take off, see? You won't get it!"

"Not likely!" the English-born air ace grinned back at him, tight-lipped. "And keep your mind on your own knitting, old thing. A One-Nine is a bit of all right, but a tricky beggar, you know."

"Yeah, I once read that in a book!" Dave growled. Then, throwing Farmer a wink, "This is it, pal. And don't spare the horses!"

And that was that. No handclasp, and no last words of planning. There was no need for either. Each knew exactly how the other felt. And each knew exactly what the other planned to do, and would do--unless Death stopped him.

And so, like a couple of bolts of lightning ripping out from the center of a thunderhead, the two boys ripped up out from under the sheltering bushes, and went streaking straight across sixty yards of open ground.

To anybody watching them it must have seemed that their feet didn't even touch the ground; that they were just a couple of cannon sh.e.l.ls en route. And as Dave reached the side of the c.o.c.kpit of his Messerschmitt One-Nine, it became instantly evident that somebody had been watching them, or at least had suddenly spotted Freddy and himself, because there was the sound of a m.u.f.fled shout of wild alarm, followed almost instantly by the heart-chilling chatter of a machine gun. However, Dave didn't hear the whine of bullets, and he didn't bother to wait to see if a second burst would come closer. His feet just up and left the ground, and he practically shot down through the c.o.c.kpit hatch opening to the seat.

Even as he landed, hard, his hands were in furious motion. In what was little more than the continuation of a single movement he whipped up the ignition switch, snapped on the booster magneto, and punched the starter b.u.t.ton as he rammed the throttle open. One--two--three horrible seconds dragged by, and then the Daimler-Benz engine in the nose caught in a mighty thunder of sound. And as it did so he kicked off the wheel brakes and opened the throttle wide, breathing a prayer of grat.i.tude to the four mechanics for having tested the engine and thus warmed it up for him.

Like a race horse leaving the barrier, Dawson's Messerschmitt went streaking out from under the cover of overhanging branches and down the flat strip of valley. Out the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Freddy Farmer also in motion in the other plane. A song of joy burst out in his heart, and he impulsively lifted a hand in a derisive gesture at the machine guns yammering savagely behind him.

"Didn't realize you were guarding the wrong aircraft, did you, tramps?"

he shouted aloud, and pulled the Messerschmitt clear of the ground.

"Well, now, isn't that just too bad! But we'll wait for you, if you want, hey, Freddy, old kid?"

Of course, the English youth couldn't hear the words, but it wasn't necessary. As planned, both youths throttled slightly, once they got the planes up out of range of the machine gun fire. They did so to give the n.a.z.is plenty of time to race out of the hill hangar and over to the line of planes. Looking back, Dawson saw them, and a happy grin stretched his lips. So far, so good! Now to keep just enough ahead of those b.u.ms, and then lose them when well over the Russian front.

"And then Freddy and I will really go to work!" Dawson grunted grimly, and veered around toward the north. "Wonder what tomorrow will be like?

Yeah! And _if_ I'll see it!"

With a shrug, and a shake of his head, he knocked the thought into oblivion, and, after glancing over at Freddy on his right, fixed his gaze on the northern horizon.

A little under an hour later a conglomeration of emotions was surging through Dawson. Russian-held ground was under his wings now. Russian ground, and he had only to throttle his Daimler-Benz and slide down to complete safety. But, of course, that thought didn't even cut a tiny corner in his brain. It wasn't even born, for the very simple reason that the job wasn't even half finished. True, they were over Russian ground, and a couple of minutes before the pursuing n.a.z.is had given up the chase as a lost cause and swung all the way around to the south, to be speedily lost to view in the ever approaching shadows of nightfall.

Yes, all that was water under the bridge so far. But half the job, and the most dangerous half was still waiting to be accomplished.

"So get on with it, as Freddy would say," Dawson grunted, and waggled his wings just before he banked around toward the south.

The English youth swung around right after him, and in wing-tip formation they headed toward the southeast. For some five long minutes they droned along. And then, just as they were pa.s.sing over the last of the Russian advance positions on that section of the front, Dawson sat up stiff and straight in the seat. His eyes had spotted a moving dot silhouetted against the bleak, cheerless sky of coming night. It grew bigger and bigger, and finally took on the shape and outline of a Messerschmitt!

Dawson squinted at it for a second or so longer, and then when the n.a.z.i craft suddenly veered off to the west, and headed up toward the clouds, he took a quick look over at Freddy, and started to bark out a signal burst from his guns.

There was no need for that, however. The English youth had already spotted the plane, and was hauling his ship around and up after it.

Dawson grinned, and yanked his own One-Nine around and up in Freddy's wake.

"Leave it to you, Eagle Eyes!" he shouted. "Okay, pal. He sure is our baby. Hanging around so he can learn things, maybe, and then go tearing back to tell them all about it. Well, not today, eh, Freddy?"

With a grim nod for emphasis, Dawson jammed the heel of his palm against the already wide open throttle, and kept his gaze fixed on the third n.a.z.i plane streaking upward for the clouds. For what seemed like all eternity the lumps of cold lead bounced around in Dawson's stomach. If they lost that n.a.z.i there was no telling what might happen. Maybe he was just some pilot up on a test flight, but his sudden dash for the seclusion of the clouds didn't bear that out. No. More likely he had been left aloft to keep watch, and to see if those who had escaped made any attempt to return. Sure, and maybe that was a very c.o.c.keyed view for Dawson to take, too. However, there was no way of telling one way or the other. So that left only one thing to do. To knock off that n.a.z.i just in case he was aloft for no good purpose.

"But in this b.u.m light?" Dawson grated. "Not so good! If he reaches those clouds, we'll never find him. Five minutes more, and night will be here in earnest. And we'll--"

He never finished the rest. He didn't because at that moment it was his privilege to witness something that few war pilots ever see in their lifetime--in short, a perfect long range shot smacking home. Once in maybe a billion times a burst of aerial machine gun bullets. .h.i.t their mark at the extreme end of their range. All the other times they fly wide, or spend themselves downward toward earth.

But this was one of those once in a billion times, and the burst of bullets came from the guns on Freddy Farmer's Messerschmitt. Dawson hadn't even rested his thumb on his trigger trip because of the seemingly hopeless distance to the target. However, Freddy Farmer had taken a bead, and his bit of perfect aerial shooting proved to be in a cla.s.s all by itself. The "target" lurched off to the left, as though it had been sliding along an invisible greased pole, and had slid off. It dropped right down to the vertical, and then suddenly smoke and livid red flame belched out and up from its nose. Hardly daring to believe his eyes, Dawson watched the bit of blazing doom clear down to where it disappeared from view behind a ridge. And a split second later, a fountain of flashing orange and red told him that the plane had struck earth.

"Nope, it didn't happen!" he told himself in a dazed voice. "Things like that just don't happen. You only read about them in stories. Sweet tripe! How I love that guy, Freddy Farmer. Compared to him, am I a b.u.m!"

With a vigorous nod for emphasis, he veered over closer to the English youth's plane and lifted his clasped hands high above his head in the gesture of a boxer saluting the crowd.

"You for me, sweetheart!" he shouted into the roar of his engine. "Now, let's go and pull off the last of the miracles!"

The words had no more than left his lips, however, when he happened to stare toward the east--and swallowed hard. Pitch black storm clouds were hurtling up out of the east, and swiftly blotting out the last fading tints of day much as a descending blanket blots out the flickering flame of a candle. In a matter of minutes, now, Freddy and he wouldn't be able to spot Nina's house in the darkness, much less make safe landings close by!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

_Headaches for Hitler_

Dawson glanced impulsively over at Freddy Farmer, and quickly realized that the English youth had spotted the approaching storm clouds, too, and obviously had the same thoughts. Because even as their eyes met Freddy nodded violently, and banked around, and stuck his nose down in the general direction of the eastern side of the village of Tobolsk, just out of sight over the horizon.

"Well, there's one thing, anyway," Dawson grunted as he quickly followed suit with his own plane. "The darker it gets, the better the chances of n.a.z.i eyes not spotting us. Yeah, sure! But if that storm beats us to it, there'll be a ground wind that will knock _our_ chances higher than a kite! And I don't mean maybe!"

That last most unpleasant consideration was uppermost in Dawson's brain as he and Freddy Farmer went tearing all out toward the southeast. And with every foot his Messerschmitt cut through the air, doubt and dread built itself up higher and higher within him. It was almost as though the G.o.ds of good fortune, and Lady Luck, had decided that they had done enough to help, and had quit cold on the job. Though Dawson's Messerschmitt was rocketing down across the shadowy sky, the storm clouds seemed to possess twice his speed. And with each rushing toward the other, the distance between them just shriveled away like snow in a blast furnace.

Eyes grim, and jaw set at a determined angle, Dawson hunched forward over the controls and searched the ground ahead and below. The bouncing lead came back to the pit of his stomach with a gleeful vengeance, for the ground was now almost lost in the swirling shadows of the approaching storm. It was almost impossible to pick out Tobolsk itself, to say nothing of the location of Nina's house in the Y of the two intersecting roads.

Suddenly, though, a voice seemed to cry out at him from nowhere; cry out to look down and to the left. Just exactly what urged him to do that, he didn't know. But he obeyed the sudden impulse, and his heart started pounding with wild hope again. Down there to the left he saw the Y formed by the two roads. He even saw Nina's house, if that pile of timber and stone could be called a house. And he was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of the small but apparently smooth field just to the left of the Y. Just a fleeting glimpse of the field before a moving sheet of rain cut across his vision. The advance guard of the storm had arrived. The race had turned out a tie, which to those two fighting eagles up in the air was just about the same as losing the race.

"But down we go!" Dawson roared out aloud. "Down we go, just the same.

And, please, G.o.d, we've _got_ to make it!"

As he gulped out the prayerful plea, he peered over at Freddy Farmer, who was still hugging close to his right wing tip, storm or no storm. At the same instant the English youth turned his own head Dawson's way, and then nodded it violently as though he had read the Yank's thoughts. Dave nodded back, lifted one hand in brief salute, then turned his face forward again, and gave every ounce of his undivided attention to his Messerschmitt.

An hour, a day, or it could have been a year pa.s.sed before he had practically pushed the Messerschmitt down and around so that it was heading for the long way of the field, and into the snarling wind. He didn't know, and he didn't care, he was too busy working his throttle to maintain forward speed, and prevent the Messerschmitt from stalling. At times his forward speed matched the speed of the wind, and his plane almost stood still in the air just off the surface of the ground. And then suddenly his wheels touched. The plane bounced wildly, but he goosed the engine, and checked a disastrous second meeting with the wind-swept ground. When the wheels touched again, the Messerschmitt stayed down, and Dawson taxied it at a fast clip straight ahead and then off to the side to get out of the way of Freddy Farmer right behind him.

As a matter of fact, he had no sooner killed the engine, and leaped to the ground, while the Messerschmitt still trundled forward, than he saw the English youth's plane settle. Settle? It started to do just that, but a savage cross-wind caught it, and the aircraft came down like five tons of brick dumped off a high building. A wild cry of alarm rose up in Dawson's throat, but his zooming heart won the race to his mouth and choked it off. For a lifetime, it seemed, he could only stand rooted helplessly to the ground while Freddy Farmer's Messerschmitt jumped and leaped crazily about like a chip of wood on the crest of a raging sea. A dozen times the aircraft seemed to start over on its back, but somehow the English youth managed to keep it top side up. True, it skidded around in half-circles, first one way and then the other. But the wing tip didn't quite catch and grab on the ground to pile up the whole works in a heap. And then suddenly something seemed to shoot right out of the c.o.c.kpit of the bouncing and dancing plane and down onto the ground.

Dawson blinked twice before he realized that that something was Freddy Farmer in the flesh, and that the English youth had raced over to where he stood, while the storm wind gleefully picked up the Messerschmitt and carried it the rest of the way down the field and smacked it up against some trees.

"Too bad, even if it is a n.a.z.i plane!" Dawson heard Farmer's gasping voice. "But I couldn't nurse-maid the blasted thing forever. I had to let it go. Well, that must be the house, what?"

Dawson didn't bother to reply. Freddy had pulled another miracle out of the hat, and that part of the show was over. He just nodded quickly, then spun around on his heel, and went dashing over toward the lone house with Freddy Farmer at his heels. No lights were showing, but Dawson didn't even bother to knock. When he reached the front door he just grabbed hold of the k.n.o.b, twisted it, shoved open the door and barged right inside. And both Freddy and he just managed to skid to a halt as they saw a small, thin figure come at them, and saw the glint of a gun barrel in the pale glow shed by a single lighted candle on a nearby table.

"Hey! Hold everything!" Dawson heard his own voice pant.

The last half of it, though, was drowned out by an even sharper cry in Russian. And before the echo was gone Senior Lieutenant Petrovski had appeared out of nowhere and leaped between Dawson and the advancing thin shadow. And a second or so later Dawson saw the tattered clothing, the wrinkled face, and the snow white hair of the thin "shadow." And then the Senior Lieutenant was talking to him.

"That was not wise, Captain!" she was saying sharply. "It is lucky I cried out in time, or Nina might have used that gun."

"Yeah, my error," Dawson grunted. "I was dumb. But in this storm I didn't figure that our knock would be heard. Besides, Farmer and I were in a hurry. Look, Senior Lieutenant! From here on we've got to stay in high gear. I mean, we've got to get going, and keep going. No telling when Lady Luck may quit on us. I don't think there's much of a guard on our bomber now. And this storm doesn't exactly hurt the situation, either. Where're Jones, and Nikolsk? The five of us have got to make tracks. You lead the way to the bomber, and we'll be right behind you with Nikolsk. I--Hey! The look on your face! Nikolsk isn't--he isn't--?"