"Dave, Dave, snap out of it! We're trapped, but let's give the beggars a go for their money. Dave! Wake up!"
Freddy Farmer's screams in the earphone seemed to touch a hidden spring in Dave and release him from his dumbfounded trance. He let out a wild yell, kicked his Spitfire over on wingtip and went whanging around and over to where Farmer and Barker were closing in together. Instinct, and instinct alone had caused him to make the maneuver. The instinct of life preservation.
Individually not one of them stood a chance against the mass of Messerschmitt One-Nines, and One-Tens, cutting down through the air. Individually they would be picked off like helpless clay pigeons. Together as a fighting trio, a fighting unit, they stood some chance of meeting with a little success. That all three would break through that almost solid wall of war wings, and escape back to England, was something that could not possibly happen, miracles or no miracles.
Together as a unit, however, two of them might blast a path through air through which the third could escape. All for one. That was it! All for one, and that one to get on back to England with the pictures he had taken. And, please God, those pictures would tell British High Command at least something of vital importance! Please God, the efforts of the two who remained behind would not be made in vain!
With that prayer on his lips Dave hurtled his plane across the sky and dropped in along side Freddy and Barker. It was then, and then only, he suddenly realized that the swarm of Nazis charging downward had not fired a single shot. As a matter of fact, as he snapped a quick glance upward he saw the leading wave of planes come out of the dive and fly along at even keel. The second wave did the same thing a few seconds later. So did the third, and a fourth wave, until the whole lot were as a tent of wings over the three British planes.
"Come on, you blighters, fight! Fight, blast you!"
The voice was Flight Lieutenant Barker's, and before the echo had died away he hauled up his plane on its tail and blazed away with all guns. It was like throwing rocks at a low ceiling. The bullets had to hit something, and they did. A Messerschmitt One-Nine staggered crazily in the air for a minute, then up-ended on wingtip and came tumbling down out of the sky. Hardly had it started to fall than its place was filled by another Nazi plane. And though Barker's plane reached the stalling point, and fell over sluggishly on wing to present a perfect target for the pilots and gunners above, not a single Nazi sliced down in a dive to pick off the Englishman.
As Barker recovered from the stall and zoomed back up to rejoin formation wild hope flared up in Dave. But he felt also the stinging pain of defeat. The refusal of the Nazis to fight unless forced to could mean but one thing. They were under orders to force the three R.A.F. pilots down onto the ground, and capture them alive. But why? The question burned through the back of Dave's brain, but he gave it no serious consideration for the moment. Another, and perhaps a more heart chilling realization came to him instantly. This was no chance accident, the sudden appearance of these Nazi wings. It had been planned. They had been waiting, probably hiding in the sun or behind the clouds while the four original One-Nines had baited the R.A.F. lads to swoop down low. To swoop down low and lose the precious altitude they would need in order to outmaneuver and fly away from this Luftwaffe armada.
"Like heck we fooled them!" the words burst from Dave's lips. "They've been wise to us all the time. We took it hook, line and sinker! And now we're stuck!"
The echo of his own words seemed to return in his earphones to mock him. But it was all so true, so horribly true. In cold truth they had been "on the spot" from the very moment they crossed over the Channel to Occupied France. Whether the Nazis had actually known they were coming, or whether they had simply suspected things the instant they had sighted them, were two things Dave did not know. Nor did he waste time guessing. The fact remained that there they were more or less pinned to the ground, and there were the Nazi planes forcing them lower and lower.
Biting back a storm of bitter words directed at himself, Dave glanced downward, and groaned. They were less than three hundred feet off the ground. And as for the ground, it was now practically alive with Nazi uniforms. The grey-green clad figures of Hitler's armies seemed to virtually pop up out of holes in the ground. It was almost like looking down into a swimming maze of upturned faces.
"What say, Dawson?" Barker's voice cut through Dave's whirling thoughts. "Are we going to let the blighters push us down onto the sod? Or shall we give a few of them something they'll remember when they wake up in the next world ... or wherever Nazi rotters go to? Me, I fancy that, old thing. Let's get as many as we can, while we can, what?"
Dave didn't answer right off the bat. His brain was battling furiously with the toughest problem he had ever faced in his entire life. As commander of the flight it was in his power to order life or death for Freddy and Barker. He could make it life by surrendering to the hovering Nazi wings and letting the Germans take them alive as they seemed to wish. Or he could make it death by agreeing with Barker's suggestions and attempting to fight through the aerial cordon of Messerschmitts until all three of them went down in flames.
The warrior in him was all in favor of that. Why give up without a fight? Why let these darn Nazis push them around like three rag dolls? What was there to be gained by that? Life in a Nazi prison camp at the most. Sure, life! But was that kind of life worth living? It was not! Better to die, and take some of your conquerors along with you, than to simply fold up without a single show of resistance. Heck! That was a coward's way out! That was....
The other side of Dave, though, refused to accept that as the only solution. On a thousand other occasions, sure. Fight until you could fight no more. But this was something different. This situation was the exception. There was far, far more at stake than Freddy Farmer's life, or Barker's life, or his own life. They had come over to do a definite job. They had failed to accomplish that task. They had failed because the Nazis were ready, and apparently waiting for them. Why didn't the Nazis polish them off; finish them right then and there?
It was that single question that stopped Dave from crying out the order to do battle, and let the Messerschmitts fall where they may. That one question that held back the warrior within him; that brought the leadership in him to the fore. Why did the Nazis let them live? There could be but one answer. For a very definite reason known only to the Nazis. But a very important reason, obviously.
Dave glanced once more down at the ground, then up at the mass of swastika wings that hovered just above his head like a cloud. He could almost feel countless eyes boring holes through the air down at him. Those Nazi wings were Hitler's new secret weapon? No! Those Nazi wings were the answer to the mysterious disappearance of ten Lockheed Hudsons? No? The answers were down on the ground below him. Of that he felt positive. And the Nazis wanted him alive. Okay, they could take him alive. While he had life he had hope. And while he had hope there was the chance of 'most anything happening.
That, however, was his choice. The choice for himself. But he could not make it the choice for Freddy and Barker. In his heart he could not order them to surrender. Neither could he order them to batter their wings against that wall of Nazi guns. But there was a way by which the thing could be solved. True, it might cost him his own life, but if he timed it just right, pulled the surprise at exactly the right moment an avenue of escape would be opened for Freddy Farmer and Flight Lieutenant Barker.
"Close up, fellows!" he called into his flap-mike. "Close up until you're almost touching my wingtips. Keep your engines at three quarter t............