_Chapter_ XVI Fiddlin’ Johnny
Two nights later they were all seated about the fire in the Hideout.Their new home was small but not too crowded for company. Young LordApplegate and two of his flying buddies were there. Beside the Lord,whom Dave had met some days before, there was a flyer they had nicknamedFiddlin’ Johnny. Johnny was slender, fair-haired and dreamy-eyed. “Justthe sort that doesn’t seem to belong in the air,” Applegate had said toDave. “But he’s got a real record. You’d be surprised.”
“Give us a tune, Johnny,” Brand urged, as Alice’s tea warmed theirsouls.
“Oh, all right!” Johnny rose awkwardly. “I’m not much of a fiddler, butanything to please.” After blowing on a strange little pipe, he tunedhis violin, then was away to a good start.
The moment his bow slid across the strings Cherry knew they were in fora rare treat. Paying little attention to his audience nor even to theirapplause, Johnny launched into a series of quaint, melodious, old tunes.Like a slow-flowing river he drifted from one to another and yetanother. All unconscious of those about him, he played on and on. Heappeared to play not for them but for the few birds lingering among barebranches of wind-lashed trees outside, or perhaps to the angels inheaven.
“Oh!” Cherry breathed, when at last he returned his violin to itsbattered case. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She turned to the young Lord.“Why didn’t you bring him to one of our subway songfests?”
“Johnny!” The young Lord laughed. “He’d never remember when to stop.”
“Stop!” the girl exclaimed in her hoarse whisper. “Who would want him tostop? That—why that was divine.”
“Oh! Thank you! Thank you!” Johnny’s face flushed.
“He’s just the same when he’s in the air fighting,” said the young Lord.“Flies as if he were in a dream and never thinks to stop. He—”
Suddenly he broke off. Someone had turned on the short-wave radio. Itwas low. Reaching over, he turned it louder.
“Get an earful of this.” His lips were curled in scorn.
The man on the radio was saying in fairly good English, “The quality ofthe British fighters is laughable.”
“How do you mean?” a voice on the radio asked.
“That’s Helmuth Wick, the boasting Hun,” the young Lord whispered.
“They merely try to stay out of our reach, those English fighters,” saidthe boasting German pilot. “This shows that the best English pilots havealready been shot down. They fire furiously but never hit anything. Itmust make them very annoyed.”
“Well, thank you, Major Wick,” said the interviewer on the air. “That’sall we have had time for now. Nice to have had you with us.”
“That broadcast is for America,” the young Lord explained. “It _is_ nicethey had him with them tonight. He won’t be with them long. We’re allafter him. No one loves a boaster. Besides, he’s a dirty fighter.”
“And does he boast!” The Lark put in. “Claims fifty planes shot down, oris it sixty. No matter. He’s head of a flight and sees to it that hestays ahead. One of his fighters always protects him from behind. If hesees one of our planes that’s shot up and wobbling, he just steps in andfinishes them off. And that’s number forty-seven, or fifty-seven. Orwhat—”
“We caught up with him once,” the young Lord laughed. “The Lark heredowned the man who protected him from behind. I would have polished himoff right then but I got a slug in my motor. Oil started spurting. So Ihad to make a crash landing.
“Too bad, Johnny wasn’t with us,” he added with a good-natured laugh.“Johnny’d been up there fighting yet.”
“I’ll be with you next time,” Fiddlin’ Johnny said, and he did notlaugh. “Tomorrow,” he went on, “we’ll be up with the dawn. The O. C.told me that just before I left. Said we could go up in five formation.”
“Who?” Dave sat up quick.
“You’ll be in on it,” Johnny grinned. “You and Brand. Only the O. C.said we were to watch and see that you don’t do anything rash.”
“You watch them! That’s a joke.” The Lark gave Johnny a slap on theshoulder. “All you can see when you’re in the air is crosses andswastikas.”
“All the same,” the young Lord insisted, “Johnny’s one swell littlefighter.”
A half hour later they were gone, leaving Cherry to wonder how many ofthem would return, and how soon.
At dawn five Spitfires left the landing field. They flew in formation,first the young Lord, then the Lark. After these came Dave and Brand.Fiddlin’ Johnny brought up the rear.
It was a beautiful morning. Red still streaked the eastern sky. Did theysee the sky? Perhaps Johnny did. He saw and heard everything that wasbeautiful. Dave did not see the sky. He saw only his instrument board,thought only of that which might be ahead. For they were the dawnpatrol. And out of many a dawn, when the thin clouds were still red andgold, had come death. Dave shuddered at the thought but kept straight onhis course.
Of a sudden he caught the young Lord’s voice in the phone. It was highand cheerful as he shouted:
“Enemy ahead. Let’s tap in.”
‘Tap in’, Dave knew meant ‘have a good time.’ Would they have a goodtime? Would they? He wondered. Then, as if he had taken a breath of pureoxygen, his spirits soared. Have a good time? Why not? This was a game.In this game one must have a good time or die.
They were putting on speed. At first he did not see the enemy. Then hesaw them all too well. Five Messerschmitts came zooming out of a thincloud. The rising sun struck their wings and turned them to burnishedsilver.
“Whoops!” shouted the Lark. “Up and at them, boys!”
In a low, sober note the young Lord said, “Boys that’s the bragging Hun,Wick, or I’m a liar!”
“Correct!” shouted the Lark. “His identical formation, V shape, onebehind on his right, three behind on the left. In a scrap he’s safe.Perfect, I’d say for a hero.” Then in a roaring voice this red-headedpilot sang, “It’s a long way to Tipperary. It’s a long way to go.”
Dave didn’t want to sing. Truth was, he could not have said a word. Histongue at that instant was glued to the roof of his mouth. Only thenight before a veteran fighter had said to him, “Wick may be a coward. Iwouldn’t doubt that. But he’s been a long time in the air. And thatmeans just one thing, he knows how to pick brave men to do his fightingfor him.”
“Brave men,” Dave whispered as he clutched his ‘joy stick’ with a firmergrip. Then, through his radio headset, above the roar of motors, hecaught a familiar sound. It was one of the tunes Fiddlin’ Johnny hadplayed back there in the Hideout. It was “Londonderry Air.” Startled, asif expecting to see the strange boy fiddling as he flew, he glancedback. Johnny was in his place, all right, staring straight ahead.
“Whistling!” Dave murmured. “How do they do it?”
“Those Messerschmitts are looking for bombers, not fighters,” he toldhimself. “Haven’t seen us yet.”
The young Lord barked an order into his receiver. “We’ll climb into thesun, then drop down upon them.”
They climbed. They circled until the sun was at their backs. Then, withmotors booming, they swept down upon the enemy.
With a sudden burst of speed the Messerschmitts scattered. Two planesalone remained in formation.
“That will be Wick and his bravest guard,” Dave told himself as a thrillcoursed up his spine.
He was all for the fight now. Gladly he would have followed that pair,but it had been agreed that in a case of this kind the flight leader andthe Lark, most experienced men of the flight, should step in wheredanger called most loudly.
With the hot blood of battle at last coursing in his veins, Dave wentafter a single, fleeing Messerschmitt.
He was faster than the enemy. Now a mile lay between them, now a halfmile, a quarter. The enemy darted this way, then that. “Trying to shakeme off,” Dave muttered. He was thinking at that moment of theirshattered home. He should have
sweet revenge.
He was all but upon the Messerschmitt. One more burst of speed. Now itwas time to press the button. One thousand shots a minute! No! He’dbetter drop a little, to come up from below. Three hundred and fiftymiles an hour. This was life.
Suddenly the air was torn by the rip and rattle of machine-gun fire, nothis fire but another’s. Slugs tore into his right wing. Gripping hisemergency boost, he set his plane banking madly to the left. Fortyseconds of this, then he let go that emergency lever.
Standing on one wing, he executed a mad whirl, then righted himself.
“What had happened?” As his eyes swept the sky he heard again that weirdwhistle, the Fiddler’s, doing “Londonderry Air.”
Next instant he spotted the Whistler. Right on the tail of a plane, hewas at that very instant gripping the firing button. Once again the skywas torn with the haunting rip-rip-rip that spelled death.
What effect did the fiddler’s shots have upon the enemy? Dave was not toknow, at least not for a long time. At that instant he caught sight of aMesserschmitt zooming up from behind and below his comrade. He watchedwith horror as a great burst of fire seemed to blot Fiddlin’ Johnny fromthe sky.
One second the Messerschmitt was there. The next it was gone. Withsinking heart Dave saw Fiddlin’ Johnny’s plane go into a spin, thenspiral down, down until it was lost in a cloud.
He listened. Save for the roar of his own motor, a muffled roar it wasnow, he caught no sound. The whistle was dead. But what of the whistler?
Not until then did Dave become conscious of his own motor. He was losingaltitude. His hand was brown with oil. His motor had been hit, perhapsmore than once. Just when a Messerschmitt came zooming at him he slippedinto a cloud.
He was thinking hard and fast now. He was out of the fight, that wassure. Was he too far out over the ocean to make landing before his motordied? Where was land? A glance at his compass, a slow half-swing about,then he flew straight ahead.
He was losing altitude faster now. In vain did he attempt to get morepower from the motor.
There was the sea, and there, seeming far, far away, was land. He’dnever make it. A cold, calm sea lay beneath him. How long could one livein that water? He’d have a try. Unsnapping his safety belt, he waited.How long before his ship sank? Not long, he guessed.
Then his eye caught something on the surface of the sea. A boat?Perhaps. Didn’t look quite like that. At least it was fairly large andit floated.
Swinging half about, he went into a slow spiral, that would land him, hehoped, close to that mysterious, floating gray spot.
It did. Leaping from his plane, he did a slow crawl, waiting to see ifhis plane would sink. Three minutes more and it was gone.
Turning, he swam toward that floating thing. What was it? He could nottell. All he knew was that once he reached it he would escape from thebitter, biting chill of the sea.