Dave Dawson with the Commandos

  CHAPTER TEN

  _Victory Wings_

  Black night hung like a velvet curtain over the southeast coast ofEngland. As though even the gods had decided to give the United Nationsforces a break, not a single star was showing. Sullen dark overcaststretched from horizon to horizon, and just off the coast a thinprotective fog hovered above the waters of the Channel. On the drome ofthe Two Hundred and Third R.A.F. fighters, twenty-one Merlin-poweredSpitfires, Mark Fives, stood waiting to be streaked aloft into the nightsky. From prop to trimmer flap on the rudder, every plane had beenchecked and rechecked by skilled mechanics as well as the pilotsthemselves. Not a nut, bolt, or strand of bracing wire had beenoverlooked, or taken for granted. Upon those Spitfires, and thesteady-eyed eagles who would fly them, depended the lives of many bravemen. The Commando Para-troops who would be taken over by transportplane, and then dumped off to go down and do their job of destruction,and later fight their way back to the seacoast and the British Navyboats waiting to take them back to England. In many wars, and beforemany battles, had elaborate and detailed plans and preparations beenmade. Never, though, in the history of all the world, had any militaryoperation been as minutely arranged and prepared for as thismorale-jolting raid about to be launched against Hitler's blood-lettingforces in Occupied France.

  For a while Dave and Freddy had gathered together with the other pilotsof Two Hundred and Three and hashed and rehashed the part that thesquadron was to play in this lightning bolt blow against the two-leggedforces of all things dirty and evil in Europe. In time, though, theydrifted away from the general gathering and started wandering alone andaimlessly about the field faintly marked out by tiny flares. They hadcovered quite a bit of ground before Freddy finally broke the silence.

  "Gives a chap a bit of a spooky feeling, all this, doesn't it?" he said."Like sort of sitting around waiting for an unexploded bomb to go off."

  "Something like, yes," Dave grunted. "But this'll be more than just abomb when it goes off. More like an ammo dump, I'd say. And a couple ofdozen of them, too. How do you feel, Freddy?"

  "Scared stiff, and absolutely pink!" was the prompt reply. "And you?"

  "Ditto!" Dave echoed. "My knees are sure getting to know each other, theway they're knocking together. I don't dare sit down for fear they'llfreeze solid, and won't let me get up. Boy! I sure wish it was time toget going!"

  "Won't be long, now," Freddy murmured with a look at the radium-figureddial of his wrist watch. "But I agree with you. I'll feel much betteronce we get in the air, and are getting on with the show. Remember allof Major Barber's instructions?"

  Dave laughed and then whistled softly.

  "Twenty years from now you could ask me, and I'd be able to recite themword for word," he said. "The Major should be a school teacher, orsomething. He can sure put details in your head, and make them staythere. He's a swell guy, the Major is."

  "That he is!" Freddy echoed the statement. "A bit of all right. No doubthis ancestors were English."

  "Listen!" Dave shot back quickly. "I said the Major was a swell guy,see? Just skip casting slurring remarks about him, see?"

  "As if--!" Freddy blazed, and then saw the grin on Dave's face. "Well,his ancestors didn't come from the Belgian Congo, like one chap's Icould mention!"

  "Stop talking about yourself!" Dave threw at him. "Besides, we wereoriginally talking about this raid. What do you think our chances are,Freddy?"

  The English youth was silent for a moment. He walked a few stepsforward, staring unseeing at the ground.

  "I don't know," he said finally. "My brain refuses to try and figure theodds. Which is just as well for my nerves, I guess. I'm only hoping itcomes off as easily as the planning makes it appear. One thing, though.Selecting me to go along with you is just about the finest honor I everreceived."

  "Oh, think nothing of it, my friend!" Dave said with an airy wave of hishand. "Back in New York when Major Barber asked me if I thought you werewell enough trained to--"

  "Rot!" Freddy cut in harshly. "I was being serious, Dave. True, we'veseen quite a bit of the war. And we've accomplished an odd job or twohere and there. But there are plenty of men older than us, bettertrained, and far more experienced in this kind of thing. It was a mightyhigh honor to pick a--well, you might say, a couple of kids like us."

  "You've got something there, pal," Dave said gravely. "But as the Majorpointed out, age doesn't mean a thing in this war. Kids and grown menalike can turn out to be heroes with the right stuff. And, not to boast,there are a couple of points in our favor. We're pilots, experiencedones. We know that area pretty well from the first year of the war. Wealso speak German well. And--well, there're a couple of other goodpoints about us, but skip them. The main point is that the Majorselected us. As far as that goes for me, it's okay. I don't care aboutwhy he picked me as one of the pair. I only hope and pray I live up tothe trust he's put in me."

  "Quite, and me, too!" Freddy Farmer breathed as though in prayer. "Isuppose I feel as I do every time we're handed a tough assignment, but Itruly feel that I want to accomplish this job tonight and tomorrow dawnmore than I've ever wanted to accomplish anything. It's--it's as thoughmy whole life had been built up to this night. Do I sound crazy?"

  "Nope, not at all," Dave told him quickly. "You're simply saying thewords I couldn't think up. Say, how long now? I'm getting so jittery toget going that if I wait much longer I won't have the muscleco-ordination to hoist myself up into the pit. How long, Freddy?"

  "Twenty minutes," the English youth replied. "Steady on, Dave. Don't letit get you down, old chap. Things will start soon enough. Be like I am,calm, cool, and--"

  "A cockeyed liar!" Dave finished with a laugh. "But thanks for theeffort, pal. Your voice does have a soothing effect upon me, at times.And note that I said, at times!"

  "Gratitude for you!" Freddy snorted angrily. "But of course, I expectedthat kind of a comment, coming from you. By the way! I hope you checkedto see if your Nazi uniform was stuffed in the pit?"

  "I did," Dave replied, and laughed. "And my rigger mechanic saw it, too.Made him plenty curious. The bundle, I mean. He couldn't tell that itwas a Nazi uniform. I thought it best to offer some kind of anexplanation, so I told him that it was an extra uniform in case I gotshot down in flames, and burned the one I was wearing."

  "Good grief!" Freddy gasped. "What a crazy thing to say! And what did hesay?"

  "He didn't," Dave chuckled. "He didn't say a thing--to me. He justwalked off, muttering something about all Yanks being a little balmy."

  "And he wasn't far from wrong!" Freddy Farmer leaped at the opening."Particularly in your case. But let's start on back to the tarmac, shallwe? They should be starting up the engines for a brief warm-up soon. Andit isn't good to, give the other chaps the idea that we're trying tosnub them."

  "Nuts!" Dave snorted. "Those guys are regular. They wouldn't thinkanything like that, ever. But let's get on back, anyway. I want to givemy bus one more check, just for something to do. Oh-oh! There go some ofthe egg boys. Happy landings, fellows! And smack them plenty, the bums!"

  As Dave spoke the last he and Freddy threw back their heads and staredup into the dark sky that was suddenly filled with the roaring thunderof many bombers winging out across the Channel to "lay" their "eggs" asplanned. For a couple of minutes both sky and earth trembled from thesteady thunder of powerful engines. Then gradually it faded away in thesoutheast.

  "Boy! That was a bunch of them!" Dave exclaimed with a whistle. "Thewhole raid area will probably be flat as a pancake by the time theCommando troops arrive. Gosh! I hope their eggs don't scare von Staubeand von Gault away!"

  "Or make the blighters hide in some bomb shelter where we can't findthem!" Freddy echoed with a little nervous laugh. "Well, let's buzzover. There's the first of the Merlins starting up. Getting close now,Dave."

  Dawson didn't comment. He licked his suddenly dry lips, swallowed hard acouple of times, and hurried with Freddy across the drome to the line oftwenty-one Spitfires on the ta
rmac. Pilots gathered in small groups werebreaking up, each man going over to his plane. Dave went over to his,and Freddy to his own which was next to it. Both knew their planes byheart, but from force of habit they each made one last and final check,and found every little thing just as they knew it would be.

  Then they met between the two planes and waited for the engine fittersto climb in the pits and kick the Merlins into life. The whole drome,now, was echoing and re-echoing to the roar of Merlin engines. But toDave and Freddy, and everybody else for that matter, the thunderous roarwas the sweetest music on earth.

  "Well, have you two got it all straight, eh?"

  They both spun around at the sound of the voice shouting above theMerlins' roar. Squadron Leader Parkinson stood there dressed and readyfor flight. He was calmly smoking a cigarette, but there was a flashing,eager-to-be-off look in his eyes. Dave nodded and answered for himselfand Freddy.

  "All okay, sir!" he shouted back. "We go off second with Green Flight.Up to ten thousand, and fly line astern by flights until we pick up thePara-troop transports five miles off shore."

  "Right!" the Squadron Leader said with a nod. "Then spread out in topcover. Green right, blue left, Red center, and Purple Flight coveringour tails. Right you are, lads. Good luck to you both. If any nightMesserschmitts or Focke-Wulfs put in an appearance, don't let theblighters go any place but down!"

  "And with flames for company, sir," Dave added with a grin.

  "Quite!" the Squadron Leader echoed the statement, and started to turnaway. He checked his movement, however, and turned back to give each ofthe two youths a searching stare.

  "I meant that," he said a moment later. "About good luck to you both. Idon't know a thing, but I fancy you didn't go over to Commando H.Q.yesterday just to have a spot of tea. Anyway, mighty glad to have youwith us--until you have to peel off, and go on your own. Cheerio, untilwe meet again sometime!"

  Without giving either of the boys a chance to say anything, SquadronLeader Parkinson flipped a hand to his goggles in salute and wentquickly away.

  "Jeepers!" Dave presently ejaculated. "Maybe we should wear signs on ourbacks, or something! That Parkinson is no dumb bunny, what I mean!"

  "Oh, quite," Freddy said. "But after all, old chap, we're not strictlyR.A.F. these days, you know. And--well, I fancy it must have struckeverybody a bit queer, our just joining up with the Squadron wearing U.S. Army Air Force uniforms. Plenty of Yank squadrons over here, now, forus to be assigned to. And that call from Commando H.Q. would start anychap thinking."

  "Yes, I guess that's right," Dave said with a nod. "But here's hopingthe birds on the _other_ side of the Channel aren't so bright. But whyshould they be? Oh, nuts! I'm just yelling down a rain barrel. Well,Freddy, old tin of herring, Papa will look after you as best he can. Buttry not to get in my way, and on my neck too much, see? I've gotimportant things to do from now on."

  Freddy took the extended hand, and the pressure of Dawson's grip toldhim all he needed to know.

  "You mean that the other way around, I fancy!" he snapped. "And I warnyou, young fellow, this is absolutely your last chance! Mess up thisshow tonight, and I'll definitely leave you behind in all doings in thefuture. I'm completely fed up with shielding your mistakes from oursuperiors each time we go out on a show. Those things in the leadingedge of your wings are guns, understand? They shoot bullets. But bulletsmeant for Nazi planes, not British or Yank or French or Polish orCanadian. Please have sense enough to remember this time. So don'tforget! This is your last chance to prove you're the type to tackle bigthings with me."

  "Boy! What a soap box artist you'd make!" Dave cried with a chuckle."Give that vocation a thought, if you last out this war, Freddy. Andright now stop breaking my fingers! What do you think you're doing?Cracking walnuts! Go on! Get into your ship before I break into tears. Atender babe like you, going along on a man's job! There should be a law,or something."

  "Rot!" Freddy snapped, but his voice was a little husky. "Well, happylandings, Dave, old thing. See you anon at that cluster ofshell-battered barns over in Occupied France."

  "I'll be there waiting, sweetheart," Dave said. Then as a parting shot,"And don't forget the rip-cord ring. You have to yank it hard for thething to open. Very necessary, you know."

  "I'll do my best to remember, Dave," Freddy Farmer assured him.

  And the two air aces climbed up into their Spitfires.