For the ten millionth time in the last five minutes Dave Dawson let his eyes come to rest on the main and emergency gas tank gauges on the instrument board. Both needles were pressed hard against the zero peg, and they had been that way for the last five minutes. It was as though the powerful engine in the nose was now simply running on its reputation. Of course, that wasn't true. Even when the gauge shows you have no gas there is always a certain amount left in the feed lines that will permit the power plant to function for a bit longer. But the Bristol Taurus had been turning over for five full minutes on seemingly dry tanks, and as far as Dave was concerned that was most certainly some kind of a record for aircraft engines.
And so as he stared at the gauges again there was bewildered amazement in his eyes ... and a cold lump of fear in his stomach. If Freddy's navigation had been accurate, and if the land marks they had been able to sight from their high altitude really were those that were marked on the flight map Serrangi had given them, they were still a good fifty or sixty miles short of their destination!
If they were flying over England, or the States, or eastern Canada, or places like that, there would be no cause for worry and the cold lump of fear. But, they were flying over the godawful region of the world cut by the Thailand-Burma border. And they had only to glance down over the side to realize full well what would happen when their engine finally gave up and they were forced down. True, they might live through it; they stood a chance. Perhaps it was only a million to one chance. However, if they could sit down in the tree tops, or on the side of the rocky jagged peaked mountains, or on the bottom of some jungle choked gorge ... and not break every bone in their bodies ... everything would be fine. At least for the time being. What happened tomorrow, the next week, and the next year, were things best not to think about.
"We've got to make it, Dave! We've got to make it! Get all the altitude you can. It will give us a longer glide."
Dave clenched his teeth hard, and fought back the savage impulse to spin around and let fly with a barrage of verbal abuse at Freddy Farmer. Only the cold realization that his own pal's nerves were every bit as frayed as his prevented him from doing so. And after all, for the last hour it had been Freddy Farmer who had kept the conversation going to take their thoughts off the approaching inevitable, and ease the torturing strain somewhat. Yes, they had to make it. But would they? If the engine should cut out now would they be able to make the rest of the distance in a glide? True, they had almost top ceiling under their wings, but it would still be a long glide. And to reach the spot indicated on the map and then circle it five times at the exact altitude of six thousand feet was something that was strictly up to the gods. In his heart, Dave had the quaking feeling that they wouldn't be able to circle the spot once at even six feet.
"Or even reach it!" he spoke the thought harshly. "We got us a Jap sub, but heaven knows what wasting that time is going to cost us."
"And it was my fault, Dave!" Freddy Farmer's voice suddenly spoke in Dave's ear. "I'm sorry as can be. I shouldn't have suggested that we go look for the courier plane. After all, we were on a mighty important mission."
Dave swung around and fixed him with a scornful eye.
"Eavesdropping on what a guy even says to himself, huh?" he growled. Then softening his words with a grin, "You stick to your knitting, son, and leave us grown-ups alone. And don't start grabbing off credit for going on that courier plane hunt. I had my mind all made up to do it before you so much as opened your yap. I was just waiting to hear what you thought of the idea. And besides, this little old engine hasn't stoppedyet, has it?"
The last word hadn't even started to become an echo before the Bristol Taurus in the nose uttered a few rusty metallic gasps and then became silent as a tomb, save for the soft swish of the propeller as momentum turned it over in the wind. Freddy Farmer gulped and forced a smile to his lips.
"Yes, I'm afraid it has, Dave," he said. "But it's certainly been a blasted wonder up to now. Well, we've got lots and lots of altitude for gliding. And now that the engine's stopped, it is a bit peaceful up here, don't you think?"
"Very," Dave said with a nod. Then chuckling, "I'd like to stay up here awhile. Boy!HowI'd like to stay up here awhile! But I always was a selfish cuss. Any particular altitude at which you'd like to get out, Mister? We're making all stops on the way down, you know."
"Just let me out at the ground floor!" Freddy replied with a slight grin on his stiff lips. "And I mean the ground floor, not the basement, my good man!"
Dave gave a little wave of his hand to acknowledge the wisecrack and then concentrated every ounce of his attention on keeping the Fairey Albacore just a hair below the stalling point. Every inch of altitude he saved was at least five inches farther forward the plane would be able to travel. It wasn't a question of precious feet, or yards, or miles, now. It was a matter of inches. And every additional inch was just another little bit in their favor.
But as Dave held the controls in a steel fingered grip and peered narrow eyed ahead at the heart chilling terrain, the little hammers of dread and doubt began to pound away in his brain. His mouth and throat became dry, and the cold lump of lead formed once more in the pit of his stomach. He had flown over a lot of terrible country in his time, but nothing like this. As far as he could see in any direction there wasn't a piece of flat ground big enough to place your foot on. Nothing but jagged rock sided mountains, and deep ravines choked with jungle growth. A plane force-landing would be ripped to ribbons before it touched the ground. And even though its occupants did live through the crash it would really be only postponing death. Death in a thousand different forms would be waiting for them down there in the jungle when they tried to fight their way out to civilization. It was an airman's graveyard, that's what it was. It....
Dave cut short the rest of his disagreeable thoughts as he felt Freddy Farmer's hand pound down on his shoulder, and heard the English youth's excited voice in his ears.
"Bear a few degrees to port, Dave!" Freddy cried. "I guess our compass must have gone a bit balmy, or my last calculation of position was wrong. Look way over there to the left and ahead! There's the sharp S bend in the Salween River that's marked on this map. Dave! If I'm right, we're not in the soup at all. We should make that easily in a glide. And not get down below six thousand feet, either!"
Dave leaned forward, wiped the back of his hand across his stinging eyes, and squinted hard. But the hope that had zoomed up within him at Freddy Farmer's words took a nose dive when he couldn't see anything on the ground that looked like the S turn in a river. As far as he could see the few square miles indicated by Freddy's pointed finger weren't one bit different from the hundreds of other square miles of treacherous terrain he could see. However, hope didn't die completely within him because this was not the first time Freddy's eagle sharp eyes had spotted things long before he had. Just the same after nosing the plane to port a bit and slushing forward at the flat gliding angle, the tiny flame of hope burned lower and lower.
"Don't you see it, Dave?" Freddy called out finally.
"Not yet!" Dave replied grimly. "And I hope it's not a mirage you're seeing. But.... Hold everything! Yeah! see it now, Freddy. Gee! It looks exactly like a curving shadow on the jungle trees. Yes, that's the S bend. And we'll make it easy, Freddy, easy. Remind me to hang another medal on you for sweet eyesight. Me, I would have glided right on by and not known the difference. Okay, boy! Looks like we're coming to the end of the line."
"And the beginning of the worst part, I fancy," Freddy Farmer muttered through clenched teeth. "Lord, Dave! I hope that beggar, Serrangi, told us the truth. I mean, that there really is a hidden drome down there."
"Me, too, and how!" Dave echoed almost reverently. "Between you, me, and that dead engine in the nose, I'd be tickled pink to drop right down into Uncle Goering's arms right about now. But, sweet tripe, Freddy! How could there possibly be a secret drome down there? A hole in one of the mountains, perhaps? And they shoot them off by catapult? It just doesn't seem possible, so help me!"
"It's got to be, it's got to be!" the English youth repeated over and over. "If we've come this far just to land in some blasted trees, I'll ... I'll never forgive that black hearted blighter, Serrangi, as long as I live!"
Freddy Farmer's crazy remark snapped the tension a little and caused Dave to laugh out loud.
"That's telling him, Freddy, old sock!" he cried. "Boy! Would Serrangi be sore if you never forgave him!"
"Go ahead and laugh!" Freddy snapped. "But we're not out of the woods, yet!"
"Oh, yes, we are!" Dave corrected. "And what we want to do isstay outof them and notget inthem. Catch on?"
"Quite!" Freddy snapped again. Then thrusting his hand over Dave's shoulder, he cried, "And there's something else very funny, my lad. The altimeter. We've got not over four thousand feet left before we reach the altitude when we start our circle signals."
"Sure, I know," Dave said good naturedly. "Keep your pants on. Little Dave has everything under control ... he hopes. Yup! We make it easy. Get your eyes skinned, Freddy, for signals. We're going to be over the spot almost any instant, now."
It was, perhaps, four full minutes before Dave brought the Albacore directly over the middle of the S bend in the river, and at an altitude just a shade over six thousand feet. He had allowed an extra hundred feet so that he would not go too far below the six thousand foot mark by the time he had completed his five circles. After all, Serrangi had been most particular about sticking at six thousand feet. And for that reason he couldn't take chances. If there were Jap guns down there trained on the Albacore....
Dave swallowed hard, shook himself as though to drive off the unpleasant possibility, and hauled the Albacore around for the first circle. He guided the plane by instinct, keeping the nose no higher than the law of gravity would allow. He stuck his head out through the opened cockpit hatch and stared intently downward. Freddy Farmer was doing the same thing, and like two men of stone they sat rigid in the pit, not speaking, and hardly daring to breathe.
Three, four, and five times Dave completed a circle, and by his expert flying the plane didn't lose more than a hundred feet. The altimeter needle quivered at the six thousand foot peg when he came out of the final circle and glided straight northward. That also he did by instinct for his eyes were still riveted to the ground below. Perhaps ten seconds clicked by, or perhaps it was ten years. But, suddenly, a red ball of fire seemed to zoom right up out of the lush green jungle below them and come arcing up toward the belly of their plane. It mounted upward no more than a couple of hundred feet, probably, then curved over and down to wink out before it struck ground.
"The signal flare, Dave!" Freddy Farmer roared at the top of his voice. "Serrangi didn't lie to us! There is somebody down there."
"I knew it all the time, I did!" Dave cracked back, as his heart looped in his chest with joy. "But, I still want to knowwherein heck a field could be down there. It's.... Holy smoke! Am I seeing things, or ... or what?"
Dave stuttered out the rest as he stared in dumbfounded amazement down toward earth. An airplane had suddenly appeared before his very eyes. It was a swift Japanese Nakajima 96 single seater. A Land of the Rising Sun copy of the American Boeing F4B. But the cockeyed point was that the craft, with its red and white rising sun markings and all, had seemingly popped right out of a tree top. One instant Dave had been staring at the top of the lush jungle stretch below him, and in the next he was looking at a Jap plane zooming up toward him at top climbing speed. It was incredible, it was nuts, and it was all cockeyed. But, nevertheless, it was fact. The Jap plane was coming up like a rocket off on a holiday.
"Dave! I'm not crazy, am I?" came Freddy Farmer's tight voice. "That is a Jap plane, isn't it?"
"Unless we're both crazy!" Dave replied and watched the Jap pilot swing out wide of them, and then curve back in toward their right wings. "But where in thunder he came from, don't ask, pal, don't ask! Jumping Messerschmitts! Will we have something to tell the boys ... if we ever get back!"
"You could have left off that last bit," Freddy grunted. "I don't want to even think about that. There! The lad is signalling, Dave! He's motioning for us to swing in behind him, and follow him down."
"Yeah!" Dave said with a nod. "This time I see it with my own eyes. That dirty brown rat! Boy, is it a temptation, Freddy!"
"What do you mean?" the English born R.A.F. ace demanded.
"That Jap," Dave said and went through the motion of depressing the electric trigger button on the stick. "Could I shoot the buck teeth out of him from here! And with both eyes shut, too! I...."
"Dave, don't be mad!" Freddy cried in alarm. "That would be a fine mess."
"Don't be dumb!" Dave shut him up and chuckled. "Do you think I am? I was onlythinkinghow good it would make me feel, that's all. Well, here we really start down, and from now on it's going to be miracles, as far as I'm concerned. They say a Jap is as good as a monkey in a tree. Maybe they've got planes that cling to branches like monkeys too. But, if so, it's going to be too bad for this babywe'rein!"
What happened in the next five minutes was actually not a series of miracles being revealed for the benefit of the thumping hearted and aching eyed R.A.F. aces in the Albacore. However, it might just as well have been. The nearer they glided to the earth in the wake of the Jap plane, the more and more they both became convinced that there wasn't a spot big enough for a fly to sit down in down there. However, when no more than eight hundred feet separated the belly of their plane from the ground the big "miracle" came to pass.
Actually, it was simply the truth registering in their amazement filled eyes. It was not all lush jungle down there. No, not all. They suddenly saw a half mile long, and two hundred foot wide strip of jungle that wasn't jungle at all. It onlylookedlike jungle. It was a cleared off section of ground with camouflage covering so cleverly painted that it all blended in perfectly with the surrounding lush green, rock studded landscape. The "strip" ran straight along the lip of a deep ravine, so that if there seemed to be any difference where the camouflage met the real thing, it would be taken as a line where the edge of the ravine dropped off.
Almost not daring to believe his eyes, Dave gingerly worked the Albacore around and down toward the southern end of the camouflage strip. The Jap plane was little more than a couple of hundred yards in front of him. And even as Dave turned the Albacore around on a line with the long side of the camouflage strip, the Jap plane touched earth and quickly taxied ahead until it virtually disappeared under the heavy jungle foliage at the far end.
Another fifteen seconds, or so, and Dave's wheels touched ground. For reasons of personal safety, and also to impress eyes that were unquestionably watching he made a sweet feather-on-velvet landing and let the plane truddle slowly forward to finally come to a full stop. But, no sooner had he stopped rolling than half a dozen Jap mechanics dashed out, and grabbed the wing tips, and motioned for him to taxi ahead. He shook his head, and pointed to the dead engine. One of the mechanics, who seemed to be in charge, turned his head and shrilled something toward the jungle growth in his native tongue. In practically nothing flat a dolly crew came streaking out. And in just about the same time the other mechanics hoisted up the tail of the Albacore, and the dolly was run under it. Chattering like magpies they caught hold of the dolly handle and dragged Dave and Freddy backwards off the camouflage strip and in under the shelter of the jungle trees. To Dave it was like being hauled backwards into the yawning entrance of a tunnel. One moment the brassy sun was glaring down on him, and in the next he was in semi-darkness and staring out through an opening at the sun flooded world.
The faint jar as the Albacore's tail was lifted out of the dolly trough and lowered none too gently to the ground, seemed to snap Dave out of his trance. He licked his lips, swallowed hard and took a good look around. For a few seconds he didn't see anything but blurs because of the sudden change of light. But when they did focus and the blurs took on definite shapes and outlines, he came within a hair's breadth of letting out a wild yell of amazement. Even at that he did start violently, and his eyes popped out of their sockets like marbles on sticks.
What he saw was perhaps the most weird, grotesque, unbelievable sight he had ever seen since the day of his birth. True, he had seen the underground airdromes and hangars the Nazis had constructed along the Franco-German border, and he had seen the expertly camouflaged fields built by the German Luftwaffe on the burning sands of the Libyan desert. But this hidden field and array of nature made hangars were almost beyond the powers of even one's wildest imaginations. On three sides of him were row after row of Japanese military planes. They were of all types from the small Nakajima that had come up to lead him down to the giant long range Mitsubishi bombers. They were parked wing to wing, with a small plane between each two big ones, so that there didn't have to be any reshifting around when the time came for them to take off. One by one they would go shooting down the jungle tunnel to flat open ground, and then up into the air ... like a string of beads coming undone, or a row of stitches being pulled put.
But there was much more to the scene than just the row after row of parked planes. Much more. Included also was all the mobile equipment needed to service the craft, and keep them in constant perfect condition. There were also great piles of bombs, and small mountains of cans filled with high test gas and oil. There were jungle huts used for living quarters. Huts where meals were obtained. In a few words, that area of the Burma jungle covered an entire active service airdrome complete from cook stoves to death dealing winged chariots of war.
"Gott!Once I leave here I shall never believe that I have seen such a thing!"
The voice was that of Freddy Farmer speaking in German. It was a tip to Dave to remember the part he played, but it was also a truly felt belief of the English youth. He had slipped out of his 'chute and safety belt harness, and was standing up in his pit and looking around out of eyes that had widened as large as dinner plates.
"And I agree with you, my comrade!" Dave exclaimed hastily in the same tongue to let Freddy know he was on his guard. "I can hardly wait to tellDer Fuehrerwhat a wonderful thing we have seen with our own eyes. It is indeed a great tribute to the cleverness of our brave and loyal allies!"
As Dave spoke the words he looked down at the group of buck toothed, wide grinning brown faces about the plane. Instinct told him that a couple of them understood German, but he acted as though he believed it an unknown foreign tongue to them.
"We come from Serrangi, of Singapore!" he boomed out. "It is to be our great honor to report to General Kashomia. Does one of you speak German, and can escort us to his exalted presence?"
A squat, chunky Jap, who make Dave think of a fire hydrant with a face, pushed close to the side of the plane, beamed and bobbed his shaven head up and down.
"Whoever comes from Serrangi, is always expected," the man said in perfect German. "Permit me to introduce myself. I am Captain Kito. It will be my honor to escort you to where General Kashomia waits. Will you be so pleased as to descend from your plane?"
It wasn't until he had climbed down and was facing the Jap that Dave realized the man carried a helmet and goggles in his hand. Undoubtedly the man was the pilot of the pursuit plane that had come up to lead him down. The little Jap stood stiff as a post, then bowed from the waist at the two new arrivals like a mechanical doll. Then, whirling, he spat out something at the others grouped about. They instantly split and fell back to form a pathway. The Jap looked back at Dave and Freddy and showed his buck teeth in a broad smile, then started forward rapidly for all the world like a little brown terrier on the end of a leash.
The way led past the rows of planes, and stores of fuel and bombs, to the jungle huts on the far side. There was a clearing in front of the huts and several Japanese pilots were lounging about, taking things easy. They flashed quick glances at Dave and Freddy, but what they saw apparently didn't interest them much, for they all immediately resumed whatever they were doing. Perhaps visitors to this secret airdrome were common to them. Or perhaps it was part of their training to show no interest in anything save the knifing of a man in the back. Preferably one who had been their friend!
The squat Jap pilot finally came to a stop in front of the largest of the huts. It was constructed mostly of bamboo, and on stilts that allowed a three foot clearance between the floor and the soft spongy ground. Evidently General Kashomia was taking no chances with crawling jungle things, human or otherwise! The Jap paused before the hut, bowed reverently before it, then turned to Dave and Freddy.
"If you will please be so good as to ascend," he said, and gestured with his hand at the little bamboo ladder. "I will go and order that food and drink be prepared for you when you have completed your business with General Kashomia."
With a parting bob of his head the Jap pilot pivoted about and went off at his restless gait. Dave grinned at Freddy, then shrugged and started up the ladder. A few seconds later he was standing on solid plank flooring and facing three men who sat cross legged Japanese style about a table that wasn't over eighteen inches off the floor. Three pairs of brownish-black eyes stared at him expressionlessly, and unwaveringly. In an odd sort of way he was reminded of the nerve rasping moments when he and Freddy had first entered Serrangi's room in the Devil's Den. If there was any difference it was that the eyes of these three dressed in the battle uniforms of high ranking Japanese air force officers showed even less expression than had Serrangi's hypnotic eyes. The same hunch came to Dave that had come to him in Serrangi's place. He went ramrod stiff and flung up his right arm, fingers extended stiff and close together.
"Heil Hitler!" he shouted.
"Heil Hitler!" Freddy Farmer at his side echoed, only louder.
The Jap officer seated in the middle inclined his head slightly and made a little motion with one hand that was probably an acknowledgment of the greeting. There was nothing particularly military about it, however. Nor respectful, for that matter, and Dave had the sneaky feeling that the name of Adolf Hitler didn't cut such a terrible lot of ice with the Japs in this part of the world. They had business of their own to attend to that was thousands of miles removed from Berlin. Also, of late the Nazis were getting belted all over the place by the hard hitting Russians. They had come within thirty miles of Moscow to be stopped cold, and Hitler's boast to spend Christmas in the Kremlin was fast going right out the window.
"We come from Serrangi in Singapore," Dave finally said when the three Japs just continued to stare at them. "We come to give something to General Kashomia. You are General Kashomia?"
Dave looked questioningly at the middle Jap, and the man inclined his head again.
"I am General Kashomia," he said in flawless Berlin German, and extended a bony hand. "Give to me what you bring from Serrangi in Singapore."
A tiny almost indistinguishable spark of light had flickered up in the son of Nippon's eyes. But apart from that he gave the impression that he was no more interested in what Dave handed to him than he would be in last week's newspaper. He took the tight roll of paper that looked like a pencil and without a word handed it to the officer on his right. That man took a knife from his belt and deftly slit the outer wrapping its entire length and smoothed out flat the five or six sheets contained inside. As though he had peeled and prepared an orange for his master he handed the lot back to General Kashomia.
The high ranker accepted it just as blank faced and nonchalant as before. Then with a quick stiffening of his legs he rose up onto his feet.
"I will learn what Serrangi has to tell me," he said, and waved for Dave and Freddy to squat down. "Be seated and rest yourselves after your long journey. Averylong journey for the type of plane you flew."
Brown black eyes bored into Dave's as General Kashomia spoke the last. Then the Jap turned quickly and disappeared through a bamboo laced door at the rear. Dave and Freddy squatted down, looked at each other for a brief instant, and then gave their attention to the two remaining Jap officers. It was like giving their attention to the stone lions in front of the New York Public Library. The two Japs just squatted there and stared off into space as though nothing else existed. Dave stood the nerve racking silence for a moment, and then broke it.
"Doesn't your honored General Kashomia believe we come from Singapore?" he asked harshly.
Brown black eyes pivoted around in heavy lidded sockets to focus on him, but neither Jap uttered a sound. Presently one of them was apparently struck with the bright idea of hand signals. He pointed at Dave's mouth, then at his own ears, and shrugged to indicate he neither spoke nor understood the German tongue. Dave relaxed, then almost jumped up straight in the air as Freddy Farmer whispered hoarsely in his ear.
"The swine probably lies!" he said. "I'm sure he speaks our German tongue as well as we do. Yes! You and I will have much to report when we return to Berlin."
For a brief instant Dave thought that Freddy had gone nuts, but when he noticed that neither of the Japs so much as batted an eye, and caught Freddy Farmer's faint sigh of relief, he realized that the words had been spoken to catch the Japs off guard. To insult them and see whether they did understand German or not. But evidently they didn't for Freddy's swine insult sailed right over their shaven heads.
"Take it easy!" Dave breathed at Freddy. "The one in the next room understands us, you know. I don't feel very much like having my throat cut today. Don't get too smart with these fellows. They may be tough, too."
"I won't," the English youth grunted. "But all that business out there. It's unbelievable! It makes your blood run cold."
"Not mine," Dave murmured. "It was frozen stiff before we started. But.... Oh-oh!"
The bamboo laced door swung open and General Kashomia reappeared. He was as blank faced as ever save for two dull reddish spots of excitement on his cheeks. His step was quicker, too, and there was a ring in whatever he sing-songed at his two lesser ranks. They turned to him at once, their eyes lighted up, and they both vigorously bobbed their heads up and down and seemed to chant sounds of their native tongue. General Kashomia answered them, and they shut up. Then the senior officer squatted down in the middle and fixed his eyes on the two R.A.F. aces.
"My humble apologies for even thinking you could have come from elsewhere but Serrangi in Singapore," he said. "And the highest praise from myself and all my countrymen for so spectacular a flight. It is one I should not like to do in anything but a large plane. You are indeed a credit to the Luftwaffe."
"It was a small undertaking," Dave said with a boastful shrug. "Most any pilot and navigator in the Luftwaffe could have made it. I understand, then, that we have brought you good news, yes?"
The Jap general's lids contracted slightly, and the tiny gleam leaped into his eyes again.
"Serrangi always sends one good news," he said slowly. "That is why he is a wealthy man. There is one part that is not clear, however. The new location of Singapore Island's water supply. There has been a second underground reservoir constructed near Mandai?"
If it was a trick question meant to trap the boys, it fell flatter than yesterday's pancakes. Both Dave and Freddy shook their heads. And it was Freddy who answered the question ... truthfully.
"We know almost nothing of Singapore, General Kashomia," he said. "We have spent but one day and a night in the Singapore area. The good news that Serrangi gives to you, he did not give to us. It was but by a bit of good fortune that we were able to act as couriers."
If that news surprised General Kashomia he did not show it. However, his next words indicated that he wasn't getting all of the picture, yet.
"Strangers to Singapore?" he murmured. Then, "But not of course to Serrangi?"
"Yes!" Dave shot right back at him and got a little comfort and satisfaction out of the shadow of annoyed bewilderment that passed over the Jap's face.
"That is interesting," the son of Nippon said presently. "You will be good enough to explain, please? You are strangers to Singapore, and to Serrangi, also? Yet you fly here to where I wait, and place the means of a great military triumph in my hands? I have spent much time in Berlin, but I am afraid I shall never fully understand you Germans. The words you speak confuse me."
For a crazy second Dave was tempted to give the Jap a cockeyed story that would practically set him on his ear with perplexity. On second thought, though, he killed the urge. And for two very good reasons. One was because the Jap might have some means of checking his words, and, considering their immediate situation, it might not go so well for Freddy and himself to be caught in a lie. The second reason was because his eyes had become completely accustomed to the interior of the hut on stilts, and he was able to see the array of military maps hung on the walls. They included all sections of that part of the world, and although the Japanese paint brush notations meant nothing to him, a series of lines and arrows drawn on the maps had started his heart thumping against his ribs with suppressed excitement. Unless he was all wrong the maps definitely proved that here at Raja was the center of a Japanese spider's web of death and intrigue that reached far out in all directions.
And so Dave settled himself a bit more comfortably and told General Kashomia the same story he had told Serrangi. The Jap listened in stony faced silence right through to the end. When Dave finished he asked a few pointed questions, and appeared satisfied with the answers the two R.A.F. aces gave him. However, not because the blank expression on his face altered any. Simply because he shrugged and stopped asking questions.
"We Japanese have long admired your great Luftwaffe," the little brown son of Nippon finally said. "As you probably know, there have been Luftwaffe instructors in Japan for many years. They have taught us much, and the hour fast approaches when we shall prove we were good pupils. Yes, the news you bring me from Serrangi, in Singapore, makes our great hour approach at great speed."
The blank, inscrutable face lighted up with a seething inner flame for a brief instant, and the Jap's brown black eyes slid around to glance quickly at the array of maps. A pointed question hovered on the tip of Dave's lips, but before he could get it off Freddy Farmer spoke up.
"As we left Serrangi," the English youth said gravely, "there was mention of a request you might be so good as to grant us."
"Request?" the Jap echoed in a hissing voice, as his eyes fairly snapped around to Freddy's face. "Then you did make that wonderful flight ... for a price?"
It was a wonderful opening for a bit of play acting by Freddy, and the English youth was quick to take full advantage of the opportunity. He puffed out his chest, pulled in his chin, and glared at the Jap general.
"Everything we do, we do only for the great love we have for our Fuehrer, and our Fatherland!" he shouted. "The request that might be made has to do only with further service we might give to our glorious mutual cause."
"I humble myself before you," the Jap murmured and bowed low. "Your first words watered the seed of a different thought within me. I was mistaken. This request. What is it then?"
"Between his words," Freddy said slowly as the pounding of his own heart kept time with Dave's, "Serrangi hinted of great disaster to befall the British in Singapore. He whispered the suggestion that we beg of you the honor of taking part in the delivery of this great blow. His hints told us plainly that it would be a sight we would remember to our graves. Our Fuehrer has taught us to always be a soldier, and to always obey orders. We are here in Raja, so we are your soldiers, and your orders are orders we would obey even as though they came from the lips of our own Fuehrer. If you so order, we will not move one step from Raja. But it is my dearest wish, and that of my famous Luftwaffe comrade, here, that you do not give such an order. We pray and hope that our eyes, our hands, and our bodies may help you avenge at Singapore the Luftwaffe losses against the British Royal Air Force last winter. We took part in that air battle against the English and it would put joy in our hearts if you would permit us to help take the lives of ten British at Singapore for every one of our Luftwaffe friends we with our own eyes saw fall over Britain."
The speech was one of the best Dave had ever heard drop from Freddy Farmer's lips, and it was all he could do to look pleadingly at General Kashomia, and not leap to his feet and give his English pal a great big hand. Nor was Dave the only one impressed. The Jap general stared at Freddy with the faint light of pleased admiration in his eyes. He presently nodded his head and showed his big teeth in a broad smile so typical of the sly Japs.
"You have the power to move mountains with your voice," he said eventually. "And heartless, indeed, would I be not to give utmost consideration to your plea. I shall see that a few more pieces of silver are placed in Serrangi's hand for selecting you two for the great flight you have made. But Singapore is not everything of importance to us. True, we shall strike at Singapore, and in such a manner that its garrison of troops and pilots will have no opportunity to resist. However, I shall strike at other points, also. It is not our plan to take one place at a time. It is our plan to take all places at the same time. It is the war technique of your own Fuehrer, and it has as yet to be proved wrong. No, we shall not nibble at a spot until it gives away and crumbles. We will strike at many places at the same time."
"Gott!Those are words to warm my heart!" Dave cried, and leaned forward eagerly. "And you say, most honored General, that the hour fast approaches?"
The Jap seemed to swell up to the exploding point with indescribable pride and joy. He made some quick motions with his two hands, and although he cried the words out in flawless German his voice had the pitch of a buzz saw going through a sheet of tin.
"Tomorrow when the sun is in the east, the hour will have arrived!"
As the Japanese air force general's voice died away a tingling silence seemed to hang over the jungle hut like a blanket. Not a man in the place moved. Dave was sure that his own heart had stood still at the sound of the words. Tomorrow morning? Tomorrow morning the Japs were to unleash their dogs of war against an unsuspecting civilized world? Tomorrow, when the civilized world was doing everything possible to maintain the peace with the war lords of Nippon, the hordes and hordes of little brown rats were going to spring savagely at white men's throats? It seemed almost impossible to believe. It was like a dream. Little Japan was going to strike. Little Japan? But there was just another of the white man's mistakes down through the years. Looking upon the Land of the Rising Sun as little Japan. Little in size, yes. But the British Isles are little in size, too, from the standpoint of land area in square miles. Little Japan! That was the trouble. Little on the outside, and tremendously big on the inside. For years and years the Sons of Nippon had been getting ready, and all the time the rest of the worldknew it... anddid nothing. Japan would never strike in the Pacific! No? Well, there had once been the day when, as Germany prepared and prepared, government greybeards and has-beens scoffed at the idea Adolf Hitler would ever take his 1918 beaten country into war. No? Well, where was France today, and Poland, and Norway, and Holland, and all the other "free" countries? Bleeding to death under the crushing weight of the Nazi iron heel.LittleJapan? Nuts!
"Tomorrow at dawn?" Dave suddenly heard his own voice whispering hoarsely. "It is almost too good to be true. In Germany tomorrow Der Fuehrer will declare a national holiday in your honor, I am sure. Forgive me, but I cannot help but repeat the plea that my comrade and I be given a part, if only a small one."
"Your desire to fight with us, and perhaps die, makes you very eager," the Jap murmured. And an odd note in his voice caused little fingers of ice to grab at Dave's heart. In that moment he had the sudden throat drying conviction that he had displeased the Jap by his pressing insistence. He had the feeling, and the narrow eyed look he received indicated as much, that the Jap general was swaying just a little bit over on the suspicious side. However, when the little brown son of Nippon spoke again there was nothing in his words or in his voice to justify such a thought.
"But brave soldiers should always be eager to fight and die for their country, and their allies," he said. "And I would not be such a fool as to deny such men their right. You, of course, have heard much of the Burma Road. Through it our Chinese foes had been receiving supplies for many months ... for almost the whole four years of our war of freedom against them. The British did close the road for a few months, but it was just a token gesture to maintain Japan's friendship. And we were not fooled by their stupid gesture for a moment. So, if we smash the Burma Road, China's war effort will starve to death. Her millions will revolt against their war mongering leaders, and throw them to the dogs ... and from then on live in peace and happiness under Japanese rule. And so, it is...."
At that moment the entrance of the little Captain Kito who had come aloft to lead Dave and Freddy down to the secret field snapped shut the General's lips. The chunky pilot shot a swift look at the two R.A.F. aces and then jabbered in lightning speed in his own tongue at his superior officer. Watching the General, Dave saw the man's eyes narrow, and the flaming spark to appear in their depths once more. He saw also the man's claw-like fingers close slowly together as though a human neck were between them. When the pilot had finished there was a moment's silence. The Jap general looked at the two stone faced officers seated at his side and seemed to reach an agreement with them though neither of them uttered a sound. Then General Kashomia turned back to the pilot and sing-songed away for a solid minute. Dave hadn't any idea what it was all about, but he had the very strong hunch that the Jap general was plenty burned up about something and was issuing orders in no uncertain words.
A few seconds later the Jap pilot bowed from the waist and popped outside and down the bamboo ladder. General Kashomia turned his attention back to Dave and Freddy as though there had not been any interruption at all.
"And so," he repeated, "it is of first importance that we cut China's lifeline once and for all, but during the same hour that we strike elsewhere. However, there is a serious problem to be solved between now and our great hour tomorrow. For some weeks, now, a group of fools has been giving aid to the Chinese armies. I speak of what is known as the American Volunteer Group. The aid they are giving China is to patrol the air of the southern end of the Burma Road and attempt to prevent our bombers from reaching it. There are not many pilots in this group of American fools, but they are good pilots, and they have not as yet realized that their task is hopeless. Tomorrow at dawn they will realize the truth at last, but it will be too late, for they will all be dead."
General Kashomia paused and made a little sign of finality with his hand.
"However," he continued a moment later, "word has reached me that the Americans are being reenforced by British planes and pilots. I do not know their strength, but I know it cannot be great because the British have not many planes to spare out here in the Far East. They seem to be more worried about Libya and their own British Isles. Just the same, I do not wish to lose any more of my bombers than I can help tomorrow. The blow I strike at the Lashio end of the Burma Road must be swift and final so that those planes can leave and join the main aerial assault against Singapore, and other points of our attack. Turn your eyes, please, and look at that map, there."
The Jap general stopped talking and pointed a finger at the huge map of Burma, Thailand, and South China, that hung on the wall to his right. Dave and Freddy looked at it and struggled to still the booming of their hearts. In the few moments of silence that lasted within the hut, they heard the sound of aircraft engines being started up outside. Then General Kashomia went on talking.
"To the north of Lashio, on the China border," he said, "is the little village of Pidang. As the crow and the airplane fly it is not fifty miles from here. There in a flat valley, that a blind man could find, is located this squadron of American fools ... and the British who have arrived to help them. For a Japanese plane to fly close to that spot in the light of day would be but the pilot asking that he be sent to join his ancestors. But in a British plane it would all be very different. You would be able to see much, and learn much that I should like to know. Three hours at the most it would take you. And the information you bring me will count much in our success tomorrow."
The Jap stopped short and fixed his folded lid eyes on the two R.A.F. aces. Dave and Freddy returned the stare, and then Freddy broke the silence.
"It is your order, and it will be our joy to obey it!" he cried. "We will leave as soon as your men have fueled our plane, and it is again in working order."
"That is being done now," General Kashomia said quietly. "I knew before I made the request that it would be granted. Yes, at this very moment your plane is being repaired and made ready for flight. But there is time to rest and eat meanwhile. It will be best that you take-off so that your return will be made just before the light of day fades from the heavens. Come! I am sure that the food is waiting, as I am sure you are most eager to fill your stomachs, and quench your thirst."
The Jap senior officer made a sign with his hand and rose quickly up onto his feet. Dave and Freddy scrambled up onto their feet, and then followed the Jap outside, and down the bamboo ladder.
By the middle of that afternoon Dave's nerves were ready to scream aloud and fly off in little pieces. Ever since leaving General Kashomia's hut on stilts he had burned with a great desire to go into a huddle with Freddy Farmer. There was no longer any secret to the Japanese menace, now. At least not to Freddy Farmer, and him. They had heard the story of what was to happen tomorrow from Kashomia's lips. And what the Jap hadn't said, they had been able to guess from unnoticed looks at the maps hanging on the wall. It was to be an all-out air blitz by the Japan air force planned to wipe out Hongkong, Singapore, and the Burma Road all in one fell swoop. By the time the last Jap bomb had hurtled earthward the defenders of Hongkong, Singapore, and the Burma Road still wouldn't know what had hit them.
But the death dealing blow scheduled for tomorrow's sun was simply Dave's biggest worry. He had smaller worries as well, and not the least of them was General Kashomia's plan for them to scout the American Volunteer Group field north of Lashio. That item didn't set well at all, and little fingers of ice rippled up and down his spine whenever he thought of it, which was almost constantly. He had sensed a change in General Kashomia back there in the headquarters hut. It wasn't anything that he could put his finger on, but he knew it was there. The Jap had something up his sleeve, and Dave couldn't dispel the hunch that it was aimed at the life-blood of one Freddy Farmer and Dave Dawson. For Freddy and him to get aloft in the Fairey Albacore again was just too good to be true. And knowing what they did, now, made it seem even more improbable of ever coming to pass.
Yet, everything pointed to the fact that it was. With his own eyes he saw the Jap mechanics refueling the Albacore. And, as a matter of fact, he and Freddy made a minute examination of the plane to assure themselves that it was in good order. The inspection suggestion had been made by General Kashomia himself. But that was the point. That was the one thing that played on Dave's nerves like a rusty file hour after hour. Kashomia was with them every instant of the time. He ate with them, showed them about the secret drome, inspected the rows of Jap war planes with them, and helped them check over their own British made ship. And that was the rub. The Jap never once left their side so that either of them could so much as whisper a word to the other. For all they were able to talk over events to come they might just as well have been at opposite ends of the earth. Whether by accident, Jap courtesy, or devil's purpose, General Kashomia was right there all the time to hear every word that fell from their lips. And so, they had to be constantly on their guard not to let the wrong words drop, and keep them choked up within themselves until they felt that one more hour of the nerve rasping suspense would find them both jibbering monkeys, and stark raving mad.
However, they did not have to endure that one more hour. General Kashomia finally decided that it was a good time for them to leave, and escorted them over to where the Albacore waited with its nose pointed down the tunnel toward the camouflage strip and the open air.
"May your wings have the speed of lightning," he said in farewell. "Observe closely what is there at your objective, and let it be stamped well on your memories. Now, I go to pray to my ancestors that they grant your flight a successful one, and your return speedy."
With a half salute and a half queer little gesture that could mean most anything, General Kashomia turned around and walked rapidly away. Dave shot a thoughtful glance at his back, then shook himself out of his trance, and nodded at the Jap mechanics holding the wheel chock ropes. The little brown rats yanked the chocks clear and Dave fed Jap gas to the Bristol Taurus in the nose, and sent the Fairey Albacore roaring down the man made jungle tunnel. For perhaps two split seconds jungle growth flashed by on all four sides, then the plane shot out into almost blinding sunlight, cleared its wheel and went prop clawing upward.
The instant he was clear and headed toward Heaven, Dave made sure that his radio flap mike was disconnected, and then twisted around in the seat to look back at Freddy. The English youth was sitting like a figure of stone with a beet red face. A thousand million questions seemed to stick right out of the English born R.A.F. ace's face. Dave checked them by a warning gesture toward Freddy's flap mike and waited until the English youth had disconnected it. Then he grinned, tight lipped.
"I know all the questions you're bursting to pop, Freddy!" he shouted. "And my answer to all of them is that we're getting too darn close to being back of the eight ball. That runt sized Jap general is working to pull something very smooth. And it all started when that runt pilot busted in to spill the lingo at him. Check?"
"Of course!" Freddy cried as an agonized look flashed across his excitement and tension flushed face. "I may be all wet, but I think I know why. We pulled a terrible boner, Dave!"
"Gosh! Only one? What?"
"The fight with that Jap sub!" Freddy said with a groan. "I mean, not mentioning shooting."
"The scrap with the Jap sub?" Dave echoed in amazement. "Are you nuts? We'd have been dead ducks in nothing flat if we'd so much as breathed a word about that, you dope!"
"Not the fight with the sub, you balmy idiot!" Freddy roared back. "But we should have said that we were shot at getting away from Singapore. Instead we said thatnot a shot was fired at us! Look out there on the wing. They've even patched that sub's machine gun bullet holes. Don't you suppose they wonderedhowthose holes got there?Whywe didn't even mention being shot at?"
Dave looked out at the ten or twelve little grey fabric patches on the right lower wing, and swallowed hard. So that was why the Jap pilot had come busting in all steamed up. And that's why General Kashomia's face had showed rage for an instant, and why he had obviously barked orders to be carried out. That was the beginning of the change in Kashomia. That was when Dave had felt his hunch that Freddy and he had stuck their necks out just a little too far. That's when....
"That Jap Brass Hat beggar isn't sure of us at all, Dave!" Freddy's voice cut in on his thoughts. "He really doesn't want to know a blasted thing about that American Volunteer Group north of Lashio. This is some kind of a trick, Dave. I'm sure of it. I feel certain that he's sent us up to see if we'd head straight for Singapore. There can't be any two ways about that."
"But what's to stop us?" Dave called back. "My gosh, Freddy, you don'twantto fly toward this Pidang village, do you? The gas tanks are full, and we can make Singapore easy, and give the alarm."
"Hold it, Dave!" Freddy shouted as Dawson started to level off the climb and veer around toward the south. "Don't try it, yet. There's one thing I guess you didn't notice, or did you? Four of those Nakajima Ninety-Six single seater fighters took off awhile ago, and I don't see them in the air any place."
"So what?" Dave grunted with a scowl. "They probably went someplace else."
Angry annoyance flooded Freddy Farmer's face as he leaned well forward.
"Where's your brains, Dave?" he snapped. "Of course they did! And if you want to know what I think, they went south quite a bit to hang in the sky and wait to see ifwe go south, too. And if you don't think that Kashomia has powerful glasses on us right now, and is in radio contact with those Nakajimas, then you're completely out of your head. So for heaven's sake, let's at leaststartnorth toward Pidang!"
Dave gulped, blushed to the roots of his hair, and went through the motions of tipping his hat.
"Hail to you, brilliant one!" he said. "Your humble servant is truly one fat headed dope. Sure! You've got something there, and how, Freddy. If we head for Singapore we tip our hand. Kashomia realizes that we're phonies. He radioes his little boys, and the four of them drop down on us to.... Omigosh, Freddy! You are doggone right! That darn Jap rat has fixed us nice!"
"Done what?" the English youth echoed. "What are you talking about?"
Dave didn't reply. Instead he pointed at the empty ammunition boxes that fed his forward guns. They were all empty!
"Good Lord!" came Freddy Farmer's hoarse exclamation a moment later. "So are my guns back here, Dave. We haven't got a single bullet between us!"
"So we darn well do head north!" Dave said grimly and swung the Albacore around. "And maybe, please God, be able to slip around on a detour and slide by those four Nakajimas that are sure as shooting waiting for us between here and Singapore!"
"Amen!" Freddy Farmer murmured, stiff lipped.
The secret Jap drome hidden deep in the vast jungles of Burma was far behind the Albacore's tail. Still some fifteen or twenty miles ahead was the flat valley floor where the American Volunteer Group, helping to fight China's battle, was squadroned. Dave stared ahead hard for a moment but could see no sign of the flat valley yet. Turning around, he searched the skies with his eyes, but all he could see was eye smarting shimmering light of the burning brass ball in the heavens. Finally, he lowered his eyes, and looked at Freddy Farmer.
"I guess this had better be far enough in this direction," he said and jerked his head back toward the instrument board. "There's enough gas to make it, according to the gauges, but not much more. Do we swing to the east and cut down through Indo-China, or should we swing west and then down south that way? Either way it's going to be close. We.... Hey! Are webothdumb this time? What's wrong with the radio? How about contacting Air Vice Marshal Bostworth on the emergency wave-length, and code? The Japs might tune in, but we could at least get things started before they had time to all clear out of there, and.... What's the matter?"
"I didn't think it worth while telling you, Dave," the English youth said in a sorrowful voice. "But my tubes have been removed, and I fancy so have yours. We can't radio anybody, old fellow."
Dave twisted, whipped out his hand, and unsnapped the front of the instrument board radio panel and let it drop down. It was true! Every tube in his set had been removed. For a million dollars he couldn't have broadcast anything as far as the wing tips. For a long moment he glared at the sabotaged set, then he slammed the panel front shut, and squared his jaw.
"Okay!" he got out savagely and booted the Albacore around in a half dime turn toward the east. "We still go back to Singapore, and just let any bucktoothed, throat slitting sons of Nippon try and stop us!"
Brave, determined words ... and they were good for about two minutes only! At the end of two minutes Freddy Farmer suddenly let out a bellow of alarm and pounded a hand down on Dave's shoulder.
"Here they come!" he screamed. "The devils have been riding top ceiling all the time and watching us. Turning off our course was just what they were waiting for. Up there, Dave, to the left! And they're coming down like the blasted devils that they are!"
Dave whipped his eyes around and up just long enough to see a row of four darkish spots against the sun flooded heavens, then he turned his head forward, and kicked the Albacore up, over, and down in a wing screaming half roll. But even as the British plane started to drop the savage yammer of aerial machine gun fire smashed against his eardrums, and out the corners of his eyes he saw the wavy grey smoke of tracer bullets zipping past his wingtips. His heart froze solid in his chest, and the palms of his hands became filmed by a cold, clammy sweat, but there were raging flames of anger in his brain. Anger at himself, at Lady Luck, and at the little brown devils of Nippon.
He should have realized that things had been breaking too good to last. From the very instant Freddy and he had been shot off the Harkness' catapult, Lady Luck had favored them with her brightest smile at every turn. True they had eased into some close and ticklish corners, but they had managed with a bit of luck to ease right out of them again, and continue on toward their big destination ... the secret Jap airdrome, and knowledge of what the Japs planned to do tomorrow. Well, they had reached that secret airdrome, and they had learned of the Jap plans ... but, so what? Dead men can't talk. Dead men can't fly a mile. Dead men would only be buried if they ever did by a miracle reach Singapore. The breaks had stopped, and Lady Luck had turned her face the other way. Death was after them, now, to put an end to all they had accomplished thus far. Death in the form of four war inflamed, conquest crazed Japanese pilots hurtling down out of the brassy sky.
"But not so long as we keep flying! Not so long as we keep flying!"
From as though a thousand miles away Dave heard the echo of his own voice roaring above the yammering guns of the diving Japs. Let the confounded Japs have the guns. Sure, spot them a few guns. Freddy and he would beat them at their own game. There was but one hope. To outfly the Japs and somehow cut away from the rattling death they were dealing out. Given a fair lead the Albacore might be able to keep ahead of the Nakajimas. And with just the tiniest bit of a break....
Dave let the rest slide. Rather, metal messengers of death twanging down through the glass cockpit hatch to practically brush his left cheek caused the rest to clog in his throat. Slamming his strength against the controls he skidded the Albacore sharply off to the opposite side, and then pulled the nose up in a power zoom. For one brief instant wild hope flooded his heart. His trick maneuver had outfoxed the Jap pilots. Too late they tried to haul out of their own dives, but failed and were forced to go shooting on down by the zooming Albacore.
But that hope lived only for an infinitesimal period of time. It died almost as it was born, for not all four of the Nakajimas had piled all the way down. One had remained aloft, just in case. And Dave realized bitterly that its pilot had done exactly the right thing. His three brown rat pals having over shot their mark, he was now blasting down to nail the defenseless R.A.F. plane before it could scoot well off into the clear and build up a lead that could be held all the way to Singapore.
"Lord, if I only had guns!" came Freddy Farmer's rage filled cry above the thunder of the Albacore's engine. "I'd pick that blasted beggar off, even if I had to throw the guns at him. Outfly the rotter, Dave. Outfly him! You're better than a dozen of those brown devils."
It was a nice compliment but Dave hardly heard it. His body was drenched with nervous sweat, and his heart was a battering-ram trying to force its way right out through his ribs. Every instinct of self-preservation within him cried out to wheel away and dive again, but he knew better than to yield to such an instinct. It might spare his own life for a little bit longer, but it would surely spell doom for Freddy Farmer. If he wheeled the plane around he would present a perfect broadside target for the Jap, and Freddy wouldn't stand a chance in the world of surviving the withering fire that would instantly rake the Albacore.
And so, instead, Dave grimly held the Albacore in its power zoom. He sent it thundering straight up into the spitting guns of the Nakajima, until the Jap feared a head-on crash and lost his nerve and broke away. No sooner did the Jap maneuver off than Dave whipped off the top of his zoom, and banked around toward the north. The action brought a startled cry from Freddy Farmer.
"The other way, Dave!" the English youth cried frantically. "We're headed wrong. Singapore is the other way. It's to the south."
"I know our direction!" Dave snapped over his shoulder, and stuck the nose down a shade to pick up all the extra speed he could. "But we'd never make it to Singapore, Freddy. That last burst got the emergency tank feed line, and it's leaking dry. Also those three others would be up to cut us off. Pidang is our only hope, Freddy. We've got to reach that American Volunteer Group, and get them to help."
"Help?" Freddy echoed. "How in Heaven's name? They've only got single seaters in that crowd. Not bombers, Dave!"
"I know that, too!" Dave shouted. "But, they're Yanks. I've got a feeling that'll be the difference. But we've got to get there, anyway, and make a safe landing. Darn these Japs. Whoever said they didn't have anything with speed? Look at them come! Duck, Freddy boy! Keep the old head down!"
As Dave spoke the last he took one last look at the four Nakajimas that were coming after him at comet speed, then turned front and automatically hunched himself down low in the seat. The future was in the lap of the gods, now. Or, perhaps it would be better to say that the future lay in the thundering Bristol Taurus in the nose. If the Japs ever got close again it would be curtains. They had been fooled once, and it was mighty doubtful that they could be fooled again. They were out for blood; out to crush two brave R.A.F. aces valiantly fighting a desperate battle against almost insurmountable odds.
The future? Dave savagely closed his brain to the merest thought. It wasn't the future. It was the present! This very second a lucky burst from those guns yammering like sky wolves right behind the Albacore might snuff out Freddy's life and his own. Might send them hurling down in a ball of flame with the terrible secret of what was to happen tomorrow locked in their brains forever.
"To the left, Dave! To the left and just ahead! There's the flat valley. There's the A.V.G.s'. Base. Just a little bit longer, Dave. Just a little bit longer, and we'll be there!"
Dave heard Freddy Farmer's screaming voice as a distant echo. He had already spotted the small flat valley where nestled the little native village of Pidang, and where the famous American Volunteer Group was supposed to be located. But even as he stared at it hope seemed to die within him. There was not the single sign of a plane, or a hangar on the level floor between the rock studded mountains. Nothing but the cluster of native huts that represented Pidang. Still there must be something else there. There had to be the A.V.G. boys. There just had to be!
Hardly conscious that he was doing so, Dave shouted aloud the words over and over again. And he shoved the nose down to an even steeper angle of dive in a desperate effort to gain an extra foot or so on the gun snarling Nakajimas that were drawing closer and closer for a cold meat kill. If he could only get down and land before they got close enough, maybe Freddy and he could....
He never finished the rest of the thought. At that instant hissing nickel jacketed lead sliced into the cockpit, and a white hot spear of flame ran across the top of his left shoulder. Too late! The Japs had caught up well within range. The next burst would be one that really counted. But in that split second of time before the next burst left the muzzles of Jap guns, Dave put every ounce of his flying skill and daring into savage, furious action. Without so much as a yell of warning to Freddy, he yanked the stick all the way back into his belly and snapped the nose upward so fast that the fuselage seemed to actually bend in the middle and groan in protest against the terrific strain. But that aircraft was English built, and she stayed together. Like a bolt of lightning the plane streaked upward on the first half of a gigantic loop. But before Dave reached the top of the loop he sent the Albacore corkscrewing over to a rightside up position. A half roll off the up side of a loop that brought him out flying in the same direction.
But for only the length of time it would take you to bat an eyelash. Heaving the stick over and kicking rudder, Dave deliberately half rolled again and went plunging down at the vertical. Not until that instant did he release the air clamped in his lungs that seemed to have been locked there for long, long minutes. And he did so with a wild, roaring challenge at the cluster of four Nakajimas starting to zoom up after him.
"Who gives air, you brown rats?" he bellowed. "You or us?"
To the credit of the Japs it must be said that they stuck it out for perhaps one tenth of a second. Then in the face of the flying madman hurtling straight down at them they broke and cut wildly off to the side. One Jap, however, picked the wrong side. One of his own planes was too close to permit room for the frantic maneuver. Two Nakajimas crashed together, locked wings about each other, and exploded in a great fountain of flame. In the nick of time Dave kicked rudder hard and skidded out just barely enough to miss the mass of flaming debris and plunge on down by.
"No guns, huh?" his echo roared back at him. "Brother! We don't need guns!"
Curiosity fought with him to twist around and look back up at the sky, but he held himself in an iron grip and kept right on plunging downward. Two Japs were out of the picture, that was true. But two more still remained. And to look back to see where they were would be only wasting precious seconds. If they were close again, then that would be that. Looking back up into their flame spitting guns would only do harm and no good. It....
"We'll make it, Dave!" Freddy Farmer's joy sobbing voice came to his ears. "We'll make it! You left the two other beggars fanning thin air. They haven't even started down, yet.We'll make it!"
Dave didn't give a single sign that he had heard. He was too busy with the diving plane. And the ground was rushing upward at terrific speed. Bracing himself he eased up the nose a few degrees, and gently angled around until he was headed toward the long side of the level floor of the valley. He saw figures rush out into the open, but he had only time for a quick glance, and could not tell whether they were natives or not. Then suddenly he had the plane mushing forward not three feet off the ground. Another moment and the wheels touched, and the Albacore rolled forward to a full stop. Not until that moment did Dave hear the bark of anti-aircraft guns. Not until that moment did he realize that anti-aircraft batteries located in the jungle growth that bordered the edge of the valley were hammering shrapnel up at two Jap pilots trying to get up the nerve to come down and strafe the field. As a matter of fact, even as he threw back his head and looked up he saw the two Nakajimas wheel and go streaking off to the south.
He lowered his gaze to see suddenly the group of sun bronzed American pilots at the side of his plane. One of them was tall and slightly grey, and wore the rank of colonel on his sun bleached shirt. Dave took one look at him, leaped to the ground, and rushed up to grab the man by the arm. Like a man who expects to die in the next five seconds and must get many words off his lips before he does, Dave babbled out the story, all in practically one breath.
"So we've got to smash that hidden drome!" he finished. "Those two Japs will give the alarm to Kashomia, and he may pull out with the whole works for some other place before R.A.F. bombers can get up here. Listen to me! I tell you we've got to do it ourselves. Your gang, and Farmer, and me!"
The Colonel commanding the A.V.G. had continually blinked in amazement as Dave poured out his story. But when Dave stopped talking the senior officer's eye grew cautious, and he stared hard at the two youths.
"That's quite a story," he grunted. "Maybe it's true, but maybe it isn't. You sound a little Yank, but how do I know, huh? And this wouldn't be the first time those slimy Japs had tried to lure us into a trap. About three hundred of their ships hidden down Raja way, you say? Listen, Mister, that's a lot of ships. I...."
Something seemed to snap in Dave's brain, and all went red before his eyes. He reached forward with his two hands, grabbed the Colonel by the shoulders and shook him savagely.
"Listen, you dumb witted fathead!" he ranted. "I don't care what you think I am, but what I told you is truth.God's truth.And by this time tomorrow, if you don't do something about it, the whole world will know that you shouldn't even be in charge of flying a kite. A Colonel, huh? You don't seem to have the brains of a private in the rear rank. For the love of God, believe me! But if you won't, you thick headed ape, then for Heaven's sake loan Freddy and me some ammo, and we'll go tackle it alone. Do you hear me?"
The Colonel had pushed Dave's hands free and had them pinned in his own. There was fire in his eyes, but he was grinning from ear to ear.
"You're Yank, right enough!" he said. "Only a Yank would climb a fellow's frame that way. Okay! We get going. There isn't a bomber in the place. But we've got Curtiss P-Forties, and explosive, and incendiary bullets, and.... Haul your crates out, gang! We're throwing a party for those brown devils. And if there's all those crates there, it's going to be some party. Come on! Shift it, you guys!Everybody!"
Just six minutes later by Dave's watch he was once more thundering through the sky over Burma. But this time he wasn't in the pit of a Fairey two seater Albacore. He was riding a lightning greased Curtiss P-40. And just off his right wing was Freddy Farmer riding the same kind of ship. Strung out behind were twenty-one pilots of the American Volunteer Group; every one of them spoiling for a fight and cursing his ship on to even greater speed.
Dave twisted his head around to look at them and his heart came near the bursting point so filled was it with pride and joy. He still loved the English boys of the R.A.F., and he always would, for he had lived and died with them for over two years now. But.... But there were Yanks back there, now. Fighting two fisted Yank eagles who didn't care how many of the Axis foe they had to fight, just so long as they could get into the fight.
"Yanks from the good old U.S.A.!" Dave whispered as he turned front. "Gee! I wonder if I'll ever again get the thrill I'm getting now. Those fellows are...."
He didn't finish. At that instant he saw the string of Jap fighters that came darting out from the hidden drome tunnel just east of Raja. They were all Nakajimas, and they started curving up and around the instant they hit open air. Dave let out a war-whoop and fired a short burst from his guns to attract the attention of the others. Then he stuck his nose down and went thundering earthward toward the first of those Nakajimas coming up to give battle. Two seconds later, just two seconds later and the Japs had two Nakajimas less. Dave's guns and Freddy's guns spoke at the same instant and two sons of Nippon went sailing off to meet their illustrious ancestors in an awful, awful hurry. And then, as though by magic, the whole sky over the hidden drome at Raja became filled with twisting and turning man-made air chariots of war. The heavens rocked and trembled with the chatter and yammer of machine gun fire. And the air became a crazy pattern of blazing Jap planes plunging down, and wavy ribbons of tracer smoke that formed a lace curtain in the sky.
Yelling and shouting at the top of his voice, Dave belted and hauled his ship all over the air. And when he wasn't pouring death into some Jap plane, he was hurtling down on the jungle airdrome and raking it from one end to the other with his explosive and incendiary bullets. Perhaps bombers could have done the job sooner, but they couldn't possibly have done it any more thoroughly. Jap after Jap tried to get off to come up at them, but Dawson, and Farmer, and the boys of the A.V.G. slammed them down into piles of raging flames almost before their wheels had cleared.
And then suddenly, a blazing Jap plunging to earth, or a burst of explosive, or incendiary bullets, found the fuel stores and bomb stores of the hidden drome. The air quivered as a great sea of flame came belching up out of the jungle floor. Then sound akin to that of giants tearing off the top of the world closed in on human ears from every side. Dave felt as though his head had been yanked clean off his neck; as though invisible fists had reached down from, heaven to smash sledge hammer blows against every square inch of his body. White fire was in his chest, and his left arm hung numb and lifeless at his side. He tried to cry out but he heard no sound from his lips. The roaring in his brain increased, and a red haze shrouded everything before his eyes.