Dave Dawson at Dunkirk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

  CHAPTER TEN

  _Trapped In War Skies!_

  Hugging the ground at the extreme end of the field wall, Dave and Freddystared at the German plane not thirty yards away. The idling propellerfilled the air with a purring sound that struck right to their heartsand sent the blood surging through their veins in wild excitement. Thefeeling of fatigue and body weariness had completely fled them, now. Thethrill of the dangerous adventure ahead filled them with a renewed senseof strength, and fired them with grim determination.

  Dave slowly rose up onto one knee like a track star on his mark at thestarting line. He cast a quick glance back over his shoulder at Freddy,and nodded.

  "Now!" he whispered sharply, and went streaking around the end of thefield wall.

  He reached the plane a dozen steps ahead of the English boy, andpractically leaped into the pilot's cockpit forward. No sooner was heseated and snapping the safety belt buckle than Freddy was scramblinginto the observer's cockpit.

  "I'm in!" he heard the English youth sing out.

  Shooting out a foot Dave kicked off the wheel brake release. Then hegrabbed hold of the "Dep" wheel control stick with his right hand andreached for the throttle with his left and gingerly eased it forward.The B.M.W. engine instantly started to roar up in a song of power. Daveopened the throttle more and pushed the Dep stick forward to get thetail up as the Arado started forward.

  "Hurry up, Dave!" came Freddy's wild yell above the roar of the engine."They've seen us! They're running out of the house. They're shooting atus with rifles, Dave!"

  Freddy could have saved his breath on the last. The sharp bark of riflefire came plainly to Dave's ears as he hunched forward over thecontrols. And almost in the same instant he heard the blood chillingwhine of nickel-jacketed lead messengers of death streaking past notvery high above his head. Impulsively he ducked lower in the pit, andshoved the throttle wide open. The plane was already bouncing over theground on its wheels, with the tail up, and then added gas fed to theengine caused the ship practically to leap forward like a high strungrace horse quitting the barrier.

  The sudden burst of speed flung Dave back in the seat, and for onehorrible instant his hands were almost torn from the Dep wheel, and hisfeet yanked free of the rudder pedals. He caught himself in the nick oftime, however, swerved the plane clear of a sudden dip in the surface ofthe field, and then gently hauled the Dep wheel back toward his stomach.

  For a long moment the wheels of the plane seemed to cling to the ground.Then they lifted clear and the Arado went nosing up toward the goldenwashed blue sky. Clamped air burst from Dave's lungs like an explodingshell. He coughed, and shook sweat from his face, and held the ship atthe correct angle of climb. The engine in the nose sang such a sweetsong of power that for a moment or so it was in tune with the song ofwild joy in Dave's heart. The Arado, as he had rightly guessed, was acinch to handle. It was light as a feather and responded instantly to atouch on the control wheel, or on the rudder pedals.

  As the plane climbed upward he twisted around in the seat and looked atFreddy. The English youth was staring down back at the field they hadjust left. Dave followed his look and saw the twenty or thirty figuresgarbed in German military uniforms on the field. At least half of themwere firing furiously with rifles. The others were shaking their fists,and making angry gestures for the plane to return and land. Dave grinnedand shook his head.

  "You can just bet we won't come back!" he shouted into the roar of theengine. "We're not _that_ crazy!"

  Freddy heard him and turned front. The English youth's eyes danced withexcitement. He grinned at Dave, and then suddenly seemed to remember thelittle scene last night after Dave had removed the screws from thewindow frame. He clasped both hands above his head and shook themvigorously. His lips moved, and Dave just barely heard the words.

  "Well done!"

  Dave returned the grin and then twisted around front. The dashinstruments, of course, were all marked in German, but he knew enough ofthat language to read them. The altimeter needle was quivering close tothe six thousand foot mark. He decided that was high enough and leveledoff the climb onto even keel. Then he took a moment or so to glance downat the ground below to try and get his bearings. The first thing he sawwas a small village off to his left. One look at it and his heart leapedover in his chest. He saw the hill and the single main street alongwhich trucks and armored cars and motorized units of artillery werepassing in a steady, endless stream. The town of Estalle? It seemed tobe almost directly under him. The truth made him shiver and lick hislower lip.

  If that was Estalle and he was positive it was, he and Freddy couldn'thave traveled more than eight or nine miles toward the north duringtheir wild flight last night. Maybe twice that number of miles goingaround in circles, but certainly not more than ten miles in thedirection they wanted to go.

  A rap on his shoulder turned him around in the seat. Freddy was pointingat the village of Estalle and pursing his lips in a silent whistle. Davegot the idea and nodded, and wiped make believe sweat from his foreheadwith his free hand. Then he turned front and glanced at the sun in aneffort to decide which direction was due west. Of course there was acompass on the instrument panel but something was obviously wrong withit. The needle was spinning around the balanced card dial.

  That fact didn't worry him in the slightest, though. He remembered a tipa First World War flying ace had once given him about finding yourdirection in Europe when you were lost and your compass was out ofwhack. It was very simple, too. In the morning, if you could see thesun, all you had to do was keep the sun on your tail and you would besure to be flying west. And so Dave applied the rudder until the sunwas mostly on his tail, and gave his attention to the spread of groundahead.

  What he saw made him suck air sharply into his lungs. Rather, it was acase of what he didn't see. The entire western horizon seemed to be onehuge cloud of dirty grey smoke streaked here and there with tongues oflivid red and orange and yellow flame. It was as though the whole ofBelgium was on fire. Closer to him was a long even-banked river that cutdown across the countryside from the northwest to the southeast. He wasstaring hard at it thinking it was a very peculiar looking river when hesuddenly felt Freddy hitting him on the shoulder again.

  "That's the famous Prince Albert Canal!" the English youth shouted abovethe roar of the engine. "It's very strongly fortified. A sort of BelgianMaginot Line. The Germans can't possibly have crossed it, yet. If we canjust get by there, Brussels is not very far off. We could land there."

  "Germans not crossing it?" Dave yelled and pointed. "Look down there tothe left. They're swarming across it like bees. Gee, there must be amillion pontoon bridges thrown across that canal. And, gosh, look at allthose Stuka dive bombers!"

  It was all too true. Hitler's relentlessly advancing forces had smashedthe Albert Canal defenses to smoking rubble, thus forcing the Belgianarmy to retreat to the south side of the Canal. And now as Germantroops, and their swiftly striking Panzer division were rushing acrosspontoon bridges to strike more blows at the Belgians, hundreds of Stukadive bombers were blasting death and destruction into the ranks of theenemy. The sight of it all made Dave's heart turn to ice in his chest.History, terrible History was being written down there by the AlbertCanal, and his heart was on fire with an even more blazing desire to dosomething for the cause of justice and civilization.

  But first he had another job to do, and he lifted his gaze and peered atthe smoke and flame filled sky ahead. Besides smoke and flame there werecountless numbers of planes streaking and darting around in alldirections. The air was practically filled with them. There was layerafter layer of planes reaching from low down over the battle groundsright up to the sun. And insofar as he could tell at the distance not asingle one of them was of Allied design. They were all German.

  At that moment Freddy pounded on his shoulder for the third time. Andthe voice that screamed in his ear rang with fright and alarm.

  "More speed, Dave! Look behind us. There's a plane, a Messerschmitt
. Ithink it's chasing us. They might even try to shoot us down. What'll wedo, Dave?"

  "What'll we do?" Dave echoed and glanced back at the sleek needle shapedplane with its low monoplane wing. "We'll keep on going. They may nottry to shoot at us. Once we get on the other side of the Canal, we'll besafe. We'll go down and land."

  But even as Dave spoke the words to give good cheer to Freddy his ownheart was pounding with fear. The other plane was drawing up on them asan express train overtakes a slow freight. He could see now that it wasa Messerschmitt One-Ten. A moment later he saw the gunner-observer inthe rear pit shove back his bullet proof glass cockpit hatch and standup and wave signals with both his arms. Those signals plainly said forthem to go down and land at once, but Dave pretended that he hadn'tseen. He rammed the palm of his free hand hard against the already wideopen throttle, as though if in so doing he might get increased speed outof the plane.

  It was no more than a futile gesture, however. In the matter of secondsthe Messerschmitt had pulled right up along side them. Dave turned andlooked across the air space that separated the two planes. His heartzoomed up his throat so fast it almost bumped up against his backteeth. The German observer was still sending signals to land, but notwith his arms and hands, now. He was doing it with the aerial machinegun fixed to the swivel mounting that circled the rim of his cockpit. Hewas pointing the gun at them and then tilting it down toward the groundas he nodded his helmeted head vigorously.

  Dave stared at the gun as though hypnotized. The blood pounded in histemples, and his whole body was on fire one instant and icy cold thenext. There was death staring straight at him, and he could hardly forcehis brain to think. He knew he couldn't just keep on flying. He had todo something or the German would open fire and turn their plane into ablazing inferno. On the other hand, his fighting heart refused tosurrender and go back and face the ugly wrath of that Colonel Stohl. Forthis Messerschmitt had unquestionably been sent out after them at theColonel's orders. Who knew? Perhaps Colonel Stohl had been the German hehad seen climb out of the observer's pit of this very Arado he was nowtrying to fly to safety behind the Belgian lines. It would have beenvery easy for the German to phone the nearest air field and have a planesent out after them.

  _Tac-a-tac-a-tac-a-tac!_

  Jetting tongues of flame leaped out from the muzzle of the machine gunin the other plane. The savage yammer sound smashed against Dave's earseven as he saw the wavy trails of tracer smoke cut across in front ofthe nose of his plane. The yammer of the gun snapped him into action andsent his eyes darting to the cowled nose of the Arado. His heart seemedto cry out when he saw that the plane carried no guns. On impulse hetwisted his head around to Freddy's pit, but there, too, disappointmentmocked him. The plane was not armed! It was probably just a courierplane used far behind the lines on safe missions only.

  As he looked into Freddy's eyes he saw reflected there his own bitterthoughts. They were completely at the mercy of that Messerschmitt flyingalong wing to wing with them. Unskilled and untrained though they werein aerial combat, it was heartrending not to be able to put up some kindof a battle for their lives.

  "It was a good try, Dave!" he heard Freddy call out. "But I guess it'sno use, now. The beggars have us on the spike for fair. There's nothingwe can do but go down and land, as they want us to."

  As though the German in the other plane had actually heard the Englishyouth's words, a second warning burst of shots rattled out to streakacross in front of the Arado's nose. Unconsciously Dave nodded his head,and reached out his hand to haul back the throttle. His hand froze inmid air, instead. At that moment he had glanced down at the ground belowand ahead. What he saw made fierce, frenzied determination explode inhis heart!

  They were almost directly over the Albert Canal. He could clearly seethe Belgian troops digging in on the south side, wheeling guns intoposition, and throwing out rear guard action units. Not a mile, not evena half mile from safety. It was too much for Dave. The fighting Americanspirit of Lexington and Concord flamed up in his chest. He wouldn't doit! He wouldn't give in without a try. He'd fool those Germans in theMesserschmitt One-Ten even if it was the last thing he ever did. Letthem try to shoot him down. Just let them try! There were German planesall around, now. And that fact alone was to his advantage. TheMesserschmitt gunner would have to take care not to hit one of his own.

  "Dave! He means it this time! We've got to turn back!"

  He heard Freddy's voice as though it came from a thousand miles away.But he didn't pay the slightest bit of attention. Didn't so much asshake his head. His whole body was cold and numb with fear of what hewas about to attempt. But in his brain there was but one thought; onegreat overwhelming determination of purpose.

  He whipped out his hand and eased back the throttle and let the nosedrop. At the same time he applied stick and rudder as though he wasgoing to send the plane around and down in a gliding turn that wouldtake them back east. As the plane started to turn he shot a quick sideglance at the Messerschmitt. His heart was ready to explode with joy.The German observer had seen the movement of the Arado and wronglyguessed its meaning! The man nodded his head, and let go of his gun andsank down on his seat.

  The instant Dave saw the German sink down on the seat he belted thethrottle wide open again and shoved the stick forward until the Aradowas prop howling down in an almost vertical dive.

  "Hold fast!" he shouted at Freddy without turning his head. "Theyhaven't got us yet, and they won't get us if I've got anything to sayabout it."

  Bracing himself against the speed of the dive, and keeping his mouthopen so that his eardrums would not snap and perhaps break, he heldhimself hunched forward over the controls, and fixed both eyes on theflame and smoke smeared ground below. The smoke and flames seemed toleap up toward him at rocket speed. Out of the corner of his eye hecaught flash glimpses of Stuka dive bombers cutting through the air atterrific speed. Then from up in back of him he heard the deadly chatterof German aerial machine guns.

  He didn't bother to look back to see if the Messerschmitt was on histail. That would be but a waste of effort. Instead he jammed hard on theleft rudder and sent the Arado swerving crazily off to the side. Theguns above him continued to hammer and snarl, but he heard no bulletssnicking past his ears. He could hear only the thunderous roar of hisown B.M.W. engine.

  Then suddenly the Prince Albert Canal flashed by under his nose and wasgone from view. He was safely across it and right over the Belgiantroops! However, it was simply a case of roaring out of one danger zoneinto another. He completely forgot he was flying a plane with Germanmarkings. Naturally, when the Belgian soldiers saw the Swastika paintedplane streaking down at them they let go at it with everything they had.

  Perhaps it was one of those freak things of war, or perhaps the godswere truly smiling upon Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer. At any rate nota single Belgian bullet hit the diving Arado, and a moment later Davehauled the ship out of its mad dive and went streaking along to the rearof the Belgian lines. But before he had traveled more than a couple ofmiles he once more heard the snarl of aerial machine gun fire behindhim. And this time there was more to it than just the sound!

  The Arado suddenly bucked and quivered as though it had been smashed bythe fist of some huge invisible giant of the skies. The vicious movementof the plane tore Dave's hands from the controls and flung him over sohard he cracked his head on the cockpit rim and saw stars for a briefinstant or so. Then as his senses cleared again and he grabbed hold ofthe controls once more, the engine in the nose coughed and sputtered andshot out a cloud of black smoke ... and died cold.

  Realization and action were one for Dave, and so the first thing he didwas to yank back the throttle and cut off the ignition. When that wasdone he shoved the nose down and peered hopefully at the ground no morethan five hundred feet below him. A groan of despair rose out of histhroat to spill off his lips. He couldn't see a smooth patch of grounddown there big enough for a fly to sit down on. True there were lots offields, but they were pock m
arked from one end to the other with shelland bomb craters. There was one spot where he might possibly landwithout crashing too badly. But crash he would. That was certain. Therewas nothing to do but try it ... and pray!

  "A crash coming, Freddy!" he yelled back over his shoulder. "Holdeverything, and hang on hard!"