Freddy Farmer had not shouted a lie, nor had it been an attempt at a kidding wise-crack. Even as his words became lost in the roar of the Pegasus engine, the yammer of Rheinmettal-Borsigs, the German aerial machine gun, and Breda-Safats, the Italian aerial machine gun, filled the desert air. Out of the corner of his eye Dave saw tracer bullet smoke weave downward well clear of the Skua, and a tight grin of relief came to his lips.

The attacking planes had had the advantage of surprise, and they had been able to get in the first shots, but even with those two things in their favor the enemy pilots has missed badly. That made it instantly obvious that they were not seasoned air fighters.

"That's a small break for us, anyway," Dave grunted, and hauled the Skua up and around in a prop clawing climbing turn. "But there's still six of them, so this isn't going to be any waltz. Okay, Jerry, let this give you an idea you weren't invited!"

As the last left Dave's lips, he ruddered slightly to the left and pressed his trigger release button. His four Vickers guns cowled into the wing spat flame and sound, and a German Henschel, in the act of banking off to twist back and charge downward, was caught square in the burst of bullets. The Nazi craft seemed to jerk sideways for a split second. Then almost instantly it continued around and down—and kept right on going down, leaving behind a long trail of oily black smoke.

"And then there were five!" Freddy sang out. "Well done, Dave. Uh-uh! No you don't, my little Italian bambino! I've been waiting for you. Oh, very much so!"

Freddy Farmer's rear guns barked out their message of war, and one of the Italian Bredas was smacked on the wing like a clay pigeon. It acted as though it had been hit by a couple of battleship salvos instead of machine gun bullets. Or perhaps it was because the Italian pilot at the controls went a little bit crazy in his frantic efforts to yank his plane out of Freddy's deadly fire. At any rate the 870 hp. Gnome-Rhone fitted Italian Breda went spinning nose over rudder post across the sky. The violent maneuver was too much for the ship. The monoplane wings sheared off as though some invisible giant had slashed them off with a knife. Instantly the wingless fuselage pointed its nose downward and dropped like a bomb.

Freddy didn't wait to see if the pilot and gunner were able to bail out. The two other Henschels had swerved in close by then and were spraying the Skua with a shower of hissing bullets as Dave slammed the plane through a full roll and then took advantage of the British ship's superior speed and power and zoomed straight up at the vertical. The zoom maneuver completely threw the Henschel pilots off guard, and as the Skua rocketed upward Freddy swung his guns around and raked one of the Henschels from prop to tail. The German craft seemed to stop dead in midair. Then the starboard strut between the right bottom and top wings buckled in the middle as though hit with a sharp axe. A second later the two wings folded together. The plane lurched drunkenly off to that side and then slowly rolled over and down into a spin. That's the last either of the boys saw of it. There was still one Nazi and two Italian planes in the air, and the loss of the three other ships seemed to add to the savage fury of the attack of their pilots and gunners.

They slashed up toward the zooming Skua with all guns blazing. Dave and Freddy heard the nickel-jacketed bullets rip and chew their way into their plane. Twice the Skua seemed to falter, but each time it kept on going upward. Finally Dave shook his head and kicked the plane over and down out of its zoom and sent it corkscrewing off to the left.

"Can't shake those guys!" he shouted back at Freddy. "They must have hopped up their engines, or something. Anyway, they've got more speed and power than I figured. We've got to fight it out with them, Freddy. There's no chance to shake them off."

"Okay by me!" the English youth shouted back. "Just beginning to enjoy myself, anyway. Tell you what, Dave! Go after that German beggar. If we put him out of business I fancy those Italian lads won't hang around very long."

"Just the idea I had in mind!" Dave said with a nod. "Mussolini's pilots are tough on pigeons and maybe crows, but that's about all. Okay, there's the little Nazi. I'll smack him and force him to turn off. Then you give him the works as we go by. You know, the old team work!"

"Right you are!" Freddy cried, and crouched over his guns. "The old team work it'll be!"

Stepping hard on rudder, Dave sticked the Skua up on wing and hauled it around in a vertical bank to the right. The terrific speed of the turn caused his eyeballs to start to roll up backwards in their sockets, and for a split second or so he almost went blind, or had a "black-out," as the R.A.F. expression terms it. He eased off the speed of the turn, however, and the pinkish haze that was starting to film his eyes faded away until he could see clearly again.

"Hey, no more of that!" came Freddy's warning shout. "You'll have us blind as bats, maneuvering at such speed. Then we'll be easy pickings for those lads."

"Sorry, Freddy!" Dave sang out, and started to drop the nose. "Forgot for a second I had you along. Won't do it again."

"Be sure you don't!" Freddy cried. "Okay, Dave, let him have it! I'm all set for the finishing touches."

Dave didn't even hear the last. He had hunched forward and was giving every bit of his attention to the last Nazi Henschel biplane reconnaissance ship that was banking over and off the top of a power zoom. The instant it was square in his sights, he jabbed the trigger release button. He saw his tracers slice into the plane just in back of the B.M.W. 132 radial engine. Before he could rudder enough to bring the pilot's cockpit and the observer-gunner's cockpit into his sights, the German had wheeled to the left and down.

At perhaps a thousand other times that would have been the perfect maneuver for the German pilot to make. This time, however, was the exception. In fact, because of the Skua's terrific diving speed, the German pilot actually made the worst maneuver possible. Dave simply held the Skua in its thundering power dive and let Freddy Farmer do the rest. And the English youth was not asleep. He brought his guns to bear on the Henschel as they flashed by and practically cut the Nazi ship in two with his steady, relentless, furious fire. Flame shot out of the Henschel and leaped up toward the sky. A huge ball of smoke completely enveloped the plane. When the wind caught the smoke and blew it away, the Henschel just wasn't there any more. It was simply a shower of smouldering embers slithering down toward the blazing sands.

"I thought so, I thought so!" Freddy's wild cry came to Dave's ears. "There they go! And will you just look at those blasted beggars hop it! Three cheers for Mussolini and the Italian Air Force!"

Dave pulled the Skua out of its dive and twisted around to look in the direction of Freddy's pointed finger. What had been two Italian Breda Sixty-Fives a few moments before were now just two dots against the brassy Libyan sky, and becoming smaller and smaller as they moved swiftly toward the west. Even as Dave watched them, with a scornful grin of his lips, the two dots faded out of view completely.

"So now what?" he presently asked Freddy. "Do we head for the Tripoli area, or do we start drifting northward toward the nearest British outpost?"

The English youth didn't answer at once. He leaned forward and looked over Dave's shoulder at the instrument board. He frowned slightly and absently fingered the high speed aerial camera fitted to the right side of his cockpit and pointing downward through a port opening in the floor of the pit.

"I see that we've still another hour's flight in the petrol tanks," he said, looking at Dave. "Another hour before we have to head north for the Victory rendezvous. If you're asking me, I say let's head for Tripoli. Let's have a look along the coast, anyway. Hey! What the dickens are you chuckling at, you funny-looking ape?"

Dave wiped the grin off his face and looked surprised.

"Who, me?" he asked innocently.

"Yes, you!" Freddy said with a nod. "Out with it! What's so funny?"

Dave chuckled again and pointed at Freddy's hand still fingering the camera.

"You," he said. "What a guy! With maybe the fate of the entire Middle East hanging in the balance, all the lad can think of is taking pictures!"

"Rot!" the English youth exploded, but a faint flush seeped into his cheeks. "But, blast it, that's part of the job we're supposed to do, isn't it? And we both agreed that was our last chance, didn't we?"

"Okay, okay, little man!" Dave said, and raised a hand in token of surrender. "Keep your shirt on, and stop biting my head off. So help me, I'll find something for you to snap with your precious camera. I'll—"

Dave never finished the last. At that moment the Bristol Pegasus engine in the nose coughed and made a rasping sound that sent cold chills slicing up and down Dave's spine despite the burning glare of the desert sun. He locked eyes with Freddy for a brief instant and then twisted his head front and looked at the instrument board. The answer showed on the dial of the oil pressure gauge. The needle was swinging around the dial toward the zero mark like the floor indicator of an express elevator on the way down to street level.

"Well, I guess the blighters were darn good shots, at that," he heard Freddy comment as the engine coughed a couple of times more and then began to die out in a long metallic sigh.

An instant later it was as though an invisible little imp hiding under the engine cowling had stuck the end of a parted oil line through the instrument board into Dave's cockpit. A spurt of hot black liquid went streaming out and down past his legs. He jerked his legs aside in a flash, whipped off the ignition and yanked back the throttle in practically a continuation of the same movement. Then, as the oil ceased spurting back into the pit, he sticked the plane down into a long flat glide and turned to Freddy again.

"Can I let you off any place, sir?" he asked with a tight, forced grin on his lips.

Freddy blinked as though forcing back the tears of bitter defeat and failure that sprang to his eyes. Then he grinned weakly, and nodded.

"Why, yes, if you'll be so kind," he said. "On the deck of an aircraft carrier named Victory. You wouldn't mind?"

"I wouldn't mind a bit," Dave replied. "But these horses we have up front don't want to work any more. Seriously, Freddy, what do you think?"

"About what?" the English youth asked in an innocent tone.

Dave scowled at him.

"Cut it out!" he growled. "You know what I mean. Okay, if you won't talk, then I will. We've got to destroy this ship, haven't we? Okay. I say the heck with bailing out and dropping down with all the stuff we'll need down there in the desert. Also, it may be hard to fire the ship before we go over the side. Let's land the bus and take our time selecting the stuff we want to take on the tramp back to—"

Dave stopped short, swallowed hard, and cast a quick glance down at the vast expanse of desert sand waiting below to receive them.

"Stuff we need on the walk back to the nearest British outpost," he finally finished the sentence. "Well? What do you say?"

"The same thing," Freddy said, and made his lips smile. "Didn't you hear me? Besides, I never did like jumping by parachute. Scares the life out of me, you know."

Dave looked at the cool, calm expression in the English youth's eyes, and at the grim set of his jaws.

"Yeah," he murmured with a chuckle. "I just bet bailing out scares the pants off you. And probably eating an ice cream soda does the same thing, you old soldier. Okay, then, we'll take the bus downstairs and sit down on the sand."

The two boys smiled at each other, but each could see that there was no joy in the other's eyes. Instead there was a look of bitterness and helpless rage that neither could keep from showing through. The one thing they had feared most had come to pass. Their Skua wasn't of any more use to them now. They were on their way down into the middle of a desert wilderness. And after what. Nothing. They had accomplished nothing during the three hours and some odd minutes that had passed since taking off from the flight deck of the Victory. For all the good they had accomplished, for all the enemy information they had obtained, they might just as well have stayed aboard the carrier.

It was no use trying to dodge the truth. They had failed in their mission completely, and now they were on their way down to battle for their lives against the enemy desert and the enemy sun.

"Thumbs up, Freddy!" Dave suddenly said in a steady voice. "We're not admitting defeat yet—no, not by a darn sight."

"Certainly not!" the English youth echoed. "I've always wanted to see what it was like in the middle of a desert, anyway. So take me down, my good man. I want to stretch my legs."

Dave grinned and winked and then turned front and gave his attention to flying. He circled the ship around and headed it due north at a gliding angle that was just a degree or two above the stalling point. Safety lay to the north, and the farther he could stretch the plane's glide in that direction the less the number of miles Freddy and he would have to plod over the desert sands.

Holding the ship steady, he hunched forward in the seat and stared hard and long at the uninviting expanse of desert that stretched out on all sides toward the four horizons. Half a dozen times he thought he saw dark splotches down on the sand—dots and darkish shapes that might possibly mark the location of a village, or perhaps even an Axis (German-Italian) desert outpost. But when he tried to get a better look, the rays of the sun reflecting upward from the shimmering sand made his eyes smart and water, and everything to swim around in his gaze.

Inch by inch he eased the plane downward as slowly as he dared, and used every bit of his flying skill to stretch the glide as far northward as possible. No airplane, however, can remain aloft without the use of its engine, and the Skua's engine was dead for keeps. And so after a certain length of time the desert was only a few hundred feet beneath the wheels he had cranked down out of the wing. At that low altitude the desert ceased to be flat and smooth as a sheet of ice. Dave saw that it was very much ridged by sand dunes built up by desert storms. And he saw also that there actually was considerable shrubbery about. But of course it was desert growth, and so bleached and whitened by the hot rays of the sun and the drifting sand that the stuff blended in perfectly with the sand. Unless you were practically down in it, you could very easily miss it altogether.

"Okay, Freddy, hang onto your hat!" Dave shouted as he eased the plane up out of its gliding angle and prepared to sit down on the sand. "This is it. Here we go!"

"Fire away!" came the English youth's reply. "I'm hanging on!"

For a couple of split seconds the plane hung motionless in the air as though it were suddenly reluctant to settle. Then it sank down the few remaining feet, bounced lightly twice, and rolled forward to a gentle stop. Dave didn't have to bother about applying the wheel brakes. The wheels sank two or three inches into the sand, and that action served enough for brakes.

As soon as the plane came to a full stop, Dave and Freddy started gathering up what few things they had brought in the event of just such an emergency as this. They tossed their helmets onto the cockpit floor and put on the small but very useful army pith helmets. They wiggled out of their parachute harness, and fastened their precious water bottles to their belts. They made sure that they had taken out every bit of the compact emergency rations brought along, and checked to make sure that they had knives, compass, and their automatics.

Finally they had everything they needed. Dave started to leg down onto the sand, but suddenly dropped back in his seat and stared at Freddy out of miserable eyes.

"I once saw a man shoot a horse that had broken its leg," he said in a strained voice. "He was really and truly crying as he pulled the trigger. I was pretty young at the time, and I couldn't figure out why he'd shoot the horse if it made him feel so badly. I thought at the time he must be crazy, and I got scared pink and ran all the way home without stopping. I know now why he shot that horse, and—and I guess I sort of know, too, just how he felt."

Freddy swallowed and nodded silently. Dave impulsively reached out and touched the cockpit rim with his hand.

"Sort of like that horse, old girl," he mumbled in a low voice. "We can't leave you here to fall into enemy hands. So we've got to put you out of the way—yeah, sort of out of your misery, I guess you could call it. The desert, and the Nazis, would only do you harm, if they found you. So—so long."

"Let's get on with it, Dave," Freddy said after a moment's silence, and legged out onto the sand.

Five minutes later the Bristol-powered Blackburn Skua was an inferno of flame and black smoke that towered high up into the brassy desert sky. Dave and Freddy were many yards away, heading northward. Not once did either of them turn their heads to look back at the blazing plane that the fortunes of war had forced them to destroy and abandon.