It was just as Senior Lieutenant Petrovski had predicted. The night had no moon, and even the stars were blotted out by a five hundred foot thick layer of overcast. Pitch darkness engulfed everything in all directions. Dave Dawson couldn't see a single speck of light, save one. And that one bit of light, which was no more than a faint pale glow, was from the hooded single bulb on the instrument panel of the North American B-Twenty-Five medium bomber. Just enough light to let him read the automatic compass, and a couple of other essential instruments. However, apart from that bit of faint light, he might well have been in the middle of a throbbing, inky dark world. The throbbing was from the two Wright Cyclone engines that were driving the B-Twenty-Five up higher and higher into the night sky. Just half an hour before he had lifted the aircraft off the square field on the western edge of Urbakh. Major Saratov, and a few other Soviet officers, had been present to wish them all well, and Godspeed back. But Dave had not missed the look half hidden in the Russian Major's eyes. And spotting that look certainly hadn't added to the joy of the dangerous flight to be undertaken. In other words, it was quite evident that Major Saratov was inwardly bidding them a very permanent farewell. Should he ever meet them again, he would undoubtedly be the most surprised man in all of the Soviet. Whether the Russian girl officer of Soviet Intelligence, or Freddy Farmer, or Agent Jones, had noted that same look, Dawson didn't know. And, naturally, he hadn't tried to find out. If they had seen it, talking wouldn't help any. And if they hadn't, then what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Just the same, the little lumps of bouncing cold lead had returned to Dawson's stomach as he cleared the field and sent the B-Twenty-Five nosing upward. Now, though, the bouncing lumps of lead were all gone. No, not because courage and all the rest of that sort of thing had driven them away. It was simply because he had other things to think about, and he was too busy to check and recheck his personal feelings. Some eighteen thousand feet of air were between the bomber's belly and the earth, and the layer of overcast now below the aircraft blotted out the ground just as completely as another layer of overcast higher up blotted out the stars. The B-Twenty-Five was like some winged thing cutting through limitless unexplored space. In truth, those aboard had only one single contact with the world they had known. And that contact was Freddy Farmer, who plotted every foot of the bomber's travel, and knew exactly where they were every minute of the time. In fact, it seemed to be about every other minute that the English youth leaned forward from his navigating table and handed Dave a slip of paper on which was written course corrections, or data on a new course to be flown. And at such times Dave would snap on a tiny flashlight just long enough to read the directions, and then plunge the pilot's cockpit into pitch darkness again. Holding rigidly to the course directions that Freddy gave him, he kept his gaze fixed on the instrument panel, and tried to put everything out of his mind, save this particular job of flying. It was impossible to do that, of course. A million and one different thoughts jumped and leaped about inside his brain like so many caged up rabbits suddenly given their freedom. How soon before Freddy would give him the signal to cut the engines and start sliding down to a dead-stick landing on a piece of night-shrouded ground that he had never seen in his life before? What would be there if and when he landed the bomber? Would a chance Nazi patrol hear them, and would there be trouble? Would they be able to get away from the bomber in time? Would the tattered and torn Ukrainian peasant clothes that they all now wore be sufficient disguise? Would they be able to hide the plane? Or would they lose it, and be stranded on foot far behind the Nazi positions? Would this, and would that happen? And if so, what would be the best thing to do? And so forth, and so forth. On and on, as if beating time to the powerful throb of the Wright Cyclones. And then, suddenly, as Dawson's brain wound up tighter and tighter like a coiled spring, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and heard Freddy Farmer's quiet voice in his ears. "My job's finished, old thing," the English youth said. "Cut your engines, and start the glide. I've figured it as close as I possibly can, and I make it that we're ten miles from the spot. It's dead ahead, of course. But you're nose-on to a thirty mile wind. Adjust your glide angle accordingly." "Okay, my lad!" Dawson said with far more cheerfulness than he actually felt. "Have a comfortable seat, and watch us." "Think I'll man the tail gun, just in case," Freddy replied, with an encouraging squeeze of Dawson's shoulder. "And if it turns out to be the wrong spot, old thing, just let me know, what? I'll have another go at it." "Sure!" Dave chuckled. "That will be swell of you, pal. If we miss and land in the middle of a Nazi camp, that landing doesn't count, huh? And why shouldn't the Nazis give us a second try? Okay, son. Trot back to your guns, but don't shoot until you see the whites of somebody's eyes, for cat's sake!" "Quite! I understand perfectly," the English youth chuckled in reply. "And who has whites of eyes in this blasted coal mine, what? Well, luck, old thing. It's been a lovely airplane ride, you know." With another squeeze of Dawson's shoulder, Freddy Farmer melted away in the dark, and the Yank pilot set about his delicate and dangerous task. He killed the twin Cyclones completely, and the sudden silence had the weird effect of guns going off all about him. The sensation fled him in an instant, though, and he could hear the soft whispering song of the B-Twenty-Five's wings sliding down through the darkness. Gripping the controls with hands of steel, and keeping his eyes riveted on the instrument panel, he held the bomber at the correct glide, and practically lowered it earthward a foot at a time. Beside him, in the co-pilot's seat, was Senior Lieutenant Nasha Petrovski. Fact is, the girl had been seated there ever since the take-off. But not one word had passed her lips. It was as though she realized that this was something out of her field, and that the best way she could help was to maintain absolute silence until the aircraft was safely on the ground. And that was perfectly okay by Dawson. Not that he wouldn't have been glad to talk with the famous Russian girl. But simply because her silence helped him to forget that she was there. Three hundred and six Nazis dead by her trigger finger, or three thousand and six. It didn't matter. She was a girl, and this was the first time Dawson had piloted a plane through war skies with other than men aboard. It was certainly a new experience, and one, he was forced to admit to himself, he would have been just as well pleased to have somebody else experience. However, she was along, of course. And so that was that. Foot by foot Dawson took the B-Twenty-Five down toward the crest of the lower layer of overcast. Presently he thought he could make out its darker shadow just below. A glance at the altimeter told him that his eyes were not lying. In another moment he'd be going down through the stuff, and in a couple of moments after that he'd be below it and in clear night air. Then would begin the really ticklish part. Then he would see, or would not see, the dazzling white beams of Nazi searchlights groping about in the air. And then he would hear, or would not hear, the heart-chilling crump of exploding anti-aircraft shells. And then it would be, or would not be, the end of a very daring and crazy adventure. Then it— With a savage shake of his head he drove the tantalizing thoughts from his brain, licked his lips and hunched forward slightly over the controls. They were in the lower layer of overcast now. He could tell because the darkness seemed twice as profound as it had been a moment before. And then, suddenly, the B-Twenty-Five floated down out of the overcast and into clear night air. Dawson tore his gaze from the instrument panel, blinked hard as though to clear his vision, and strained his eyes ahead, and down. For a soul-torturing eternity he saw nothing but a carpet of unbroken black stretching far out in all directions. But little by little the carpet of black lost its unbroken appearance. It took on darker spots, and lighter spots, and landmarks on an aerial mosaic map re-photographed on his brain began to take shape and form. He spotted a couple of pin points of light to the left, and a long curving dark shadow. The curving shadow he knew was a stretch of woods on the east side of Urbakh. And the pin points of light he was certain came from the village itself. Then, as he saw a winding lighter shadow, his heart swelled with pride. Trust old Freddy Farmer! Old Freddy could guide you halfway around the world to a dime you had left in the middle of a desert. That winding lighter shadow was a tributary of the Don River. And when his eyes picked out the eastern and lower part of an S that the tributary formed, he would then be looking at the small, wood-bordered patch of flat ground where he would dead-stick land the bomber. Or at least he would be looking at a spot of wood-bordered flat ground that had been that when the Russian aerial photographs were taken. So tensed and keyed up was Dawson that when Senior Lieutenant Petrovski suddenly reached out and gripped his arm he almost let out a startled yell. He curbed it in time, however, so his own voice didn't drown out the words the Russian girl spoke. "There, a little to the left!" she called out. "You see it, Captain Dawson? Where the little river makes that turn to the right? That is the place." It took Dawson all of five seconds to pick out the spot, and when he did he silently saluted the Russian girl at his side. "Yes, I see it, Senior Lieutenant," he told her. Then to himself, "You and Freddy Farmer! Eagle eyes!" Perhaps it was a good thing that the Russian girl had spoken. At any rate, the tenseness and the tightness went out of Dawson. A cool calm settled over him, and it was though he were simply making an emergency night landing in some familiar place. But, of course, a night landing without the benefit of landing lights! Actually, though, it was going to be considerably more than just putting the B-Twenty-Five down on the ground. When his wheels finally touched, he must have enough forward speed to carry him as close to the bordering trees as possible. There would be no "dolly-tractor" to haul the bomber over the ground. And those aboard certainly didn't possess the strength to move the bomber around as you'd hoist up the tail of a pursuit ship and move it. And, of course, to start up the engines and taxi close to the bordering trees was definitely out of the question. Might just as well send the Nazis in the neighborhood a telegram that they were coming, and at what time. And so— The rambling thoughts in Dawson's brain slid off into oblivion. The darker shadow of the ground was directly beneath his cranked down wheels now. And dead ahead was the darker shadow, too, of the bordering trees at the far end of the field. It was now or never. Success, or a beautiful crack-up that would bring Nazis on the jump from miles around. Dawson swallowed impulsively, and in the last few split seconds of time allowed, every event, big and small, of his entire existence on earth seemed to flash across the screen of his brain. And then the wheels touched. The B-Twenty-Five tried to bounce back up a little into the air, but an expert had set it on the ground, and the twin tail came down to touch and cling to the earth also. Sweat was pouring off Dawson's face, but he didn't bother wiping it off so that it wouldn't run into his eyes. Like a statue of solid stone, he sat hunched in the seat, letting the bomber trundle forward, and keeping his gaze fixed on the dark shadow of trees ahead. It seemed as though a thousand years dragged by while that B-Twenty-Five rolled forward over the ground. But finally the bordering trees loomed up large and ominous just ahead of the nose. Dawson applied the wheel brakes, and the forward movement of the bomber slackened off considerably. And at the very last moment he took off the right wheel brake, but held the left steady so that the bomber pivoted around to that side, and finally stopped in a position where another half-turn was all that was needed for them to be able to use the entire length of the field for a take-off. "Well, Jap-knife me in the back if we didn't make it!" Dave gasped joyfully as the bomber's wheels made their last half-turn. "Here we are, anyway." "And accomplished by the ace of aces, Captain Dawson!" the Russian girl spoke up. "But there is no time for compliments now. There is work for all of us. We must hurry, so that when dawn comes there will be no sign to be seen from the air." "Huh?" Dawson grunted. "What was that, Senior Lieutenant?" "This aircraft!" she said with a startling sharpness in her voice. "We must cover it with branches and bushes, so that Nazi airmen will not see that it is here. Is that not so?" "That is absolutely correct!" Dawson replied instantly, and heaved up out of his seat. "And I am very glad that there is at least one brain in this outfit. My apologies for my dumbness, Senior Lieutenant. Let's go!" |