When the new dawn was but a faint streak low down in the east, the sound of a hundred airplane engines being kicked into life suddenly shattered the stillness of the surrounding countryside. The two boys lying flat on their stomachs side by side started violently, then looked at each other and grinned.

"This is almost it!" Dave whispered. "Let's start worming closer. We've got to grab a ship before anybody else gets in the air. Here in the grass, we could easily be spotted from the air."

"You're right!" Freddy whispered back. "And I'm sure whoever saw your uniform and my suit would jolly well land at once to find out what was what. Right-o. Forward we go."

Like two human snakes, the boys wiggled forward through the tall grass until they were but a few feet from the edge of the close cut, level flying field. Through the grass ahead they could see the row of Messerschmitt One-Nines, and One-Tens. And as luck would have it, a Messerschmitt One-Ten was the ship nearest them. It was not more than thirty yards away at the most. Dave nudged Freddy and pointed.

"Just what the doctor ordered!" he breathed. "A One-Ten with plenty of room for two. Hot dog! Hoped I'd get a crack at flying a One-Ten some day. Or do you want to do the flying?"

Freddy smiled and shook his head and touched the pocket of his jacket where he kept Pierre Deschaud's detailed report of the Nazi invasion plans.

"The least I can do in return," he said. "Besides, you spoke first. Look! The mechanics have checked the instruments, and are walking away!"

It was true. Mechanics were climbing down out of cockpits and walking along down the tarmac in groups. In a moment or so there wasn't a single man within seventy-five yards of the first Messerschmitt in the line. Dave gripped Freddy's arm, tried to speak, but couldn't get the words out of his throat for a second. Then they came in a muted rush.

"Okay! Let's go! Luck to us both, fellow!"

Quick as a flash, they shot up out of the grass and started running with every ounce of driving power in their legs. It was only some thirty yards to that One-Ten, but Dave felt as though he weren't covering more than a couple of inches of ground with every stride. A thousand torturing thoughts whipped through his brain, and with every stride he expected to hear the yammer and chatter of many machine guns blazing away at him.

Not a single shot was fired, though. And not a single voice cried out in wild alarm, as he reached the tail of the plane and dashed around it toward the long three-man cockpit. Then suddenly a German mechanic seemed to rise right up out of the ground. Obviously he had been making some delayed check on the plane and was only just starting to join his comrades down at the other end of the tarmac. As he saw Dave, blank amazement flashed across his moon-shaped face. Then his eyes seemed to crackle out fire, and his mouth flew open.

Decision and action were one with Dave Dawson. He dived forward the last step and lashed out his right fist, putting every ounce of his strength in the blow. Perhaps the mechanic tried to duck, but at any rate he didn't do it in time. Dave's driving fist caught him flush on the jaw. His head snapped back, his feet left the ground, and he did a beautiful backward somersault to crash down on the tarmac in a heap. Before the German had even hit, Dave was in the pilot's pit, reaching for the control stick and throttles.

He kicked off the wheel brakes with his foot and jerked his head around. Freddy was already in and grinning from ear to ear.

"The beggar will sleep for a week!" he cried. "Right-o! Give her the gun!"

As though Freddy's voice was some kind of a signal to the Germans about the field, shots suddenly rang out, and the air shivered with shouting angry voices. Dave shoved the throttles forward and the twin 1,150 hp. Daimler-Benz engines thundered up in a mighty song of power. The plane quivered and bucked for an instant, and then charged straight out across the dawn light-shadowed field. Machine guns and rifles were now cracking and banging away on all sides, and countless metallic wasps of death were hissing past the plane as it rocketed forward.

An instant later he heard the Messerschmitt's rear guns rattling away, and Freddy's wild shouts and bellows as he sprayed the Germans swarming across the field. Dave grinned, tight-lipped, eased back on the stick and lifted the One-Ten clear of the ground and upward toward the dawn sky.

"R.A.F. coming up!" he shouted, and jerked his head around for a second.

Freddy was still drilling away with his swivel gun in the rear cockpit and yelling at the top of his voice. Dave turned front, leveled off the climb and banked around toward the west and the English Channel. His heart sang a wild song of joy as the swift Messerschmitt One-Ten ripped along through the air. Victory was in sight, now. Death and danger had been defeated. In half an hour they would be over the English Channel. Another forty minutes or so and they would be well over English soil. Back to England! Back to England with complete information about the coming Nazi drive. Names, dates, places—everything that the Nazis planned. The number of troops to be used, the list of ports where invasion barges now waited to be sent out toward England under the cover of darkness. Everything! The whole works! And now the British could—

Dave didn't finish the thought. At that moment Freddy's fist banged down on his shoulder, and the English youth's voice shouted excitedly in his ear.

"To the right and up, Dave!" Freddy yelled. "Take a look! A swarm of Nazi planes trying to cut us off. The beggars back there must have radioed to units already in the air, telling them about us swiping a plane. Get everything you can out of this blasted bus!"

"And you get back to your guns!" Dave shouted, as he found the flock of some twenty-five or thirty dots high up to his left. "We're going to have trouble! Those birds have the altitude, and they can get the speed to cut in front of us by diving. Get set, Freddy! The final lap!"

Even as the last left Dave's lips, he saw the group of dots wheel toward the east and then go slanting downward. Impulsively he jammed his free hand against the already wide open throttles, as though he might be able to get additional revolutions of the thundering Daimler-Benz engines. And although he didn't have more than three thousand feet under his wings, he slanted his own nose down slightly to gain what extra speed he could.

His prophecy came true, however, regardless of his frantic efforts to skip away and out-fly that cluster of Nazi planes. Their diving speed was plenty for them to outstrip the One-Ten in the mad race for the Channel. And when Dave and Freddy roared out from the shore, the dots had changed into deadly Messerschmitt single seater One-Nine fighter planes. And they were now charging in at breakneck speed, their guns chattering out a mad song of hate and destruction.

Body braced, Dave kept the One-Ten tearing straight at the leading German plane, and pressed the gun button on the top of his joy stick. The four 7.9-mm. machine guns mounted in the nose of the One-Ten spat flame and sound. The plane rushing in seemed to crash up against an invisible brick wall. It went cartwheeling crazily off to the side, and then curved over and down into the Channel.

"Good lad!" came Freddy's voice faintly above the roar of the engines.

A split second later Freddy emphasized his words with the chatter of his rear gun. Out of the corner of his eye Dave saw a One-Nine swerve crazily and crash straight into another German ship before its pilot could pull out of the way. The two ships fell downward, leaving behind a long column of smoke and flame. Dave shouted words of praise, sliced past yet another One-Nine charging in and then hauled back on the stick. The One-Ten power zoomed wildly toward the sky.

The maneuver, however, was not so successful as Dave had hoped. There were more Messerschmitts up there, and they opened up with a withering fire. He kicked rudder and almost went into a complete "black-out" as the terrific turning force seemed to roll his eyeballs back into his brain. He straightened out slightly, slammed down in a quick dive and caught a One-Nine cold in his sights. He pressed the gun button on the stick, and German machine gun bullets put another German out of the war.

For every German those two boys dropped out of the sky, however, three more seemed to come streaking out of nowhere. They were all around the One-Ten, underneath it and above. Time ceased for Dave Dawson. Time stood still. He became a part of the plane he flew—a sort of mechanical pilot who had no time to think or consider the next move. Every touch of the stick or rudder was both instinctive and automatic. There was smoke and flame and hissing bullets all about him. White pain ripped into his side, but he hardly felt it. His One-Ten shook and shivered as burst after burst ripped into it. His heart was cold and his brain was frozen with the realization that it could not go on forever. The One-Ten was being constantly raked from prop to tail.

Then, suddenly, it happened!

A long burst crashed into his port engine. It coughed and sputtered and then passed out completely. Smoke belched out for an instant but there were no licking tongues of flame. It was the end, nevertheless. With only one engine Dave couldn't possibly hope to get away from the swarm of Messerschmitt One-Nines wheeling and darting about them. And in that horrible moment of realization he realized also that neither he nor Freddy wore parachutes.

He jerked his head around to yell at Freddy to hang on tight, but the words never left his lips. Rather, a cry of wild alarm came out instead. Freddy was slumped forward over his swivel gun. His eyes were closed, and there was blood trickling down from an ugly bullet crease along the left temple.

Dave took one quick glance, then jerked his head forward and shoved hard on the stick. The nose dropped, and the single engine started to haul the plane downward in a terrific dive. It took every ounce of Dave's strength on the left rudder to compensate for the useless port engine. With only one engine going, the plane fought savagely to veer off to the right and into a spin. But Dave somehow held it steady and went rocketing down through the swarm of One-Nines before their pilots realized what was happening.

And then, as he suddenly cast his gaze downward and to the north, his heart almost burst with joy. Cleaving the water southward was a British destroyer. Black smoke lay back over her aft deck, indicating her speed. And Dave could tell from the countless tongues of flame leaping up from her decks that her anti-aircraft "Pom-Pom" guns were blasting away at the sky full of German planes.

"Hold on, Freddy!" Dave got out through clenched teeth. "Don't die on me, pal. Everything's going to be jake. They haven't licked us by a darn sight. There's a destroyer down there, Freddy, a British destroyer. I'll crash in her path and make her pick us up. Hang onto everything, Freddy, old pal!"

Twenty seconds later Dave flopped the crippled One-Ten down into the waters of the English Channel. The jar flung him hard against the instrument panel, and for a brief moment all the stars in the heavens swirled and spun around in his brain. The instant his vision cleared, he stood up on the seat and waved both arms wildly at the destroyer rushing toward him. The Messerschmitt One-Nines tried to drop down and machine gun him murderously, but the destroyer's Pom-Poms kept them at a respectful altitude.

The destroyer swerved slightly and cut her speed down. In a few moments she had worked up close to the floating plane. Sailors on the low decks threw Dave a line. He caught hold of it somehow and made the end fast to the cowling brace. As the Pom-Poms continued to bark, the sailors pulled the plane close. Dave motioned one of them to jump down, and scrambled back to Freddy. Tears of joyful relief burned Dave's eyes when he found out that Freddy was still breathing. Two sailors took charge and hoisted Freddy aboard. White pain stabbed Dave's side as he scrambled aboard in turn, and he would have toppled over backwards if a sailor had not caught his arm.

"Easy does it, Fritz!" the sailor said.

"Fritz, nothing!" Dave gasped as the pain in his side started leaping up into his chest. "R.A.F. Where's your commander? I've got to see the commander at once! Get me the commander at once!"

A white blur appeared in front of Dave, and a voice said:

"I'm the commander of this craft! What's this all about?"

Dave clenched his teeth, staggered over to the two sailors who held Freddy, and took the plan paper from out of Freddy's pocket. He reeled back across the deck and grabbed hold of the railing for support. There was a thunderous roaring in his head, and red hot knives were cutting his body to pieces. He raised haze-filmed eyes to the destroyer commander's face, and held out the folded sheet of dirty paper.

"Think I'm about to pass out, so listen plenty close!" he said with a tremendous effort. "We're Pilot Officers Dawson and Farmer, R.A.F. Just escaped from Antwerp. Put into the nearest port. Radio Colonel Fraser to meet you. Reach Colonel Fraser at once. These are Nazi invasion plans. The—the whole works! Put—into nearest—port. Radio—Colonel Fraser—Chief—British Intelligence. Important—"

Dave knew that he was falling down into a great big black hole, but he was too far gone to do anything about it.

When he next opened his eyes, he was in a hospital bed and all wrapped around by three or four miles of bandages. At the foot of the bed stood Air Vice-Marshal Saunders, Colonel Fraser, and a major in medical uniform. He stared at their smiling faces for a moment, then turned and looked at the next bed. Freddy Farmer had at least one mile of bandage wrapped about his head, but he was sitting up and grinning from ear to ear.

"Going to sleep out the rest of the war, Dave?" he asked with a happy chuckle. "Man, is it good to see you come around! How do you feel?"

"I don't know, yet," Dave heard himself say. Then a little light seemed to flash on in his head, and memory came racing back. He turned and looked at Colonel Fraser. "The invasion attempt!" he gasped. "The plans Pierre Deschaud gave us! What—"

The Intelligence chief stopped him with a gesture of his hand and stepped around to the side of the bed.

"Everything's fine, my boy," he said in a soothing voice. "You just relax, and take it easy. You stopped a couple of bullets, you know. Take it easy and get your strength back."

"But the invasion attempt?" Dave insisted.

"Thanks to you two, there wasn't any," Colonel Fraser said with a smile. "We beat them to it and blasted the tar out of their invasion bases. Too bad you couldn't have seen it. Your pals shot down one hundred and eighty-five planes on the fifteenth. That was two days ago, by the way. It was a new R.A.F. record for a single day's bag of Goering's chaps. And that night the bombers made a mess of the invasion attempt, but before it was even attempted. So you see, there really wasn't any invasion attempt."

"But Hitler has jolly well been taught a thing or two," Air Vice-Marshal Saunders spoke up. "And it'll be a while before he thinks about trying it a second time. As the Colonel said: Thanks to you two lads, we beat them to it, and gave them a very bad trimming into the bargain, too. And it will help you to get back to active duty sooner, let me say that there'll be a decoration for you two for the wonderful job you've done."

Dave looked at Freddy, and as their eyes met an understanding passed between them. The smile on Freddy's lips faded, and he shook his head.

"You tell them why not, Dave," Freddy said.

"Eh?" Air Vice-Marshal Saunders grunted. "What's that?"

"We'd rather not be given decorations, sir," Dave said quietly. "The man who should get it, and really deserves it, is not here. He's Pierre Deschaud. He was the man who did the tough job, and—well, Freddy and I were just sort of messenger boys, you might say. Right, Freddy?"

"Absolutely!" Freddy said. "Satisfaction that we helped pull off the job is decoration enough for us."

Air Vice-Marshal Saunders looked at Colonel Fraser and smiled.

"I ask you," he murmured, "what chance has old Adolf got when he's up against chaps like these two?"

The End

[1] Dave Dawson at Dunkirk.