  Two nights later they were all seated about the fire in the Hideout. Their new home was small but not too crowded for company. Young Lord Applegate and two of his flying buddies were there. Beside the Lord, whom Dave had met some days before, there was a flyer they had nicknamed Fiddlin’ Johnny. Johnny was slender, fair-haired and dreamy-eyed. “Just the sort that doesn’t seem to belong in the air,” Applegate had said to Dave. “But he’s got a real record. You’d be surprised.” “Give us a tune, Johnny,” Brand urged, as Alice’s tea warmed their souls. “Oh, all right!” Johnny rose awkwardly. “I’m not much of a fiddler, but anything to please.” After blowing on a strange little pipe, he tuned his violin, then was away to a good start. The moment his bow slid across the strings Cherry knew they were in for a rare treat. Paying little attention to his audience nor even to their applause, Johnny launched into a series of quaint, melodious, old tunes. Like a slow-flowing river he drifted from one to another and yet another. All unconscious of those about him, he played on and on. He appeared to play not for them but for the few birds lingering among bare branches of wind-lashed trees outside, or perhaps to the angels in heaven. “Oh!” Cherry breathed, when at last he returned his violin to its battered case. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She turned to the young Lord. “Why didn’t you bring him to one of our subway songfests?” “Johnny!” The young Lord laughed. “He’d never remember when to stop.” “Stop!” the girl exclaimed in her hoarse whisper. “Who would want him to stop? That—why that was divine.” “Oh! Thank you! Thank you!” Johnny’s face flushed. “He’s just the same when he’s in the air fighting,” said the young Lord. “Flies as if he were in a dream and never thinks to stop. He—” Suddenly he broke off. Someone had turned on the short-wave radio. It was low. Reaching over, he turned it louder. “Get an earful of this.” His lips were curled in scorn. The man on the radio was saying in fairly good English, “The quality of the British fighters is laughable.” “How do you mean?” a voice on the radio asked. “That’s Helmuth Wick, the boasting Hun,” the young Lord whispered. “They merely try to stay out of our reach, those English fighters,” said the boasting German pilot. “This shows that the best English pilots have already been shot down. They fire furiously but never hit anything. It must make them very annoyed.” “Well, thank you, Major Wick,” said the interviewer on the air. “That’s all we have had time for now. Nice to have had you with us.” “That broadcast is for America,” the young Lord explained. “It is nice they had him with them tonight. He won’t be with them long. We’re all after him. No one loves a boaster. Besides, he’s a dirty fighter.” “And does he boast!” The Lark put in. “Claims fifty planes shot down, or is it sixty. No matter. He’s head of a flight and sees to it that he stays ahead. One of his fighters always protects him from behind. If he sees one of our planes that’s shot up and wobbling, he just steps in and finishes them off. And that’s number forty-seven, or fifty-seven. Or what—” “We caught up with him once,” the young Lord laughed. “The Lark here downed the man who protected him from behind. I would have polished him off right then but I got a slug in my motor. Oil started spurting. So I had to make a crash landing. “Too bad, Johnny wasn’t with us,” he added with a good-natured laugh. “Johnny’d been up there fighting yet.” “I’ll be with you next time,” Fiddlin’ Johnny said, and he did not laugh. “Tomorrow,” he went on, “we’ll be up with the dawn. The O. C. told me that just before I left. Said we could go up in five formation.” “Who?” Dave sat up quick. “You’ll be in on it,” Johnny grinned. “You and Brand. Only the O. C. said we were to watch and see that you don’t do anything rash.” “You watch them! That’s a joke.” The Lark gave Johnny a slap on the shoulder. “All you can see when you’re in the air is crosses and swastikas.” “All the same,” the young Lord insisted, “Johnny’s one swell little fighter.” A half hour later they were gone, leaving Cherry to wonder how many of them would return, and how soon. At dawn five Spitfires left the landing field. They flew in formation, first the young Lord, then the Lark. After these came Dave and Brand. Fiddlin’ Johnny brought up the rear. It was a beautiful morning. Red still streaked the eastern sky. Did they see the sky? Perhaps Johnny did. He saw and heard everything that was beautiful. Dave did not see the sky. He saw only his instrument board, thought only of that which might be ahead. For they were the dawn patrol. And out of many a dawn, when the thin clouds were still red and gold, had come death. Dave shuddered at the thought but kept straight on his course. Of a sudden he caught the young Lord’s voice in the phone. It was high and cheerful as he shouted: “Enemy ahead. Let’s tap in.” ‘Tap in’, Dave knew meant ‘have a good time.’ Would they have a good time? Would they? He wondered. Then, as if he had taken a breath of pure oxygen, his spirits soared. Have a good time? Why not? This was a game. In this game one must have a good time or die. They were putting on speed. At first he did not see the enemy. Then he saw them all too well. Five Messerschmitts came zooming out of a thin cloud. The rising sun struck their wings and turned them to burnished silver. “Whoops!” shouted the Lark. “Up and at them, boys!” In a low, sober note the young Lord said, “Boys that’s the bragging Hun, Wick, or I’m a liar!” “Correct!” shouted the Lark. “His identical formation, V shape, one behind on his right, three behind on the left. In a scrap he’s safe. Perfect, I’d say for a hero.” Then in a roaring voice this red-headed pilot sang, “It’s a long way to Tipperary. It’s a long way to go.” Dave didn’t want to sing. Truth was, he could not have said a word. His tongue at that instant was glued to the roof of his mouth. Only the night before a veteran fighter had said to him, “Wick may be a coward. I wouldn’t doubt that. But he’s been a long time in the air. And that means just one thing, he knows how to pick brave men to do his fighting for him.” “Brave men,” Dave whispered as he clutched his ‘joy stick’ with a firmer grip. Then, through his radio headset, above the roar of motors, he caught a familiar sound. It was one of the tunes Fiddlin’ Johnny had played back there in the Hideout. It was “Londonderry Air.” Startled, as if expecting to see the strange boy fiddling as he flew, he glanced back. Johnny was in his place, all right, staring straight ahead. “Whistling!” Dave murmured. “How do they do it?” “Those Messerschmitts are looking for bombers, not fighters,” he told himself. “Haven’t seen us yet.” The young Lord barked an order into his receiver. “We’ll climb into the sun, then drop down upon them.” They climbed. They circled until the sun was at their backs. Then, with motors booming, they swept down upon the enemy. With a sudden burst of speed the Messerschmitts scattered. Two planes alone remained in formation. “That will be Wick and his bravest guard,” Dave told himself as a thrill coursed up his spine. He was all for the fight now. Gladly he would have followed that pair, but it had been agreed that in a case of this kind the flight leader and the Lark, most experienced men of the flight, should step in where danger called most loudly. With the hot blood of battle at last coursing in his veins, Dave went after a single, fleeing Messerschmitt. He was faster than the enemy. Now a mile lay between them, now a half mile, a quarter. The enemy darted this way, then that. “Trying to shake me off,” Dave muttered. He was thinking at that moment of their shattered home. He should have sweet revenge. He was all but upon the Messerschmitt. One more burst of speed. Now it was time to press the button. One thousand shots a minute! No! He’d better drop a little, to come up from below. Three hundred and fifty miles an hour. This was life. Suddenly the air was torn by the rip and rattle of machine-gun fire, not his fire but another’s. Slugs tore into his right wing. Gripping his emergency boost, he set his plane banking madly to the left. Forty seconds of this, then he let go that emergency lever. “Shots tore into his right wing” Standing on one wing, he executed a mad whirl, then righted himself. “What had happened?” As his eyes swept the sky he heard again that weird whistle, the Fiddler’s, doing “Londonderry Air.” Next instant he spotted the Whistler. Right on the tail of a plane, he was at that very instant gripping the firing button. Once again the sky was torn with the haunting rip-rip-rip that spelled death. What effect did the fiddler’s shots have upon the enemy? Dave was not to know, at least not for a long time. At that instant he caught sight of a Messerschmitt zooming up from behind and below his comrade. He watched with horror as a great burst of fire seemed to blot Fiddlin’ Johnny from the sky. One second the Messerschmitt was there. The next it was gone. With sinking heart Dave saw Fiddlin’ Johnny’s plane go into a spin, then spiral down, down until it was lost in a cloud. He listened. Save for the roar of his own motor, a muffled roar it was now, he caught no sound. The whistle was dead. But what of the whistler? Not until then did Dave become conscious of his own motor. He was losing altitude. His hand was brown with oil. His motor had been hit, perhaps more than once. Just when a Messerschmitt came zooming at him he slipped into a cloud. He was thinking hard and fast now. He was out of the fight, that was sure. Was he too far out over the ocean to make landing before his motor died? Where was land? A glance at his compass, a slow half-swing about, then he flew straight ahead. He was losing altitude faster now. In vain did he attempt to get more power from the motor. There was the sea, and there, seeming far, far away, was land. He’d never make it. A cold, calm sea lay beneath him. How long could one live in that water? He’d have a try. Unsnapping his safety belt, he waited. How long before his ship sank? Not long, he guessed. Then his eye caught something on the surface of the sea. A boat? Perhaps. Didn’t look quite like that. At least it was fairly large and it floated. Swinging half about, he went into a slow spiral, that would land him, he hoped, close to that mysterious, floating gray spot. It did. Leaping from his plane, he did a slow crawl, waiting to see if his plane would sink. Three minutes more and it was gone. Turning, he swam toward that floating thing. What was it? He could not tell. All he knew was that once he reached it he would escape from the bitter, biting chill of the sea. |
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