Dave Dawson with the Eighth Air ForceBowen, Robert Sidney
General
Dave Dawson with the Eighth Air Force
Bowen, Robert Sidney
World War, 1939-1945 -- Juvenile fiction
Dawson had already spotted the blue-nosed Focke-Wulf One-Ninety, and
was kicking his Mustang that way. A split second later his guns, and
Freddy Farmer's, sang their song of concentrated destruction. This
particular Nazi plane didn't blow up, however. It simply lost a wing,
and what was left went screaming earthward like ten ton of brick in
high gear.
Neither Dawson nor Freddy Farmer took time out to watch their second
victim hurtle downward. If they had, the Grim Reaper would have tapped
them both on the shoulder right then and there. The remaining Nazi
pilots, infuriated by the loss of their leader and one of their vulture
comrades, veered toward the two zooming Mustangs and let go with
everything they had. That is, they started to do that little thing,
but that's about as far as they got. By then the other Mustang pilots
were up there with Dawson and Farmer, and when they opened up Nazi
planes started fluttering earthward like dried leaves in a stiff autumn
breeze.
Before the Nazis broke off the fight Dawson and Farmer had nailed one
more apiece. By then, though, dawn was coming up fast, and there was
no more time left to fool around. With a feeling of deep regret Dave
looked at a Nazi plane not over a quarter of a mile away, shook his
head, and waggled his wings to attract Freddy's attention. Young Farmer
saw him make the wash-out sign with his free hand, and nodded.
"Sure would like to wish you luck over the radio, kid," Dave whispered
as he shoved open his glass hatch, and knocked down the catch of his
safety harness. "But maybe it's best to keep mum, this time. No telling
who might be listening in on the ground. Just the same, pal, a million
in luck. A trillion, what I mean!"
With a faint nod for emphasis, and a wave of his hand at Freddy Farmer,
Dawson peered over the cockpit rim and carefully studied the shadowy
ground below. Recco plane photographs of the area were indelibly
stamped on his brain, so it did not take him more than half a minute to
spot the exact location of the factory where Freddy and he would touch
ground by parachute. As luck would have it, the spot was about a mile
off to his right, well on the eastern outskirts of the city, and the
drifting flak-burst smoke that still was in the sky told him that the
wind direction was just as he wanted it. That knowledge made his heart
pound with wild hope.
"Almost as if it had all been made to order!" he breathed softly. "For
once the elements are cooperating, and that, at least, is something.
Okay, here we go. And don't be far behind, Freddy!"
For a few seconds longer Dawson remained in the pit of his plane,
making doubly sure that he would take nothing American-made down with
him. From head to toe he was garbed in German uniform, and German
flying gear, with even the conventional German Luger automatic at his
belt. But rather than take chances he checked the contents of his
flying suit pockets, found all of them empty as a matter of fact, and
then took a deep breath.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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