“Yes?” Stan bent and steadied him. He was afraid the Nazi would pass out before he spoke again.
“Arch Garret,” the Nazi said, then went limp in Stan’s arms.
Stan stared down in the gray face for a moment. His lips were drawn into a tight line and his eyes were blazing. Then he remembered his promise to the unconscious Nazi. Picking the man up he carried him to the stone fence which separated the field from the road.
An old car had halted and a man and a woman sat staring at the smoking Nazi plane and the trim Spitfire. When Stan appeared they started to get the old car into action.
“Wait!” Stan shouted.
The man recognized Stan’s uniform and a broad smile came to his lips. He halted the car and waited while Stan carried the wounded man to the roadside.
“Can you get him to a doctor at once?” he asked.
“Verra easy,” the man said.
“Take him to a doctor, then notify your authorities that you have a Nazi prisoner. You should get a handsome reward for such a prize. He is a pilot and pilots are valuable.”
The man and the woman began to talk at the same time. Stan loaded the wounded officer into the back seat and waved to the pair. Turning, he headed for his Spitfire.
Stan plugged the hole in his gas tank and warmed the Spitfire a bit, then rolled her to the far end of the field. There was some question as to whether he could make off the rough field, but he was in a terrible hurry and did not care to wait for help.
With a last careful survey of the grass runway he was off. The Spitfire rocked and dipped her wings and swayed drunkenly, but she lifted and cleared the stone fence. Now that he was in the air Stan had to decide what he should do about Arch Garret. As he circled for altitude, he tried to figure it out.
He had a hunch Garret was just a cog in a bad machine. He was the logical man to shove into the middle of things and the British were eagerly picking up overseas pilots. The Royal Air Force was well filled with Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and others from the empire at large. Garret was a Canadian citizen, even though he had spent his last few years in the United States. Now it was very clear why Moon Flight had missed the bombers until they had done their work of destruction.
The question was whether he should fly back and report—or whether he should call Wing Commander Farrell and have secret agents put on Garret’s trail. Garret would undoubtedly have an airtight alibi. And he certainly had backing that went high up. Stan might just make a fool out of himself. After all, the whole thing sounded like a tall story.
He finally decided to go on to the navy base and then send for Allison and O’Malley at once. They would believe him and help him. He would have a good crew of mechanics at the field to slap the Hawks together quickly and might be able to get them off in one day. Then there was one other thing that tipped the balance in favor of going on. This was pretty much a personal matter between himself and Arch Garret. This was the second time Garret had tried to wipe him out.
Heading north he drove along and did not see any more Heinkels. He was hailed by a scouting squadron from the fleet arm.
“Where to, Spitfire?” called a very English voice over the radio.
“Navy base. Shetlands,” Stan called back.
“Good luck and cheerio, Yank,” came back the English voice.
Stan grinned broadly. His western accent sure marked him well. He bored ahead, his eyes seeing far into the distance, his mind working upon the crooked plotting of Arch Garret.
He spotted the naval base and circled around to give the boys at the batteries a chance to see who he was, then set down and turned the Spitfire over to a ground crew. Taking his file of papers he headed for the commander’s quarters.
The commander was an affable man, ruddy-faced and square-jawed. He had heard about Stan and O’Malley’s attack upon the pocket battleship.
“I was so inquisitive about those ships I had them unloaded and uncovered. They are beauties, sir. But I can’t see what you’ll want with so much motor.”
“I’ll show you,” Stan promised. “Now I want to make a call back to London and then I want a squad of your best mechanics. I have to get these Hawks into action at once.”
“You will get all the help you can use,” the commander promised.
Stan got Wing Commander Farrell on the wire and talked to him. He did not report the brush with the Heinkel, though he would have to mention it in his written report. And he did not mention Arch Garret. When he asked that Allison and O’Malley be sent up at once, the O.C. hesitated.
“We have been having poor luck keeping the bombers out,” he said. “I’ll have to replace you three and add six more Spitfires, if I can get them.”
“I need them at once. The sooner you get them up here, the sooner we’ll be back to help you.”
“I have an old Defiant they can both pile into,” the O.C. finally said. “I’ll get them off tomorrow before daylight.”
Stan waited a few minutes, then put in a call for Allison. Presently the Britisher’s drawl came in over the wire clearly:
“What’s the matter, Yank, grounded in some cow pasture?”
“I landed in one but didn’t like it,” Stan said with a laugh. “I’m calling from the navy base.”
“What’s up?”
“Just this. I’m sending for you fellows and you will get orders to leave just before daylight. Look out for clouds. Fly that old Defiant low and watch for Heinkels. And tonight, if there’s a raid, just you duck in the opposite direction from the way the Squadron Leader orders. I’ll spin you a yarn when you get up here. Keep mum but pass the word to the boys to follow you if there’s a raid.”
“Well, really, old man, you know O’Malley and I can keep still and we can get orders mixed up badly.”
“See you tomorrow.” Stan hung up.
That night Stan slept soundly. He was still snoring away when the bugler outside his window blew first call. The moment his eyes opened he tossed aside the blankets and jumped out of bed. He wolfed his breakfast and was out on the field and headed for the hangar where the three Hawks were taking flying shape.
Allison and O’Malley came in before nine o’clock. Allison was flying the ship. He smiled thinly at Stan as he climbed out.
“I brought her up here. When you mentioned Heinkels, O’Malley was for hunting in the clouds a bit.”
“I hated to waste a good trip,” O’Malley complained.
“The boys at the factory sent the Hawks out almost ready to fly. We’ll be in London tonight,” Stan said.
O’Malley’s eyes were on the three Hawks which had been rolled out into the sunshine in front of the hangar.
“’Twill be swell flyin’ a ship that hasn’t been all daubed up and smeared with messy paint,” he said.
“We’ll fly them in without camouflage,” Stan agreed.
Five minutes later O’Malley and Allison were helping with the Hawks. O’Malley was burning up to be off, but the fighters had to be carefully checked. As they worked Allison told Stan how they had been chased by three Messerschmitts.
“If you hadn’t warned us, and if we hadn’t decided to change our time of departure, we might have had plenty of trouble,” Allison said.
Stan came around from behind one of the Hawks. “I might as well tell you the whole yarn while the boys are tuning up the motors,” he said.
They sat on a bench in the sun while Stan told what had happened to him on his trip over. When he came to the part about making the Jerry talk, and name Garret, O’Malley leaped to his feet.
“Splinter me rudder!” he shouted. “I’m fer kitin’ back this minnit. Wait till I get me hands on that spalpeen!”
“No use to go off half-cocked,” Stan warned. “We need to catch Garret red-handed. I figure we’ll get a few real spies along with him. But we won’t be on schedule. Garret has a way of finding out what’s going on in the O.C.’s office. He will tip off the Nazis and they’ll be waiting to gang up on us.”
&n
bsp; “Sure, an’ that’s just what we want,” O’Malley broke in. “They gang up an’ we spatter the smithereens out of them.”
Stan shook his head, but he had to laugh, O’Malley looked so wild. “We’ll be doing much better service trapping Garret and his rats.”
“Stan is right, old fellow,” Allison said grimly.
“I want to know what you fellows think of our handling this just among ourselves? We can keep Garret from sidetracking Moon Flight when a raid comes over. And we can round up the snakes he’s working with at the same time.”
“How about tonight? Suppose the Jerries hit tonight?” Allison asked.
“We’ll get off early and be there for any raid. I’ll ask the naval commander not to report us out until midnight. That will throw Garret off,” Stan said.
“How soon can we hit the trail?” O’Malley asked.
“Two or three hours will have them in shape. You come with me and I’ll show you all you need to know about a Hawk to make her do things,” he said to Allison.
Stan and Allison headed toward the nearest ship. O’Malley stretched himself out in the sun and closed his eyes. He figured he already knew more about a Hawk than the Hendee aeronautical officials.
CHAPTER X
GROUND SLEUTHING
Three Hendee Hawks nosed out across the navy field and roared south. Stan’s ship formed the spearhead of a sharp V. O’Malley refused to keep still. He sang and talked about everything he could think of, which was a wide range of subjects. Allison held the right hand slot and said nothing. Stan held the big motor up ahead of him at a pace that would have ripped the pistons out of any other ship. He felt at home with the engine up in front of him instead of at his back.
The take-off had been later than he had planned, but with the terrific cruising speed the Hawks could maintain, they would reach London early. Dusk filled the earth below and the stars came out. Stan couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was need for speed. He could not drive that uneasiness out of his mind or bury it under other thoughts. He was sure Allison was as worried as he. O’Malley didn’t appear to have a worry at all.
Hours later they sighted London. They sighted it because of the thick muck of flaming shells and the searchlights knifing back and forth through the mass of bursting steel. The Jerries were at it again and seemed to have slipped inside the balloons and the ring of Ack-Ack guns.
“Looks like more of Garret’s dirty work,” Allison snarled.
“That sneakin’ spalpeen! Just let me cross his trail this night. He’ll find out what sixteen Brownings can do,” O’Malley rumbled.
“Don’t shoot him down,” Stan ordered grimly. “And keep your mouth shut about him.”
The three Hendee Hawks came roaring down upon the nice party the Jerries had planned. The Spitfires were up, but they were off their contact. Though they were now roaring back to give battle, they were too late to save the city from a terrible beating, unless the Hawks succeeded in breaking up the formation. Stan imagined he could hear the Stuka leader’s voice crackling in over the radio.
“Left wheel, dive bombers 6, 8, 10 attack positions 27, 39, 49.”
He knew such a command had been given because a mass of Stukas, marked clearly by the searchlights and the fires below, were swooping down. They were very low over the city, far below the Hawks.
“Peel off and go into action. Break the spearhead,” Stan snapped into his flap mike.
The Hawks peeled off and went down, O’Malley first, then Stan, and then Allison. The drone of their motors was terrific and their pilots were slapped back against their shock pads and held there. Down Stan went, straight for the leading Stuka. The bombers had not started peeling off so there was still time.
The leading Stuka never knew where the lightning came from. With a swastika backed by a red field in his windscreen, Stan pressed the gun button and sliced through the middle of the killer, breaking it into almost two separate parts.
The Hawk faded to the right and another Stuka rolled past him, unaware that death was dropping from the sky. Stan put her up 200 feet; and then, his motor screaming, he laid over and was upon the Stuka, his guns belching death. The bomber staggered and winged over, spilling men out of her hull like sacks out of a van.
Savagely, Stan rolled and twisted seeking another target. O’Malley had gotten into the formation first and he was taking it apart with a display of aerial gymnastics that made the Jerries forget anything but escape. Allison was cutting away far to the left and the carefully planned blitz was already a fearful rout, with death as the lot of most of the killers. Scattered, they zoomed and dived, seeking only to escape. As they went twisting out of their formations, low over the city, the cables of death claimed many victims.
Then the Spitfires of Moon Flight came roaring in from a wild chase to the east and the rout was complete. Within a few minutes the astonished gunners and the men at the lights below began to realize that somehow what had seemed certain to be a terrible luftwaffe had been turned into a victory. The Ack-Ack boys laid off. Then Moon Flight plus Red Flight bored upward to see how many Messerschmitts Herr Goering had sent along as fighter planes. The ME’s came cascading downward, eager to see their charges safely home. There was a flight of forty and another of fifty. They were met by three streaking silver planes that carried no dull paint and looked like commercial craft out for a spree. The three had out-climbed the Spitfires.
Stan swerved to the right to give O’Malley room. He had outflown the Irishman and was grinning. O’Malley still had a few things to learn about a Hawk before he could get everything out of his big engine. He slashed into the formation with guns raking the descending ships. Past them he flashed and bored on into the darkness. When he got back into position again, the Spitfires had arrived and the Messerschmitts were scattering and ducking into the night.
“Calling the Hawks. Calling the Hawks,” Stan called.
“Sure, an’ it was a poor show,” O’Malley’s voice came in. “This colleen has the need of two big eyes to see where the spalpeens go when they run away.”
“This will be nice news for the Nazis to broadcast,” Allison called.
“Moon Flight, come in. Moon Flight, come in. Enemy dispersed.” The call was from the field below.
Then Garret’s voice broke in. “Squadron Leader of Moon Flight reporting. Enemy dispersed with many casualties. Two of our fighters left formation.”
“Bah,” Stan heard O’Malley growl.
They went down with the Spitfires and rolled into the floodlights. The O.C. was there and very much excited. Before Stan could reach the door of the briefing room Farrell had him.
“We watched the show, what we could see of it. Those Hawks were great. But how did you come to disregard my orders as to the hour of your leaving the naval base?”
Stan smiled. “Don’t you think it lucky we did, sir?”
“It was more than lucky. Many lives would have been lost and much damage done. I’m afraid we would have come in for some stiff criticism.” He shook his head. “Garret gets off slow, but this is the second time he has cleaned up.”
The O.C. hurried away, still shaking his head. Stan barged into the room and reported as a part of Moon Flight. The briefing officer hesitated about putting down the three Hawks.
“We have no planes of that type or name,” he complained.
“Step yerself out to the field an’ have a look,” O’Malley suggested.
Stan was watching Garret narrowly. The Squadron Leader was scowling bleakly as he moved up to the desk. He seemed in a great hurry. Stan kicked O’Malley on the shin and left without filling out a report. Allison stayed to make the regulation report in detail and to answer questions fired at him about the new ship. O’Malley failed to take Stan’s hint and stayed to have his say about the Hawks.
Stan hurried to his quarters and got out of his flying togs. He wasn’t officially on duty and he had a few things he wanted to do. He headed along the hallway, keeping out of sight. Ga
rret came in and he was almost running. He charged into his room and Stan heard him changing clothes. Suddenly there was no sound at all from the room and Stan slipped to the door. Garret was supposed to be on duty, ready to go up again in case another raid came over. He listened carefully, then tried the knob. The door was open and he looked into the room.
What Stan saw made him shove inside at once. Garret had vanished, but in his haste he had left a trail. One window was open. Stan saw clothes tossed about showing the haste with which he had changed. He leaped to the window and slipped out, letting himself to the ground.
As he pushed aside a thick bush near the wall he saw the street dimly. There was no one on it wearing a Royal Air Force uniform. The only person on the dark street was a man in civilian clothes. Stan stared hard for a moment, then sucked in his breath and started after the man, who was sauntering swiftly into the darkness.
At the first shaded light Stan realized that the man he was trailing was Garret, and that the officer was in a big hurry. He strode along, pausing now and then to peer back and to listen. Stan used the tactics he had learned in Colorado while hunting mule deer. He moved when Garret moved and stopped when Garret stopped. Sliding along noiselessly he shifted from one patch of black shadow to another.
Stan did not remember how many blocks they walked, but he knew where he was in a general way. When Garret ducked down a flight of narrow steps, Stan moved up and listened. The opening below was black dark. He heard a door open but saw no light. Then he heard a guttural voice challenging Garret. After that the door closed and there were no other sounds.
Stan listened for a full minute. As he stood there unmoving, a part of the black shadow along the wall, he considered the situation. He had left his gun in his room. He was unarmed and those below would have guns. A burning desire glowed within him, a desire to have a look at the men Garret was meeting. Carefully he felt his way down the stairs and located the door.
The knob turned soundlessly under pressure but the door was locked. Moving back up the stairs, Stan stood looking at the old house which rose above the basement where Garret had entered. The house was one of a row that had been hit by several demolition bombs. Most of the upper and the first story had been wrecked and the debris had not yet been cleared away. That was strange, because most of the other houses in the row had been damaged, too, but had been repaired.
A Yankee Flier with the R.A.F. (a yankee flier) Page 10