A dozen of those fast single-seaters belonging to the Royal Air Force were standing in a line on the far end of Umm el Biyara. Their props were turning over, and they were facing into the wind. Men were climbing over the sides into the cockpits.
“They're coming after us, Shorty,” Bill said, and there was a ring of real anticipation in his voice.
“Good!” Shorty Said. He leaned over the side of the Snorter as the first of the little ships whipped into the air, followed by another and another.
“Stay up where you are,” Bill instructed. “Kestrel will send some bombers. He can break up this uprising before it gets really started.”
Bill whirled the master tuning control on his radio panel and chanted the call letters of the Ma'an airport into his microphone again. Suddenly he was aware that Shorty was flying in close to him, trying to signal with his arms and plane because his radio wave length had been tuned out. Bill twirled the wave-length control and barked Shorty's name.
“Look down below, Bill!” Shorty gasped: “They have Sandy spread eagled out on the top of Umm el Biyara. They must have tuned in our wave length and heard you say you were going to send for bombers. That's their answer.”
Bill's heart climbed up into his mouth as he grabbed at a pair of glasses and turned them on the figure stretched out on the ground five thousand feet below. He turned the glasses directly on Sandy's tortured face. Then he took them away as his stomach turned over from horror.
In that one glimpse he had seen that Sandy's face and head were battered and bloody. His arms and legs were spread out and pegged to the ground. His face was a twisted blotch of agony.
Cold perspiration popped out on Bill's face and his hand gripped the control column so tightly it seemed he might rip it from its socket.
“ All right, Shorty,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Those twelve single-seaters are above us now. They're in four V formations of three planes each. They're swinging back to attack. Remember what they did to Douglas!”
“I'll remember!” Shorty snarled, “We've got to get to Sandy, Bill!”
“We'll get him!” Bill said, so quietly Shorty could hardly hear the words.
XII-ATTACK
AS the twelve British ships completed their turn they broke the four V formations and formed two stepped-up columns of six planes in a line, each a little above and behind the one in front. Bill saw the leader rock his wings and knew the instant they were going to dive. He spoke into his microphone softly.
“The column on the left is yours,” he said to Shorty. “When they're five hundred feet away, dive under 'em and then chandelle back to get on their tails. Give 'em hell, fella!”
“Give 'em hell!” Shorty echoed. “One for Douglas, one for Red, and one for Sandy!”
Bill eased the control column back and sent the Lancer up into an abrupt climbing turn until it almost stalled; then he whipped the nose level and down again. For an instant he pushed his throttles all the way open. A gale whined and snarled over the cantilever wings and streamlined body of the Lancer as the silver plane plunged toward the stepped-up column of single-seaters below it.
Bill's fingers clamped down on his gun trips when he was only two hundred feet above and behind that straight column. His bullets tore into the last ship as it came under his telescopic sight. They drew a pencil line down the center of the fuselage until they reached the open cockpit. There they drove into the head of the man whose hand was wrapped around the controls.
He died before he knew what manner of thing had hit him. His ship skidded off to the left and stuck its nose downward. It dived into the earth with its wings folded back, like a gannet diving for a fish.
The next man in line threw one desperate look back over his shoulder and sideslipped his ship out of the way of Bill's deadly fire.
Bill caught the third one from the rear with his .37-mm cannon as he started a barrel roll. A great cloud of black smoke and orange flame took the place of the one-seater as the shells detonated on the engine block. Debris flew in a hundred different directions. There was no indication that a man had been at the controls as the smoke cleared away. He had become a part of the scattered debris.
The three leading ships in the column peeled off in three different directions. Bill saw one of the biplanes whirling toward the earth like a falling leaf as Shorty riddled it with bullets. Then he zoomed the Lancer up underneath one of the three ships that had broken formation.
For a split fraction of a second the lean fuselage came under his sights. His fingers clamped down on the triggers in the stick. His powerful .50-caliber bullet ripped the bottom out of the rugged little fighter. The pilot shot up in his seat as the bullets drove through his body. His arms sprawled over the cowling as the doomed ship fell into a spin.
“They asked for it!” Bill said to himself viciously. There was no mercy in his heart now. He knew these men had murder in their hearts. They had tried to live by violence, and they must die by violence.
He saw that the five remaining planes of the column Shorty had singled out they were forming a Lufberry circle around him. They were trying to tighten it up to get Shorty within the vortex of their concentrated fire. He smiled grimly as he saw Shorty whip his Snorter directly into the guns of one of them. But Shorty's bullets were writing death across the face of the enemy pilot before he could clamp down on his triggers. The plane fluttered out of the fight toward the earth below.
Bill kicked the Lancer around and picked off another of the four ships circling Shorty. He saw Shorty's hand come over his head with his thumbs sticking up.
Within a space of three minutes time they had shot six of the one-seaters out of the air. The other six were forming in two V formations of three each now. The leader was giving orders with tail wags and hand signals. They were spiraling up, seeming reluctant to return to the attack.
For an instant Bill studied the leader while he flipped his radio key. Then his gaze whipped toward the direction of Ma'an as the drone of twin-motored bombers came to his ears.
His face froze as he saw a route column of six giant bombers speeding toward him. Above the bombers was a squadron of eighteen British planes, identical to the ships he and Shorty had been fighting.
“Shorty!” he screamed into his microphone. “I'm going to land on Umm el Biyara again. You'll have to clear the way for me. Those bombers will go to work on the place. They don't know Sandy is spread-eagled out on the top. Attack those machine guns and ground guns while I land and get him!”
“You'll never get down, Bill!” Shorty shouted. “You can't use your guns. They'll tear you apart!”
“You'll have to hold them off,” Bill said. “Rake the south side with your guns. Get down to fifty feet. It's our only chance. Here I go! Get on my tail!”
Bill sat the Lancer down on the top of Umm el Biyara again in the face of that deadly concentrated fire. But it did not last for long.
Flying almost in the mouth of the machine guns on the ground, Shorty tore their crews to ribbons. Dead men piled up at the mouths of the entrances to the underground caverns. He stilled every gun while Bill brought his ship around and rolled across the plateau toward sandy.
Then he was over the side in two jumps, tearing at the pegs that held the helpless Sandy.
“You all right, kid?” he asked, his breath coming in quick gasps.
“Just a little dented around the edges, Bill.” Sandy managed to grin. “They — they —” His eyes closed as his head lolled back, and Bill knew that he had fainted.
Bill struggled desperately as he saw the big bombers nosing down to drop their horrible eggs. Then he had Sandy over his shoulder. He struggled up the side of the Lancer and dropped Sandy in the rear cockpit.
Half the world exploded beyond the far rim of Umm el Biyara as he gave the engines of the Lancer the gun. He raced the powerful ship across the plateau and dived it off the edge. For one horrible moment he could not bring the nose up. Down and down they plunged. Then his controls
caught and he eased the stick back.
As he spiraled upward the whole world seemed to explode. The top of Umm el Biyara became a shambles as the six bombers, in route column, laid their eggs.
Bill leveled off at five thousand feet with Shorty beside him. Far off to the west he saw the eighteen British planes in pursuit of the six enemy ships. He locked his controls and spoke to Shorty.
“Sandy's out cold,” he said.
“Is he badly hurt, Bill?” Shorty asked, his words clipped and anxious.
“He'll do,” Bill said. “I'm going to sit down on the airport at Ma'an. Our job is finished.”
THAT same evening, Wing Commander Kestrel, Bill Barnes, Shorty and Sandy sat in Kestrel's quarters. Away to the east the desert wind was moaning again. Now and again a camel bellowed a protest at the desert night.
“You've helped break the back of the revolt at the very beginning,” Kestrel said. “Serj el Said, the Arab leader, is dead. Four of our men paid the cost for treason, Hector by his own hand. The bribe offered them must have been high. It is hard to admit but true that a few scattered men in any country may become traitors. Most of the civilian fliers working for Serj el Said are dead. If we could only bring poor Douglas back I would be satisfied.”
They sat silent for a moment, listening to the soft sighing of the wind.
“If there is anything, any way I can show my gratitude to you, Barnes, anything I can do for you, I—-”
“Listen,” Sandy broke in, trying to grin through his bandages. “There is something you can do for me!”
“Name it, Sandy,” Kestrel said. “Get me an Arabian horse and ship it to Barnes Field,” Sandy said eagerly. “You killed mine when you bombed Umm el Biyara.”
“That's an order,” Kestrel said, “that will be carried out.”
“What in the world,” Bill asked, “will you do with a horse?”
“Do with him?” Sandy said. “What do you think I'll do with him? I'm going to use him to realize one of the ambitions of my life. I'm going to win the Kentucky Derby!”
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The Blood-Red Road to Petra Page 8