“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.