“Have you many of them, sir?” he asked.
“No. This ship is a test job.” The Wing Commander dropped the blue sheet. “Have you ever flown a Hendee Hawk?”
“Yes, sir.”
The question Stan expected to follow did not come. Wing Commander Farrell said nothing for more than a minute.
“Would you like to take this one? Into action?”
Stan restrained a smothering eagerness. He wanted to jump up and down and shout, to slap the Commander on the back. A lot of experts had turned thumbs down on the Hawk. But the saboteur boys had known she was the super-plane and had done everything they could to get her junked, including a nice frame-up on himself. He knew they had just about succeeded if there was only one ship here in Britain.
“I’ll fly her, sir,” he said and added eagerly, “she is the greatest combination of fighter and strafing plane ever built. She packs enough bombs to do real damage, as well.”
The Wing Commander smiled. “We shall see,” he said.
The way he said it convinced Stan it was up to him to show both the British and the Jerries just what the Hendee Hawk could do. If this ship failed, there would be no more of the machines he had worked so hard to help perfect.
“She carries two men,” Stan said.