CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Eagles Come Through
Words, crazy, insane words poured from Dave Dawson's lips as he held the Messerschmitt 110 as steady as a rock and guided it forward at full throttle. Perhaps his actions were as crazy and insane as his words. For every German his guns sent spinning to the ground, two more seemed to come bounding out of nowhere with blazing sub-machine guns in their hands. The Messerschmitt 109 that was being rolled out to block his path loomed up larger and larger with every split second until it seemed to fill the entire desert valley almost directly in front of his prop.
Yes, perhaps crazy, perhaps insane, and perhaps totally and hopelessly mad. Dawson didn't have time to wonder about that, or to give it a single thought. The only thought he held in his swirling brain was that he had to get the Messerschmitt off and into clear air. If he didn't, all was doomed. And the point was that getting the aircraft into the air was but the beginning of things!
"Up, up with you! Come on! Get off, get off!"
Shouting the commands at the plane, he hauled back on the controls, held his breath, and shut his eyes, as though that would help a little. An eternity of suspense dragged by. At the speed he was traveling now, there wasn't a hope in the world that Freddy or he would survive a crash with that other German plane. It was now, or never. All, or nothing but instant death. With the fate of the entire civilized world hanging in the balance, was it life, or was it—
A mighty upward surge of the Messerschmitt caused Dawson's heart to swell with joy. He opened his eyes and instinctively ducked because his left wing and the nose of the Messerschmitt 109 seemed to be touching one another. But not quite, thank God, and the 110 went prop-clawing up close to the vertical. Prop-clawing upward as the withering fire of enraged vultures below spewed up after it.
"Made it, made it!" Dawson choked out, and instantly kicked the Messerschmitt over on wingtip and pulled it around in a screaming turn. "Freddy, we—"
He cut short his words as sudden memory of Freddy Farmer's wild yell came back to mind. It seemed as though he lived and died a hundred deaths in the time it took to turn his head and glance back at the rear cockpit. What he saw sent a flood of joy into his pounding heart. Freddy Farmer was still alive and kicking. And very much so, too. He had his rear guns swung around and down and was blazing away at the ground. One of his bursts of bullets had already nailed one of the Junkers 88's, and livid red flame was shooting upward from the giant aircraft.