Then suddenly the Prince Albert Canal flashed by under his nose and was gone from view. He was safely across it and right over the Belgian troops! However, it was simply a case of roaring out of one danger zone into another. He completely forgot he was flying a plane with German markings. Naturally, when the Belgian soldiers saw the Swastika painted plane streaking down at them they let go at it with everything they had.
Perhaps it was one of those freak things of war, or perhaps the gods were truly smiling upon Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer. At any rate not a single Belgian bullet hit the diving Arado, and a moment later Dave hauled the ship out of its mad dive and went streaking along to the rear of the Belgian lines. But before he had traveled more than a couple of miles he once more heard the snarl of aerial machine gun fire behind him. And this time there was more to it than just the sound!
The Arado suddenly bucked and quivered as though it had been smashed by the fist of some huge invisible giant of the skies. The vicious movement of the plane tore Dave's hands from the controls and flung him over so hard he cracked his head on the cockpit rim and saw stars for a brief instant or so. Then as his senses cleared again and he grabbed hold of the controls once more, the engine in the nose coughed and sputtered and shot out a cloud of black smoke ... and died cold.
Realization and action were one for Dave, and so the first thing he did was to yank back the throttle and cut off the ignition. When that was done he shoved the nose down and peered hopefully at the ground no more than five hundred feet below him. A groan of despair rose out of his throat to spill off his lips. He couldn't see a smooth patch of ground down there big enough for a fly to sit down on. True there were lots of fields, but they were pock marked from one end to the other with shell and bomb craters. There was one spot where he might possibly land without crashing too badly. But crash he would. That was certain. There was nothing to do but try it ... and pray!
"A crash coming, Freddy!" he yelled back over his shoulder. "Hold everything, and hang on hard!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fighting Hearts
As Dave glided the crippled Arado down toward the bomb and shell marked field the icy fingers of fear were curled tightly about his heart. He had made one or two forced landings in his short flying career, but they had been like setting down a plane on a gigantic billiard table compared to the task he now faced. If he under-shot the patch of ground he was aiming at he would go plowing straight into a battery of Belgian artillery guns hurling shells across the Albert Canal into the on-rushing German hordes. And if he over-shot the field or swerved too much to the right or left he would go crashing into a maze of shell blasted tree stumps which would tear the plane to shreds and snuff out his life, and Freddy's, as easily as one snuffs out the flame of a candle.