Dave Dawson at Singapore

by Robert Sidney Bowen

Dave didn't make any reply to that for the simple reason there wasn't anything to be said. Perhaps the most pronounced fear of all regarding the wild, crazy venture into which they were plunging blindly was the fear of their fuel running out on them before they had reached the hidden airdrome in the wild Burmese mountains. If it was to be a Wellington or Whitley bomber they were to take aloft there wouldn't be any worry at all. But stealing a bomber was definitely out. It took time to get those babies off the ground, and possible British fighter planes giving chase could catch a bomber in short order. So it had to be the fastest two seater type at the Base. And as luck would have it they had spotted the six Bristol "Taurus" powered Fairey "Albacores" on the tarmac but a few seconds after they had reached the place where they now hugged the ground. They could make the distance in an Albacore. It might be close, but everything would be in their favor. They could get one off fast, they could gain altitude in the night sky fast, and an Albacore had a level flight speed that wasn't too much under the speed of a single seater fighter plane. Yes, it might be close, but an Albacore was their best bet. So they had picked the one they would rush for just as soon as Serrangi's men created the planned "disturbance" on the far side of the field.

But it was the body tingling waiting that dragged you down. It was like rats inside of you gnawing and gnawing at your nerves until you had to sink your teeth deep into your lips to stop from screaming and mentally flying apart in small pieces. Waiting! Waiting for what? A chance to rush out across the night shadowed drome, and smack into the withering fire of British guards? To steal a plane and race madly up into the night sky ... and be caught by British planes and sent hurtling earthward a ball of raging fire? To reach Raja and turn over the secret code data, and then stand by helpless as a gigantic, treacherous blow by the Nazi backed Japanese was struck at England in the Far East? To....

Dave shook his head savagely to blast the taunting thoughts from his brain. Many, many times in the past had he and Freddy tackled a problem that seemed hopeless, but never anything so seemingly utterly hopeless as this. It wasn't a case of just ferreting out the enemy's secret, and then smashing him. On the contrary, it was actually the direct opposite. Freddy and he were going to give the enemy what he needed, and then attempt to smash him before he could make use of it! Pure and simple, it was no more than handing a killer a loaded gun, and then taking it away from him before he could shoot you between the eyes. It was crazy, it was ridiculous, it was absurd, and it was insane. Yet it was the only thing they could do. They had to play it this way. There was no other loophole, and no chance to dive through it if one should suddenly present itself. It....

The rest of Dave's whirling thoughts spun off into oblivion as gun fire and wild shouting suddenly broke out on the far side of the field. It was like high voltage cutting through both of them, and they came up on their toes and fingertips as one man. For a brief instant they poised motionless eyes fixed on the tongue of flame that suddenly shot up from some building way over beyond the hangars. Then a silent signal passed between them and they went tearing bent well over out across one corner of the field toward the nearest Fairey Albacore some seventy yards away.

Seventy yards? It seemed seventy miles to Dave as he and Freddy Farmer fairly flew over the ground like a couple of frightened deer. With each racing step he took he half expected to see a British soldier rise right up out of the ground and level a rifle at him. No British soldier appeared, however, and hope zoomed in Dave as he saw the tarmac guards start running in the direction of the shouts, the shots, and the flames. The thought of death was not something that held him in fear and trembling. But to be mowed down by one of your own kind was a death no man would desire, if death it must be.

Seventy yards, thirty yards, ten yards, one yard! And then Dave and Freddy virtually vaulted into the pit of the Albacore. No plans had been made by them in advance about who would take what seat. It just happened to work out that Dave popped into the pilot's seat, and Freddy Farmer popped into the navigator-gunner's seat in back. Heart jammed up hard against his back teeth, and nervous sweat pouring off his body in rivers, Dave's fingers flew over the gas cocks, and starter, and ignition switches on the instrument panel. At the same time ... it was as though he had twenty hands instead of two ... he fastened the harness buckles of the seat parachute pack, hooked the safety belt clamp, opened up the throttle, and booted off the wheel brakes. The last operation was to jab the starter button ... and pray as he had never before prayed in all of his young years!

An eternity of heart crushing agony was Dave's, and then the Bristol Taurus in the nose roared up in its full throated song of power. The Albacore trembled and quivered for a brief instant and then shot forward as though ropes holding it back had been slashed through. Braced for the shock, Dave bent more forward over the stick and grimly waited for the craft to pick up sufficient take-off speed. With every revolution of the three-bladed steel propeller the plane tore faster and faster across the hard sun baked surface of the Base field. A thousand and one weird, crazy images seemed to pop up out of the ground just in front of the thundering plane. Dave's imagination went on a holiday during those few awful moments. He saw squads of British India troops loom up and blast away at the plane with rifle and machine gun fire, he saw armored cars rushing toward him from all angles, with guns blazing, and he saw a half division of tanks move like lightning into position to bar his way. He saw everything that an excitement quivering brain could conjure up. But all the plane actually crashed into was the air of night faintly tinted by the glow of the flames somewhere in back of the hangars.

And then the wheels lifted and Dave sent the Albacore curving up and around in the night sky. As he held the craft at its maximum climbing angle he twisted around in the seat and shot a quick glance down at the R.A.F. Base. Lights had sprung up all over the place, and he could just barely see the figures running toward the lines of planes. Some quarter of a mile in back of the row of hangars red flames were gutting an equipment stores building. The thing, however, that made Dave's heart slide down to its normal position in his chest was the utter absence of gun fire spitting up toward them. They had caught the field guards flat footed, and they would be well out of sight before British single seaters could come tearing up after them.

Taking his gaze off the scene below, Dave twisted all the way around and looked back at Freddy. In the pale light of the cockpit bulb the English youth's face was tense and set. And there was just a faint sadness in the eyes that stared down at the R.A.F. Base falling away from the Albacore's belly at a fast rate of speed.

"What's the matter, pal?" Dave called out. "Sad they didn't pepper away at us?"