Dave Dawson at Singapore

by Robert Sidney Bowen

"I know that, too!" Dave shouted. "But, they're Yanks. I've got a feeling that'll be the difference. But we've got to get there, anyway, and make a safe landing. Darn these Japs. Whoever said they didn't have anything with speed? Look at them come! Duck, Freddy boy! Keep the old head down!"

As Dave spoke the last he took one last look at the four Nakajimas that were coming after him at comet speed, then turned front and automatically hunched himself down low in the seat. The future was in the lap of the gods, now. Or, perhaps it would be better to say that the future lay in the thundering Bristol Taurus in the nose. If the Japs ever got close again it would be curtains. They had been fooled once, and it was mighty doubtful that they could be fooled again. They were out for blood; out to crush two brave R.A.F. aces valiantly fighting a desperate battle against almost insurmountable odds.

The future? Dave savagely closed his brain to the merest thought. It wasn't the future. It was the present! This very second a lucky burst from those guns yammering like sky wolves right behind the Albacore might snuff out Freddy's life and his own. Might send them hurling down in a ball of flame with the terrible secret of what was to happen tomorrow locked in their brains forever.

"To the left, Dave! To the left and just ahead! There's the flat valley. There's the A.V.G.s'. Base. Just a little bit longer, Dave. Just a little bit longer, and we'll be there!"

Dave heard Freddy Farmer's screaming voice as a distant echo. He had already spotted the small flat valley where nestled the little native village of Pidang, and where the famous American Volunteer Group was supposed to be located. But even as he stared at it hope seemed to die within him. There was not the single sign of a plane, or a hangar on the level floor between the rock studded mountains. Nothing but the cluster of native huts that represented Pidang. Still there must be something else there. There had to be the A.V.G. boys. There just had to be!

Hardly conscious that he was doing so, Dave shouted aloud the words over and over again. And he shoved the nose down to an even steeper angle of dive in a desperate effort to gain an extra foot or so on the gun snarling Nakajimas that were drawing closer and closer for a cold meat kill. If he could only get down and land before they got close enough, maybe Freddy and he could....

He never finished the rest of the thought. At that instant hissing nickel jacketed lead sliced into the cockpit, and a white hot spear of flame ran across the top of his left shoulder. Too late! The Japs had caught up well within range. The next burst would be one that really counted. But in that split second of time before the next burst left the muzzles of Jap guns, Dave put every ounce of his flying skill and daring into savage, furious action. Without so much as a yell of warning to Freddy, he yanked the stick all the way back into his belly and snapped the nose upward so fast that the fuselage seemed to actually bend in the middle and groan in protest against the terrific strain. But that aircraft was English built, and she stayed together. Like a bolt of lightning the plane streaked upward on the first half of a gigantic loop. But before Dave reached the top of the loop he sent the Albacore corkscrewing over to a rightside up position. A half roll off the up side of a loop that brought him out flying in the same direction.

But for only the length of time it would take you to bat an eyelash. Heaving the stick over and kicking rudder, Dave deliberately half rolled again and went plunging down at the vertical. Not until that instant did he release the air clamped in his lungs that seemed to have been locked there for long, long minutes. And he did so with a wild, roaring challenge at the cluster of four Nakajimas starting to zoom up after him.

"Who gives air, you brown rats?" he bellowed. "You or us?"

To the credit of the Japs it must be said that they stuck it out for perhaps one tenth of a second. Then in the face of the flying madman hurtling straight down at them they broke and cut wildly off to the side. One Jap, however, picked the wrong side. One of his own planes was too close to permit room for the frantic maneuver. Two Nakajimas crashed together, locked wings about each other, and exploded in a great fountain of flame. In the nick of time Dave kicked rudder hard and skidded out just barely enough to miss the mass of flaming debris and plunge on down by.