He saw nothing, however. Nothing but clouds and more clouds. Seconds ticked by to form a minute. He banked slightly and glanced back to see if any of his pals had the same hunch. His was the only Spitfire to be seen, however. The others were way up above him and completely out of sight.
"A horse on you, Dawson," he grunted, "if they smack the guy down, and buzz back for a spot of tea, leaving you to hunt the little man who isn't there. Yeah! It would be.... Hold it! So there you are, my little Jerry!"
A war painted Messerschmitt One-Ten had cut down out of the belly of the cloud bank about half a mile ahead of him and perhaps the same distance to the left. It leveled off immediately once it was in clear air and started streaking to the west again.
"Not today!" Dave shouted and kicked his Mark Five around in a flash half turn. Then into his flap-mike he bellowed, "Tally-ho, gang! Downstairs with you!"
[CHAPTER THREE]
Broken Wings
Whether or not the Messerschmitt's pilot saw Dave closing in on him at lightning speed, the German plane held straight to its course westward. Dave frowned and slid off the safety guard on his trigger button, and started lining up the Messerschmitt in his electric windshield sight.
"Of course the guy could have suddenly gone blind," he murmured to himself. "Or maybe he's just sick and tired of this war. Me, I wouldn't know. But ... there's just one thing to do when you see a Jerry lad plowing around over forbidden ground. And so!"
As he spoke the last he started to apply pressure on the little button that would send a shower of machine gun and aerial cannon slugs straight at the German plane. That is, he started to. He didn't complete the action, for at that instant something happened that brought him up straight in the seat with a gasp of surprise.
The Messerschmitt dropped down by the left wing and something went hurtling out through the opened glass "hatch" of the three place cockpit. That something became the figure of a man in the next split second. And in the split second after that Dave saw the white puff and the man's parachute blossoming into being. The tumbling figure was jerked sharply upward toward the sky. It seemed to hover motionless for a brief instant, and then start swinging back and forth like the pendulum of a clock while the air filled parachute envelop drifted slowly earthward.