"Freddy! Barker! Get them! Haul up, and get them. It's your only hope. The only thing you can do! Freddy ... Barker...!"
As though from a million miles away Dave heard the echo of his own words that poured from off his stiff lips. In a dazed, abstract sort of way part of his spinning brain was conscious of the fact that some of the other Nazis were dropping right down on his unprotected tail. He even heard the bursts fired past his wing as a signal for him to surrender and go on down to land. Perhaps in the very next second a burst from some Nazi's guns might tear right down through the glass "hatch" over his cockpit, and end up in his body. Perhaps ... but he didn't give it a thought. What happened to him in the next few seconds didn't matter in the slightest. He had ears, and eyes, and thoughts only for Freddy Farmer, and Flight Lieutenant Barker. They were doomed. In the next moment they would be dead men hurtling down the last few feet to the ground. Not even the miracle of miracles could save them, now. The two Messerschmitt One-Nines were too close. A blind man couldn't miss at that distance....
Miracles? So what? A pilot with the fighting heart and indomitable spirit that was Freddy Farmer's didn't have to depend on miracles to get him out of tight corners. No, not that English lad! In his make-up there was that something extra that so few possess. There is no given word for it. Perhaps it is best defined as a resoluteness of soul and heart that cannot be broken in life or in death. At any rate Freddy Farmer possessed it, and to the nth degree.
Through unbelieving eyes Dave saw the English youth suddenly cut upward and over so that he was directly over Flight Lieutenant Barker's plane. Then once in that protective position he hauled up the nose of his plane and went streaking straight heavenward. Rather, streaking straight up into the withering fire that was beginning to pour downward from the guns of the two diving Messerschmitts. It was a suicide maneuver. An absolute suicide maneuver, yet the very fact that it was such was the only help Freddy could possibly expect.
His very daring threw the diving Nazis off whack. His very definite intention of crashing right up into them put the fear of death in their hearts, and instantly brought the yellow in them to the surface. As though worked by strings attached to invisible hands high overhead the two German planes jerked halfway out of their dives, and went careening off, one to each side. The one who went to the right was the unlucky one. The nose of Freddy's stalling Spitfire followed him around. The aerial machine guns and 20-mm. aircraft cannon on the English youth's plane yammered out sound and flame. And in the next split second the spot of air the Messerschmitt had occupied was just a cloud of boiling black smoke.
As for the other Messerschmitt pilot, he was not what you would exactly call lucky. He skidded off a bit, then tried savagely to haul around and fire point blank at Barker's plane. In his desperate fury he over controlled, missed Barker by yards, and was unable to recover from his dive in the distance left between his spinning prop and the ground. He went in nose first and completely disappeared in a fountain of flame and dirty smoke.
"It isn't true! I'm dreaming! I'm seeing things! It just couldn't happen, that's all!"
That and more came spilling off Dave's lips as he gaped pop eyed at Freddy Farmer leveling off onto even keel in the air. A mile or so beyond Freddy, and fast becoming a speck in the distance, was Barker's plane. There wasn't a Nazi pilot close enough to even stand the ghost of a chance of overhauling him. Nothing, now, but clear air between Barker and England. It was simply absolutely impossible, but ... the absolutely impossible had actually happened.
"Sweet tripe!" Dave blurted out. "Jumping cat-fish! Holy smoke, and ... Freddy, Freddy, boy!"
Dave screamed the last in frenzied alarm as Farmer's plane suddenly started lurching, and bucking around in the air. Through horrified eyes Dave saw a good three feet of the right wing tear free and go sailing away. The Spitfire dropped sharply down on that side, and terror squashed Dave's heart to a pulp. Hardly realizing what he was doing, he slammed his own nose down and went tearing across the sky toward Freddy's bullet crippled ship, as though his very nearness might be of some help to the English youth.