Dave Dawson, Flight Lieutenant

by Robert Sidney Bowen

Dave jumped quickly to one side and escaped Freddy's booted foot swinging up in the general direction of the seat of his breeches. The English youth quickly recovered his balance and groaned heavily.

"And for this did Lady Luck let me escape from that crash!" he growled. "Let me escape to die laughing at all your funny remarks, I don't think. A fine time this is for that sort of thing!"

"Well, anyway, it's time for something else," Dave said quickly and nodded ahead. "Here comes the company. And the big shot. He's.... Holy smoke, Freddy! Take a look. That bird in the lead. I've seen his picture in the paper. Hey! Hey, isn't he Colonel Comstadt, the chief of the Gestapo end of the Luftwaffe?"

Freddy Farmer turned his head and looked at the giant of a man in flying gear striding toward them. The man was huge, gigantic. His head was the size of a melon, and his face had all the beauty of the rear end of a truck. His long arms swung at his sides like those of a gorilla, and his legs were like a couple of telephone poles jointed in the middle.

"Yes, he must be!" Freddy whispered hoarsely. "There couldn't be two in the world who look like that. Yes, Dave, he must be that Colonel Comstadt you hear so much about. Good grief, how in the world does he manage to squeeze into the cockpit of a Messerschmitt One-Nine?"

Dave didn't bother to answer the question. As a matter of fact, he hardly heard it. His gaze was rivetted on the huge Nazi striding toward them, and there was a most unpleasant chilliness in his chest. Next to Hitler, and Gestapo Chief Himmler, Colonel Comstadt was reported to be the most brutal man in all the German Reich. Wherever he went, there also went indescribable suffering, and death on a wholesale scale. And it wasn't limited to the enemies of Germany, either. Colonel Comstadt worked within the German Army, and the Luftwaffe, as well as outside of them. His job was two-fold. To create terror and fear in Hitler's legions so that every order of the Fuehrer would be blindly obeyed. And it was also his job to create terror and fear throughout the conquered countries so that the occupation troops would not be molested.

Of late it had been rumored that the man had been assigned to the Luftwaffe operating on the Western Front. The sound beatings administered by the R.A.F. to the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain had thrown Hitler into another of his famous rages. But it had obviously done considerably more than that. The results of the Battle of Britain had knocked a lot of the arrogance, conceit, and cocksuredness out of the Luftwaffe personnel. Originally they had gone winging across war skies to tackle a foe sneeringly regarded by "Uncle" Goering as a push-over. Instead, though, they had bumped into a foe who could knock the stripes off any of them. And, what's more, do it with one hand tied behind his back.

It had been a terrible shock to the Luftwaffe pilots to discover that one Royal Air Force pilot was better than any dozen of them. It started them thinking for the first time since falling under Adolf Hitler's spell. And that was the one thing Adolf Hitler feared most. That his human pawns of war might start thinking. And so Colonel Comstadt had been sent to the Luftwaffe to "build up morale" with fear, brutality, and the firing squad.

And right now Colonel Comstadt was bearing down on Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer.

"Easy does it, Freddy!" Dave whispered out the corner of his mouth as he saw the English youth stiffen and half clench his fists. "He has his gang with him, and we wouldn't stand a chance!"