Dave wiped the grin off his face and looked surprised.
"Who, me?" he asked innocently.
"Yes, you!" Freddy said with a nod. "Out with it! What's so funny?"
Dave chuckled again and pointed at Freddy's hand still fingering the camera.
"You," he said. "What a guy! With maybe the fate of the entire Middle East hanging in the balance, all the lad can think of is taking pictures!"
"Rot!" the English youth exploded, but a faint flush seeped into his cheeks. "But, blast it, that's part of the job we're supposed to do, isn't it? And we both agreed that was our last chance, didn't we?"
"Okay, okay, little man!" Dave said, and raised a hand in token of surrender. "Keep your shirt on, and stop biting my head off. So help me, I'll find something for you to snap with your precious camera. I'll—"
Dave never finished the last. At that moment the Bristol Pegasus engine in the nose coughed and made a rasping sound that sent cold chills slicing up and down Dave's spine despite the burning glare of the desert sun. He locked eyes with Freddy for a brief instant and then twisted his head front and looked at the instrument board. The answer showed on the dial of the oil pressure gauge. The needle was swinging around the dial toward the zero mark like the floor indicator of an express elevator on the way down to street level.
"Well, I guess the blighters were darn good shots, at that," he heard Freddy comment as the engine coughed a couple of times more and then began to die out in a long metallic sigh.
An instant later it was as though an invisible little imp hiding under the engine cowling had stuck the end of a parted oil line through the instrument board into Dave's cockpit. A spurt of hot black liquid went streaming out and down past his legs. He jerked his legs aside in a flash, whipped off the ignition and yanked back the throttle in practically a continuation of the same movement. Then, as the oil ceased spurting back into the pit, he sticked the plane down into a long flat glide and turned to Freddy again.