"Yes, my Dad once told me about that boner," Dave said. "Gosh, it's something like you'd read in a fairy story book!"
"The Germans are a strange race, for fair," Manners said dryly. "They lead the world in so many things, and trail it in so many others. Well, I think we've lost that beggar for good, now, don't you think so, Dawson?"
"Unless he's got cat's eyes, or some trick airplane engine detector on his ship," Dave replied. "Want me to go up on top? We've been heading south by east for a spell, now. Unless I'm all wet we should be just a bit off shore from Southampton. We can go up on top and find a hole and check."
"Then go on up," Air Marshal Manners ordered. "And if you're right, then so much the better. Find a hole and locate us, and then I'll give you further orders. But make it fast. Time is the most precious thing in the world to us, right now."
"Up she goes!" Dave cried and pulled the Lockheed's nose toward Heaven.
[CHAPTER TEN]
England's Prayer
No sooner had Dave stuck the Lockheed's nose up through the top of the cloud layer than he leveled off so that the belly was still in the stuff. At that same instant also he and Manners started searching the sun flooded skies ahead and to the left and right. Having scrambled back aft to his tail turret Freddy Farmer searched the heavens to the rear. There was no cause for sudden action, however, for there wasn't a single sign of a Nazi plane in the air. The Messerschmitt One-Ten had been given the slip, and given it as only a pilot of Dave Dawson's ability can perform such a feat.
"Good work!" Manners grunted and relaxed a bit in his seat. "Now find a hole if you can and spot exactly where we are."
Dave nodded, climbed up another thousand feet, and in a minute or so found a hole in the clouds. He peered down through and grinned happily.