[CHAPTER TWELVE]
The Midnight Phantom
The dark of night had come again to war besieged England, and from the northern most tip of Scotland clear south to the Isle of Wight British eyes and ears were on the alert for any and all surprise moves by Hitler's devilish hordes on the other side of the English Channel and the North Sea. Men stood waiting at their searchlight batteries. Others stood ready at their anti-aircraft guns. And the night flying pilots of the Royal Air Force stood within jumping distance of their swift, deadly fighter planes. A whole nation of some forty five millions of people ready and waiting for the next trick Adolf "Death" would pull out of his bag.
At Lands End Base, however, there were two who were not waiting for "Satan," with his trick mustache and ever drooping lock of greasy hair, to make the next move. On the contrary they were waiting for the right time to make a move themselves. They were blended in with the darkness within a hand's touch of a light small tender tied up at the southwest side of the flying boat basin. They had been there for a good half hour virtually holding their breath every instant of the time, straining their ears for the slightest sound close by, and raking the darkness with their eyes.
"What say, shall we go?" Freddy Farmer presently breathed in Dave Dawson's ear. "There's nobody within a quarter of a mile, and that wind that's freshening may swing the Cat on her mooring line so's we'll have the devil's own job heading out toward open water."
"Okay it is," Dave breathed back and gripped Freddy's arm. "Down on your belly, pal, and into the tender. I've got her free. I'll feather paddle her out Indian style. Right! Here we go!"
Cautiously the two youths wormed inch by inch down over the lip of the basin wall toward the small tender. And then suddenly there came a sound that froze them stiff and turned the blood in their veins to ice. It was the muffled crack of a rifle shot. The muffled bark from a rifle obviously fitted with a silencer. And ages before the echo was gone an angry metal hornet buzzed squarely between them and buried itself in the wall.
In an infinitesimal period of time a million heart shredding thoughts leaped and raced through Dave's brain. The basin guard! They had not fooled the ever watchful guard at all! They had been spotted and a warning shot had been fired right between them. The next shot would find warm human flesh. What to do? Go on and be shot at like a helpless clay pigeon? Go on in the tender and suddenly have every searchlight in the place played squarely on them, and be riddled with British bullets before they could so much as fling up their hands in surrender? Or should they give up, now? Give up and reveal their true identities? Should...?
"No! No, we can't. We've got to carry on. There's everything at stake. We've got to carry on. We promised. We vowed to Manners, to England, and to God. We can't give up now. We can't!"
Dave did not speak the words aloud, but they boomed through his brain with all the roaring thunder of heavy cannon fire. Hardly realizing he was doing so he reached out and touched Freddy's arm.
"Never mind the tender!" he breathed. "We've got to get to that plane by swimming for it. Slide down into the water and swim under water as long as you can. Keep heading straight for the Cat-boat."