At that instant a shell from the raider's forward gun seemed to explode right on the hull nose of the Catalina. There was a mighty roar of sound, and a cloud of vivid red flame. Then the flying boat was down through it and still going.
"Like fish?" Dave yelled out.
"Hate it!" Freddy cried and made a face.
"Too bad!" Dave yelled. "Chances are that's all you're going to get, pal. Fish, and all kinds!"
"Right-o!" the English youth echoed. "But get that blasted raider, first!"
Freddy Farmer's remark ended the bit of by-play between them. The raider was looming up large below the nose of their diving plane, and the air all about them quivered and shuddered with a terrific bedlam of sound. So great was the din, Dave could hardly hear the screaming howl of the Catalina's over-revving engines. And although he held a thumb jabbed against the trigger release on the Dep wheel he could not hear his forward guns firing. He could only see the stabbing jets of flame that spewed out from the nose and streaked down toward the raider.
A mighty power dive straight down into a whole world exploding sound and flames. Time ceased to exist. Time stood still. A hundred thousand crazy, inane thoughts raced across Dave Dawson's brain, but they were forgotten almost before they were registered on the screen of his mind. And then suddenly the raider was once more directly under the nose. Another instant and the Catalina would go hurtling in to its own doom. In that last remaining instant Dave pulled out of the dive, roared straight along the entire length of the raider and pounded down the last load of the flying boat's bombs. And then like before he was once again zooming up and away.
This time, though, it was different. The American built flying boat had taken a terrific beating from Nazi guns. It had taken enough bullets and screaming fragments of anti-aircraft shells to break up a half dozen planes. Yet it still held together. Still held together and valiantly climbed upward, though it shook like rotten timber under strain from nose to tail, and though both engines coughed and sputtered, and threatened to quit cold in the very next second. Dave could sense the flying boat failing in its mighty effort to keep on going, and an icy hand closed over his heart as he wondered just how long she would last. How long before she would break up and they would go tumbling down into that inferno of gunfire below?
As a matter of fact he felt as though a miracle had actually come to pass. The miracle that Freddy and he still lived. The miracle that they had been able to hold off the Nazi aircraft this long, and to have been able to make that last do-or-die bomb dive on the raider. A Catalina was not a bomb diver. That wasn't her job. But this old girl had proved that she could tackle anything when necessary. The ship of ships, but she was doomed. Doomed just as sure as there was the golden blue of the heavens above and the raging fury of war below.
"Did it, Dave, did it!" Freddy's voice suddenly screamed in his ears. "Right on the topper this time. Look, she's heeling over! No, she's coming back up on even keel. But she's really on fire this time, and she's losing headway fast!"