"Dave, the Fleet!" Freddy shrilled and pounded him on the shoulder. "They're shelling them. And look. Planes. Our planes! From the Fleet Air Arm. They're giving those U-boats everything. Just look, will you! Nothing can live in that sea, now! We win, Dave. We win!"
Not quite sure whether he was alive or dreaming, Dave stared down at the holocaust of war being created on the surface of that part of the Atlantic. Hundreds of shells were raining down to explode among the fleeing U-boats and turn the waters into an oily froth. Shells from British battleship guns still out of sight below the horizon. And hundreds of bombs were dropping down upon the U-boat flotilla from the planes of the Fleet Air Arm. Dave looked up at the sky filled with British wings and could hardly believe his eyes. Flight after flight of them had appeared as though by magic. As though the heavens had split apart and the Fleet Air Arm ships had come tearing down through. While the bombers concentrated on the U-boats below the escort fighters tore into the Nazi planes swarming about the helpless Catalina and practically shot them out of the sky with their withering bursts of fire. In less than nothing flat, bombs were not only tumbling down into the Atlantic, but Nazi planes as well.
"Our planes?" Dave shouted when he found his voice. "But how the heck did they...?"
He didn't have the chance to finish the question. At that instant a lone remaining German plane wheeled in close and let fire at almost point blank range at the stumbling Catalina. Dave saw it coming out the corner of his eye, and sight and action were one for him. He let go of the Dep wheel, lunged out and hooked Freddy about the neck and then ducked forward and down. The compartment windows gave way like tissue paper before the furious blast of bullets. A sound akin to that of somebody tearing a strip off a tin roof filled Dave's ears as the shower of bullets raked the instrument panels and turned the thing into a shambles.
"Hey, what the dickens!" came Freddy's choked cry as the youth struggled to free himself from Dave's bear hug hold.
Dave let go and straightened up. So did Freddy, and the English youth's face turned from beet red to paper white as he saw the instrument panel.
"Good grief!" he got out in a tight voice. "I'd have been punched full of holes, Dave, if you hadn't grabbed...."
A short sharp explosion to their left cut off Freddy Farmer's voice. Almost instantly a spear of fire shot down across the shattered front window. Then in the next split second there was an unearthly whine and something glistening sliced right down through the anti-aircraft shell blasted hull nose. Both boys turned their heads quickly to look, but both knew instinctively what had happened.
It was Dave who shouted the truth.
"Port engine's exploded, and the prop blades have let go!" he cried. "And the wing's on fire."