"Why, you dirty, low down rat!" Dave roared, and dropped the nose of the Dauntless. "You—you double-crossing, cheating bum! I'll teach you to pull a dirty one like that! Come back here and take—!"
But Dawson was simply exploding words, and he ended them with a bitter groan, as more smoke poured back from the bullet-damaged engine, and the power plant quit altogether. He and Freddy had been tricked as neatly as could be. There was no doubt, now, as to whether the occupants of the strange-looking seaplane were friend or foe. They were Jap rats, and true to their rotten race they had struck their blow under false colors.
And a blow they had struck, too! No doubt about that, either. Their well placed bullets had finished the Wright Cyclone, and the Dauntless was nosing down toward the waters of the Southwest Pacific below. And the danger wasn't passed, either. With a dead engine the plane was just a gliding target for those two Japs in the seaplane. They had only to sneak up under and out of reach of Freddy Farmer's rear pit guns, and drill the scout-bomber like a setting hen on a fence.
And as thoughts crashed through his brain Dawson twisted around quickly to be ready to do what little he could when the seaplane came winging back. Freddy Farmer had swung his guns around, and was waiting to catch the seaplane in his sights if he got the chance. Not a word had he spoken since his cry of alarm to Dave, but the look of raging anger on his flushed face indicated that he was thinking plenty.
Dave caught that look in one flashing glance and then whipped his gaze out across the air space to where the strange-looking seaplane was circling about slowly just out of range of Freddy's guns.
"What the heck?" Dave gasped impulsively, and scowled. "What's wrong with those rats? Afraid to come in for the kill? Holy smokes! They've got us cold, darn their rotten hides."
"That's what I'm wondering, too," Freddy Farmer said in a tight voice as he spoke for the first time since the sudden attack. "They're either afraid, or else they aren't Japs!"
"Huh?" Dawson gulped. "What do you mean by that, Freddy?"
"Just crippling a chap's engine wouldn't suit Japs," the English youth replied. "They have to slaughter, too. That's half the enjoyment for them, blast their black hearts. So they must be afraid that I'll pick them off, if they come in closer. Or maybe they're hoping we'll bail out. Then it would be more fun for them!"
"Yeah!" Dawson grunted, and took a quick look down at the surface of the water now less than two thousand feet below the wings of the helpless Dauntless. "Yeah! Or maybe they want to play target practice after we land in the water. Maybe that would be even more fun for the dirty killers. Gosh, I'm sorry, Freddy. I'm a sap, a dope, and I should be—"