As though Lady Luck had simply been waiting for Dawson to swing into action, the square-cut wings of a One-Ten came smack into his sights. Instantly he jabbed the electric trigger button, and the One-Ten just as promptly acted as though it had suddenly flown right into a brick wall. Both its wings came off as though sliced by a knife. The fuselage rolled over twice, and like a crazy rocket went zooming upward to smash square into a second One-Ten banking off to the side. A burst of flame followed the mid air crash, and the whole blazing mass went slithering down out of sight, leaving behind a long trail of oily black smoke.
The instant the mid-air crash took place, Dawson whipped his eyes off it and swung his guns to bear on a third One-Ten. Before he could press the trigger, though, he heard Freddy Farmer's guns in the tail start snarling. And the Messerschmitt simply wasn't there any more. It was just a shower of pieces falling downward through the golden sunshine.
No cheer of joy broke from Dawson's throat, though. There were three One-Tens down, and maybe a couple of others that Freehill and Sergeant Dilling and Flight Lieutenant Parsons had nailed. But there were still ten times that number of German planes still twisting and boring in, and raking the Wellington from spinning props to rudder post with their furious fire. Dawson wasn't sure, but he thought he could feel the bomber shake and tremble as each new burst of bullets tore into it.
He didn't bother to look around, though, for any signs of damage. He was too busy holding up his end of the terribly uneven fight, smacking and slapping away at anything winged that came into his sights, and silently damning the invention known as the aircraft detector. The aircraft detector, of course, explained the presence of all those German planes. The Nazis, if Air Vice-Marshal Leman's wire was to be believed, knew that the Wellington would be heading for Moscow. Maybe they hadn't known the route to be flown in advance. But they didn't have to know it. Aircraft detectors all up and down the German-occupied coast of Europe would have been constantly on the alert. Any aircraft heard that could not be identified as Nazi would have been investigated instantly, of course.
That explained that lone Messerschmitt flirting about with the Wellington in the clouds. Its pilot had spotted them, judged their course, and communicated with ground stations. And—and there were the aerial butchers waiting for the Wellington the instant it came prop-clawing out into clear air.
"So if you want it this way, then okay!" Dawson roared impulsively, and let fly at a brace of One-Tens cutting around to catch the bomber in a cold meat cross-fire.
Perhaps, if they had been given a few seconds more, the Nazis would have succeeded in their goal. But Dawson's deadly fire put an end to the attempt, and a very speedy end, too. A two second burst caught the One-Ten on the left square in the cockpit. The pilot died instantly, and so he couldn't control the One-Ten from veering off drunkenly to the other side. Too late the other Messerschmitt pilot saw what was headed his way. True, he made a very good try, but it wasn't any better than no try at all. The One-Ten with a dead pilot at the controls whanged up into his belly, and speared him like a fish. Seconds later there was just a great big ball of seething flame flip-flopping down into oblivion.
"Seems to be the day for Nazis ramming into each other!" Dave gasped out, and swung his guns for a new target. "Well, that's—Hey! Well, what do you know? Hey, everybody! See what we've got to help us. Boy, oh boy!"
Dawson wildly shouted other things, but in his great joy he didn't even know what he said. All he was conscious of was the very delightful fact that there were other besides German wings in the air about the Wellington. There were planes with the Red Star of the Soviet Air Force on the wings and fuselage. They were the swift and deadly Russian "Rata" One-Sixteen B pursuit aircraft, powered by special 1,000 hp. M-Sixty-Three engines of Wright "Cyclone" design. Out of the sun they had come like so many crazed hornets on the rampage. And even as Dave saw them, four German Messerschmitts simply broke apart in the air and fell away out of sight.
It was one of the most perfectly executed aerial attacks Dawson had ever witnessed. Each Russian pilot seemed to know just which Messerschmitt he was to handle. And he went right smack at his victim and did the job with the least amount of bullets possible. In fact, the arrival of those Soviet Ratas was almost as though invisible hands had swept an invisible broom across the skies, and taken three fourths of the German Messerschmitts along with it. The other fourth that was missed by the invisible broom didn't hang around for a second sweeping. Every Luftwaffe pilot dropped the nose of his plane, and got out of there as fast as his screaming engine could take him. A flight or so of the Ratas gave chase, just to keep the Messerschmitts on their way, while the other Rata pilots took up close escort position on all four sides of the Wellington, and above it.