Three hundred and six Nazis dead by her trigger finger, or three thousand and six. It didn't matter. She was a girl, and this was the first time Dawson had piloted a plane through war skies with other than men aboard. It was certainly a new experience, and one, he was forced to admit to himself, he would have been just as well pleased to have somebody else experience. However, she was along, of course. And so that was that.
Foot by foot Dawson took the B-Twenty-Five down toward the crest of the lower layer of overcast. Presently he thought he could make out its darker shadow just below. A glance at the altimeter told him that his eyes were not lying. In another moment he'd be going down through the stuff, and in a couple of moments after that he'd be below it and in clear night air. Then would begin the really ticklish part. Then he would see, or would not see, the dazzling white beams of Nazi searchlights groping about in the air. And then he would hear, or would not hear, the heart-chilling crump of exploding anti-aircraft shells. And then it would be, or would not be, the end of a very daring and crazy adventure. Then it—
With a savage shake of his head he drove the tantalizing thoughts from his brain, licked his lips and hunched forward slightly over the controls. They were in the lower layer of overcast now. He could tell because the darkness seemed twice as profound as it had been a moment before. And then, suddenly, the B-Twenty-Five floated down out of the overcast and into clear night air. Dawson tore his gaze from the instrument panel, blinked hard as though to clear his vision, and strained his eyes ahead, and down. For a soul-torturing eternity he saw nothing but a carpet of unbroken black stretching far out in all directions. But little by little the carpet of black lost its unbroken appearance. It took on darker spots, and lighter spots, and landmarks on an aerial mosaic map re-photographed on his brain began to take shape and form.
He spotted a couple of pin points of light to the left, and a long curving dark shadow. The curving shadow he knew was a stretch of woods on the east side of Urbakh. And the pin points of light he was certain came from the village itself. Then, as he saw a winding lighter shadow, his heart swelled with pride. Trust old Freddy Farmer! Old Freddy could guide you halfway around the world to a dime you had left in the middle of a desert. That winding lighter shadow was a tributary of the Don River. And when his eyes picked out the eastern and lower part of an S that the tributary formed, he would then be looking at the small, wood-bordered patch of flat ground where he would dead-stick land the bomber. Or at least he would be looking at a spot of wood-bordered flat ground that had been that when the Russian aerial photographs were taken.
So tensed and keyed up was Dawson that when Senior Lieutenant Petrovski suddenly reached out and gripped his arm he almost let out a startled yell. He curbed it in time, however, so his own voice didn't drown out the words the Russian girl spoke.
"There, a little to the left!" she called out. "You see it, Captain Dawson? Where the little river makes that turn to the right? That is the place."
It took Dawson all of five seconds to pick out the spot, and when he did he silently saluted the Russian girl at his side.
"Yes, I see it, Senior Lieutenant," he told her. Then to himself, "You and Freddy Farmer! Eagle eyes!"
Perhaps it was a good thing that the Russian girl had spoken. At any rate, the tenseness and the tightness went out of Dawson. A cool calm settled over him, and it was though he were simply making an emergency night landing in some familiar place. But, of course, a night landing without the benefit of landing lights!
Actually, though, it was going to be considerably more than just putting the B-Twenty-Five down on the ground. When his wheels finally touched, he must have enough forward speed to carry him as close to the bordering trees as possible. There would be no "dolly-tractor" to haul the bomber over the ground. And those aboard certainly didn't possess the strength to move the bomber around as you'd hoist up the tail of a pursuit ship and move it. And, of course, to start up the engines and taxi close to the bordering trees was definitely out of the question. Might just as well send the Nazis in the neighborhood a telegram that they were coming, and at what time. And so—