Dave Dawson on the Russian Front

by Robert Sidney Bowen

Of course, the English youth couldn't hear the words, but it wasn't necessary. As planned, both youths throttled slightly, once they got the planes up out of range of the machine gun fire. They did so to give the Nazis plenty of time to race out of the hill hangar and over to the line of planes. Looking back, Dawson saw them, and a happy grin stretched his lips. So far, so good! Now to keep just enough ahead of those bums, and then lose them when well over the Russian front.

"And then Freddy and I will really go to work!" Dawson grunted grimly, and veered around toward the north. "Wonder what tomorrow will be like? Yeah! And if I'll see it!"

With a shrug, and a shake of his head, he knocked the thought into oblivion, and, after glancing over at Freddy on his right, fixed his gaze on the northern horizon.

A little under an hour later a conglomeration of emotions was surging through Dawson. Russian-held ground was under his wings now. Russian ground, and he had only to throttle his Daimler-Benz and slide down to complete safety. But, of course, that thought didn't even cut a tiny corner in his brain. It wasn't even born, for the very simple reason that the job wasn't even half finished. True, they were over Russian ground, and a couple of minutes before the pursuing Nazis had given up the chase as a lost cause and swung all the way around to the south, to be speedily lost to view in the ever approaching shadows of nightfall. Yes, all that was water under the bridge so far. But half the job, and the most dangerous half was still waiting to be accomplished.

"So get on with it, as Freddy would say," Dawson grunted, and waggled his wings just before he banked around toward the south.

The English youth swung around right after him, and in wing-tip formation they headed toward the southeast. For some five long minutes they droned along. And then, just as they were passing over the last of the Russian advance positions on that section of the front, Dawson sat up stiff and straight in the seat. His eyes had spotted a moving dot silhouetted against the bleak, cheerless sky of coming night. It grew bigger and bigger, and finally took on the shape and outline of a Messerschmitt!

Dawson squinted at it for a second or so longer, and then when the Nazi craft suddenly veered off to the west, and headed up toward the clouds, he took a quick look over at Freddy, and started to bark out a signal burst from his guns.

There was no need for that, however. The English youth had already spotted the plane, and was hauling his ship around and up after it. Dawson grinned, and yanked his own One-Nine around and up in Freddy's wake.

"Leave it to you, Eagle Eyes!" he shouted. "Okay, pal. He sure is our baby. Hanging around so he can learn things, maybe, and then go tearing back to tell them all about it. Well, not today, eh, Freddy?"

With a grim nod for emphasis, Dawson jammed the heel of his palm against the already wide open throttle, and kept his gaze fixed on the third Nazi plane streaking upward for the clouds. For what seemed like all eternity the lumps of cold lead bounced around in Dawson's stomach. If they lost that Nazi there was no telling what might happen. Maybe he was just some pilot up on a test flight, but his sudden dash for the seclusion of the clouds didn't bear that out. No. More likely he had been left aloft to keep watch, and to see if those who had escaped made any attempt to return. Sure, and maybe that was a very cockeyed view for Dawson to take, too. However, there was no way of telling one way or the other. So that left only one thing to do. To knock off that Nazi just in case he was aloft for no good purpose.