“Get to work and earn your pay!” Dave roared, and threw the Vultee into a snap roll. “I’ve done my part. Now you do yours, kid!”
The English youth didn’t reply, that is, not with his lips. Instead, he spoke with his two swivel mounted machine guns. Though almost upside down, and practically standing on his ear as Dave whipped the Vultee over and down, Freddy drilled one of the Nazi flown planes dead center. It seemed to fly straight into an invisible rubber wall in the sky. It hit it and actually bounced back. Then as flames belched out and engulfed it, the plane went tumbling down into the Caribbean.
“Nice shooting!” Dave shouted, and cut the Vultee around in the opposite direction.
The remaining Nazi pilot saw him coming and tried to get out of the way. When he saw that he was trapped, he simply fired his guns blindly and then went down into a steep dive. Dave dropped down after him, but there was no need for either Freddy or him to shoot. The fear of the devil must have been in that diving Nazi’s heart, because he never pulled out of his dive. He hit the surface of the Caribbean like three tons of flying brick. There was a great splash of water, but when the foam of the froth had disappeared there wasn’t a sign of the plane. It, too, had disappeared, straight down.
Hauling out of his dive, Dave took one last look back at the still seething sea of flame and smoke that had been lush green, and brown, and silvery strips of beach, just a short time ago. Then with a slight shudder he turned front and put the Vultee on a crow flight course for the Air Corps Base at Colon. Then he twisted in the seat and grinned back at Freddy Farmer.
“Well, Lady Luck is still our sweetheart, Freddy!” he called out. “Your courage, and my dumb luck made it turn out swell.”
“It was luck all the way!” the English youth called back. “We came much, much too close to missing this time. Fact is, I’m wondering just how we’ll be able to explain things to Colonel Welsh, and make it appear we did use our heads a little.”
“Who cares?” Dave laughed. “We’ll just say we did it with mirrors, or—”
Dave paused as he became conscious of a bruise ache on his right chest. He glanced down and then went pop-eyed when he saw that the right top pocket of his tunic had been ripped open. He stuck his finger in through the tear and felt a piece of metal. He pulled it out and gulped. It was the silver-filled copper disc. But it wasn’t flat and smooth now. And there was more than just a pen knife scratch in the copper. The disc was bent double, and there was a big gash where the bullet had struck and ricocheted away. From von Stutgardt’s gun, or one of those Nazi Vultee pilots? Dave didn’t know, and he didn’t care. He put the bent disc to his lips and kissed it.
“And I said you were no luck charm?” he grunted. “Brother! I’m carrying you around for the duration. And I don’t mean maybe!”