CHAPTER EIGHT
Screaming Death
For perhaps ten full seconds Dave stared brittle-eyed at those two moving dots. Then he took his eyes off them and looked at the Cub cabin monoplane. The little craft was doing its best to keep pace with the Air Corps plane, and its pilot was still waving his arm out the window and trying to make his screamed words of pleading carry across the air space that separated the two planes. As Dave looked at him he suddenly realized that he had been automatically swerving the Vultee to the left. This was because the Cub pilot kept swerving in a little too close for comfort, and Dave wasn’t taking any chances of a mid air tangle of wings.
But now that he had seen those two moving dots, the Cub pilot’s maneuvering meant something entirely different. Without appearing to do so, the Cub pilot was forcing the Vultee eastward and toward a point directly under those two moving dots high in the air. Dave grinned faintly, but a steel hard look crept into his eyes. He suddenly turned his head toward the Cub pilot and nodded it violently. Then he cupped both hands to his mouth.
“Okay!” he roared, “Get out in front and lead the way!”
The Cub pilot stopped waving instantly, and his face beamed with gratitude. He gave his small engine all the power it could take and pulled out in front of the well throttled Vultee.
“I guess this is best, Dave!” Freddy said. “Might as well take a look, just in case, what?”
Dave waited until the Cub light plane was a good bit in front and bearing around to the east. Then he looked back at Freddy and winked.
“One up on you this time, sweetheart,” he said. “The old Farmer eagle eye missed the pitch this time. I think we’re in for a bit of action. Anyway, I kind of hope so. Take a gander up and to the east, Freddy. That darker bank of clouds. See what I mean? And they’re not a couple of sparrows, either. Can you make out the types?”
The English youth blinked, looked puzzled for a brief instant, then lifted his eyes and fixed them on the cloud bank. Dave, watching him, saw amazement and then anger flood Freddy’s face. When Farmer lowered his gaze his eyes were startlingly cold and hard.
“The dirty blighters, if that’s what they’re up to!” he bit off. “Get us started on a supposed mercy errand, and then try to drop down on our necks.”