“Let him hide in it!” he presently growled. “We’ll go in after him and smoke him out. Get those rear guns ready, Freddy!”
“Think I’d forgotten them!” the English youth snapped. “You just get us up there. That’s all you have to worry about!”
Dave had to grin in spite of himself. Good old Freddy Farmer! As meek as a mouse when nothing special was happening. But let action show up and at the drop of a hat he was like a snarling tiger.
“If we don’t find him,” Dave grunted as he saw the tiny Arado slide up into the cloud and disappear, “I’ll probably have my hands full stopping Freddy from getting out and looking around. Well, here we go in after him. And if we smack into him, it’s going to be his job that’ll break up like toothpicks, not this tough Vultee.”
As Dave spoke the last he lifted the nose a bit more and then went slashing up into the cloud. In nothing flat he was tearing through a glistening white world that seemingly tried to crowd right down into the cockpit. Hand steady on the stick, and body bent well forward, he peered hard into the glistening mist, ready at an instant’s notice to fire his forward guns and swerve off sharply if the shadow of the other plane should suddenly loom up in front of his propeller.
However, no shadow loomed up before him, nothing but white mist that glistened in the blazing rays of the tropical sun. And then, suddenly, the Vultee went ripping up out of the cloud and into clear air. No sooner was he out in the open than Dave leveled off from his zoom, and twisted around and stared down back at the top of the cloud. It seemed almost to wink at him mockingly. There was no sign of hide nor hair of the Arado.
“Lost him, blast it!” Freddy Farmer grated.
“Keep your shirt on!” Dave snapped. “We’ll find him. He can’t be far. Just take it easy, and be ready to smack him when he comes up through.”
“If he does!” the English youth groaned, and then fell silent.
Dave didn’t say anything, either. He simply tooled the Vultee back and forth over the cloud and kept his eyes riveted on its fluffy crest. Presently he slid down through it again to clear air below. In fact, he practically combed the cloud with the Vultee, but that was all the good it did him.