"And they call the Germans blood-thirsty!" Dave jeered good-naturedly. "What a guy! One minute he's singing songs of his dear old homeland, and the next he's saying how he hopes to knock off a brace of Germans on the way. You want everything, don't you?"
"Very much so!" the English-born ace cracked at him. "Particularly if it's Nazi pilots and observers. I want all I can get of those dirty blighters."
"Well, I guess I'm with you there, pal," Dave chuckled. "The fewer Germans I can leave living in this world, the better I'll like it. Well, let's go hunt up this Captain Jones and get a look at those two winged babies we've got dates with tonight."
CHAPTER FIVE
Dead Man's Wings
A thin pale line of light marked where the eastern horizon met the night sky. Settled comfortably in the pit of his Lockheed P-Thirty-Eight, Dave Dawson nodded his head and half raised his free hand in a form of salute.
"Greetings, dawn," he murmured. "Nice to see that you're with us again. Now if you'll just brighten up enough to let me make sure that that really is Freddy's plane off my left wing, then everything will be pretty okay."
For a little under six hours he had been driving the Lockheed across the cold grey waters of the North Atlantic with only the dark of night, the stars, and an occasional blink of Freddy Farmer's navigation lights for companionship. The take-off at Botwood, and the flight up to now, had been totally without incident or accident. Now, though, dawn was coming up in the east. The light of a new day was spreading across the face of a war-torn world. And in time of war no man can tell what the new day may bring for himself, or for anybody else, for that matter.
"But we should be overtaking the ferry bombers soon," he grunted the thought aloud. "And at least that will be something to break the monotony. Boy! I sure take my hat off to the ferry pilots. Night after night, tooling planes across to England, with nothing to do but sit and let her ride the air. Personally, I'd go nuts. But—Ah, there you are, Freddy, old pal. It really has been you all the time."