"Quite!" came the sudden and startling voice of Freddy Farmer over the radio. "And there are the blighters! Off there to the southeast. Fancy they got annoyed when they learned the bombers got through, and decided to have a go at a ground strafe. Tally-ho, Dave! And there's the R.A.F. chaps coming up to join in the fun. But we'll get first cracks at the beggars."
"Sure, but remember about last time!" Dave shouted back at him. "No funny business. Get your man this time, and no fooling around. Okay, kid! Up and at 'em!"
As Dave snouted the last he lifted the nose to a steeper angle, and went wing-screaming up toward a group of ten Nazi long range fighters that were bearing down on the Land's End field. Twisting in the seat, he glanced down back at the swarm of R.A.F. Spitfires and Hurricanes that were racing up off the field. A pleasant warmth surged through his body, and there was a glad song in his heart.
"Just like the old days!" he cried happily. "Flying with the dear old R.A.F. again. Yeah, good! Plenty good!"
As though to echo his words, he heard Freddy Farmer's guns blast away. The leading Nazi plane swerved, then dropped by the nose and started down with one engine smoking badly. Dave grunted and ruddered his P-Thirty-Eight a little to bring his sights to bear on another Nazi plane.
"Okay, first blood for you, Freddy!" he sang out. "But it's my turn, now, and how!"
His words were no crazy boast. They were simply a statement of cold fact. And as his guns started hammering out made-in-America doom, his statement was proved. A second Nazi would-be ground strafer seemed to jump straight up in the air. That is, the fuselage went upward. The wings remained at the lower level for a moment, then went slip-sliding away. The fuselage fell over by the nose and went down like a bomb as two objects popped out of it and soon became a pair of Germans going down by parachute.
The swift double kill obviously took some of the lust for battle away from the other Nazi pilots. The formation swerved this way and that, and then broke up into pairs that made half-hearted passes at the ferry bomber-covered field below. But they all should have stayed home. By then the pilots of the locally based R.A.F. squadrons were in the scrap, and their arrival just about settled things for the Germans. A couple of them did linger around a little longer, but that was very stupid of them. They went down like nailed clay pigeons, while their pals went streaking back across the Channel to their temporary homes in Occupied France.
When Dave and Freddy came down out of the air and landed, an orderly was waiting for them.
"Group Captain Farnsworth wishes to see you two officers at once," he told them.