"Well, Duisburg, here we come!" Dawson murmured softly. "And here's hoping you're not too tough a nut to crack."
If the war gods on high heard Dawson's words they must have winked slyly at each other, and then burst out with roaring and hooting laughter! They knew! And so did the Grim Reaper, who was already waiting!
[CHAPTER TEN]
No Man's Sky
After carefully checking the readings of his "black light" instruments, Dave Dawson raised his eyes and scowled out at the ocean of inky darkness that seemed to sweep in on him from all sides.
"Right on course, unless these instruments are haywire, which of course they're not," he murmured. "But just the same, I'd sure like to get out of these darn clouds. The stuff must stretch all the way to China. Anyway, it's not raining. And that's something. But of course, Dawson, old chap, this isn't England, you know!"
As he spoke the words he absently fingered the switch button of his radio flap mike, but when he suddenly realized what he was doing he snatched his hand away as though the thing were red hot.
"Radio silence, at any cost, chump!" he growled at himself. "Not that all of Europe can't hear the racket the raiders are making. But orders is orders. And stop worrying about Freddy Farmer, too. He's right back there in this soup some place. You spotted his plane not over half an hour ago. So take it easy."
Yes, only half an hour ago Freddy Farmer had been right there in back of him, and a little to the left. Sure! But kingdoms have fallen, and nations crumbled in less time than half an hour. Was Freddy still back there in formation position, and was he simply hidden by the clouds? If only he could but speak a few words over the R.T. system, and find out. But he couldn't do that. On this flight he had to observe radio silence, at least until the target had been reached. True, Nazi aircraft detectors had picked them up long ago, and knew just where the gigantic aerial armada was even right now. But that wasn't why radio silence had been ordered. What the Nazis didn't know was that the armada was not heading for simply one target, but several targets. At a given time the armada would split up and follow several different courses. Radio silence, however, had been ordered so that no thoughtless slip of the tongue by anybody would reveal to Nazi ground stations, listening on the same wave band, that more than one target was to be bombed.
Yes, radio silence was the order, yet if anything happened to Freddy Farmer, if Dawson lost contact with his pal, and found Freddy's plane nowhere to be seen, come the first light of dawn, then things would be gummed up right at the start. One definite plan they had made was to stick almost wingtip to wingtip all the way to Duisburg. They planned also to fake being shot down at practically the same time. That way they would bail out close to one another, and it followed that they would not land very far apart on the ground. And just where they planned to land was all planned too. They had decided it after a careful study of the aerial photos of the Duisburg area. And from the detailed information that Major Crandall and Colonel Fraser had been able to give them concerning the sizes and locations of the so-called mystery factories in the Duisburg area. They had chosen the largest factory of the lot, not for its size, but because it stood alone on flat ground, and with a minimum of trees about it on which they might foul their parachutes, and be forced to dangle helplessly at the ends of their shroud lines until somebody came along and cut them down.