As the crash and fire truck went streaking by him he swallowed hard and unconsciously clenched both hands tight. It wasn't that he was really afraid that Freddy Farmer wouldn't make it. He'd seen his English-born pal in too many tight spots, and seen him get out of them slick as a whistle. And of course the crash and fire truck was simply routine precaution. Just in case, so to speak. Still, as he hurried his steps and watched Freddy come sliding down, a clammy chill seemed to take hold of his heart, and his mouth and throat went strangely dry.
Was their assignment to the Fighter Command of the Eighth Air Force a jinx move? Two weeks ago they had completed a very important mission in North Africa, and they had put in the request for assignment to the Eighth Air Force based in England. True, it had been mostly Freddy Farmer's doing. Dawson hadn't cared much where he was sent just so long as he could keep swinging at either the Japs or the Nazis. But Freddy longed for a look at his native country again, and so Dawson had agreed that that was okay by him.
But then trouble seemed to begin to dog them. For four days the worst spell of weather ever to hit Casablanca kept their Air Forces transport plane grounded. They had finally taken off on the fifth day, only to have engine trouble force the pilot of the transport to turn back when he was only two hundred miles out. It took thirty-six hours to fix the plane. Then they had taken off again and finally reached England in a pea soup fog that was forcing even the birds to walk. Luck, plus sweet beam and instrument flying by the pilot, saved them from hitting the deck and being washed out of the world and the war right then and there.
That had been four days ago. The next day they arrived at Two Hundred and Five and were given the only two replacement planes the Squadron had. And both had to be fussed with considerably before they could be taken aloft for test flight. Dawson's had turned out to be a complete lame duck. And now Freddy Farmer was bringing the other one in on its belly.
"It must be old age creeping up that lets the jitters get me!" Dawson muttered as he finally came to a halt close to where he judged Freddy's plane would touch the ground. "I'm acting like an old woman over a simple wheels up landing. Easy does it, Freddy, boy. Slide her in sweet and smooth. You can do it, kid, and—"
He let the rest trail off into silence. Farmer was close to the ground now, and coming in as slowly as he dared. Without realizing it Dawson took a deep breath and held it locked in his lungs as there ceased to be air space between the belly of Freddy Farmer's Lockheed Lightning and the ground. The Lockheed touched with a sound like that of a giant slapping the palm of his huge hand on a tin roof. And then it went rocketing forward, sending up a shower of dirt and dust that almost completely hid the plane from view. Then suddenly the left wing seemed to strike something and snag. The Lockheed flat-spun violently on the ground, crabbed off to the right, and seemed about to buckle and pile up in a heap of twisted metal. But at the last split second it managed to shake itself free, and slide forward another few feet, and come to a dead stop.
By then the crash and fire truck was right along side of the plane, and Dawson and several others, including Major Starke, were legging out there as fast as they could go. A panting gasp of relief burst from Dawson's lips as he saw Freddy push up out of the nacelle pit and climb down onto the wing, and jump to the ground. That was proof enough that Freddy hadn't been hurt, and Dawson ran the few remaining yards with a stinging sensation at the backs of his eyeballs. But when he finally reached young Farmer, the question popped from his lips just the same.
"You all right, Freddy?"
Farmer turned to him, gave a wry smile, and nodded.
"Quite," he said. "But I certainly made a blasted mess of it, didn't I? Something caught the left wing, and I couldn't do a thing. Maybe I should go back to training school. I was certain I could get her down all right, blast it!"