"Radio check, chaps!" came the words in Dave's helmet phones.
"Check, sir," he spoke into the disc-shaped mike in front of his mouth.
"Check, also, sir," he heard Freddy sing out.
"Right you are, lads," the flight lieutenant replied. "Don't forget to turn on your oxygen at five thousand, so's you won't forget it at twenty."
Dave reached forward and turned the little valve knob that would feed him oxygen through a mouthpiece. He didn't need it yet, of course, but it was a practice to turn the thing on at low altitudes so that it would be ready for instant use at higher altitudes. If you waited until you needed oxygen, you might be too busy at that moment fighting for your life to have time to turn the knob. And then it would be just too bad—for you.
And so Dave made sure ahead of time, then concentrated on keeping his place in the V-shaped formation, and following his flight leader high up into the cloud-dotted blue. In less time than it takes to tell about it, England was just a blur of browns and greens far down under their wings; just a tiny island completely surrounded by water and almost within broad jumping distance of Nazi-conquered Europe. Dave, however, didn't bother about admiring the sight. He had seen it countless times before. And besides, he needed his eyes now for things above, not under him. Somewhere up in that vast expanse of white-dotted blue two German Junkers were trying to sneak in to drop their bomb loads on English soil. Two of Air Marshal Goering's winged vultures were hoping to—
"There they are, chaps!" Flight Lieutenant Barton-Woods' voice came through the earphones. "Turn right a quarter, and a thousand feet above us. Tally-ho, lads! The blighters! They spotted us and are turning back! After them, Green Flight!"
Dave and Freddy had already spotted the two would-be raiders off to their right front and a thousand feet or so higher. The huge twin-engine craft were halfway around in a bank back toward the east, and the rays of the sun on their metal wings and sides made them look like prehistoric birds of glistening silver cutting through the air.
Keeping his eyes glued to them, Dave hunched forward slightly in his seat and slid one thumb up to rest on the trigger button on his control stick. One jab at that button and the eight Vickers high speed machine guns cowled into the Spitfire's wings, four on each side, would spew out a shower of destruction at the rate of over nine thousand bullets a minute. All eight guns were sighted to converge at a point some two hundred yards in front of the ship. And anything that crossed that spot when those eight guns were hammering out their song was doomed to a lot of trouble—and nine times out of ten just plain, naturally doomed.
For a split second Dave took his eyes off the Junkers trying to scoot back home and shot a quick glance at Freddy Farmer. His lips twisted back in a happy smile, and a warm comforting glow drifted through him. Good old Freddy. Always there just off his wingtip. A pilot in a million, as far as Dave was concerned. They flew like a team that had been working together for years instead of only a few months. Each seemed to sense instantly, whether on a routine practice patrol or in the middle of a bullet-barking dog fight, just what the other was going to do. And as a result of the perfect coordination between them, more times than not they got exactly what they went after. As Squadron Leader Trenton, 207's commanding officer, had once remarked: