"But who'll fly the bus, now?" he gasped when he finally found his tongue.
"If she handles something like a Hurricane, don't worry!" Dave shouted, and vaulted into the seat vacated by Wiggins.
The searchlights had once again picked up the Wellington, and Dave had the crazy impression of flying right straight through the sun as he hunched himself over the controls. A world of brilliant, blinding light smote his eyes, and it was filled with the thundering roar of exploding anti-aircraft shells, and the snarling yammer of death-spitting aerial machine guns. Instinct and instinct alone guided Dave's movements as he struggled to wheel and dive that Wellington out of the dazzling white glare. He couldn't even see the instrument panel in front of him, the light was so blinding. However, you don't need eyes to shove the control stick this way and that. Nor do you need eyes to jump on left or right rudder pedal.
Perhaps the designers of the Wellington bomber would have torn out their hair in anguish at the way Dave Dawson booted their brainchild about the searchlight-stabbed sky over Belgium. But Dave didn't give a thought to that. Perhaps he didn't fly it real pretty like. But a twin-engined Wellington loaded with bombs isn't exactly like a swift sleek Hurricane, so what the heck? The idea was to cut away from those fingers of light that pinned them against the heavens, and that was the only idea. How the heck he brought it about didn't matter. That he could do it was what counted.
And he did succeed. Without warning the Wellington sliced right into a wall of darkness. Dave instinctively reached for the throttles to take strain off the howling engines, but he checked his hand, and let the plane roar deeper and deeper into that blessed sea of darkness. Then presently, when he saw the searchlight beams being frantically swung back and forth across the sky far in back of him, he put the ship in a steady climb and twisted around in the seat.
That is, he started to twist around in the seat, but such movement seemed to make the top of his head fly off. In a flash he realized what was wrong. In the excitement his oxygen mask had slipped down off his face and he could not reach the tube with his lips. Night air was pouring through the shattered section of cockpit glass cowling where fragments of shrapnel had struck, and the sensation was akin to a million icy needles pricking the skin of his face and hands. He let go of the controls, adjusted his oxygen mask and sucked the life giving gas into his lungs. In a second or so he was a new man. He set the controls for level flight, then twisted around in the seat and looked back.
Freddy and the navigator were bending over Wiggins and the second pilot. Even as Dave looked, the flight lieutenant slowly sat up, made a wry face, and put a hand to his head. Dave sighed thankfully.
"Well, he's pretty much okay!" he breathed. "So that's one of them to handle this bus."
He turned forward for a moment to check the instruments, then scrambled out of the seat and went back. Flight Lieutenant Wiggins saw him and smiled thinly.
"Much obliged, old chap," he said, and slowly stood up. "Had a hunch you two knew something about planes. R.A.F., of course."