“How do you mean?” a voice on the radio asked.
“That’s Helmuth Wick, the boasting Hun,” the young Lord whispered.
“They merely try to stay out of our reach, those English fighters,” said the boasting German pilot. “This shows that the best English pilots have already been shot down. They fire furiously but never hit anything. It must make them very annoyed.”
“Well, thank you, Major Wick,” said the interviewer on the air. “That’s all we have had time for now. Nice to have had you with us.”
“That broadcast is for America,” the young Lord explained. “It is nice they had him with them tonight. He won’t be with them long. We’re all after him. No one loves a boaster. Besides, he’s a dirty fighter.”
“And does he boast!” The Lark put in. “Claims fifty planes shot down, or is it sixty. No matter. He’s head of a flight and sees to it that he stays ahead. One of his fighters always protects him from behind. If he sees one of our planes that’s shot up and wobbling, he just steps in and finishes them off. And that’s number forty-seven, or fifty-seven. Or what—”
“We caught up with him once,” the young Lord laughed. “The Lark here downed the man who protected him from behind. I would have polished him off right then but I got a slug in my motor. Oil started spurting. So I had to make a crash landing.
“Too bad, Johnny wasn’t with us,” he added with a good-natured laugh. “Johnny’d been up there fighting yet.”
“I’ll be with you next time,” Fiddlin’ Johnny said, and he did not laugh. “Tomorrow,” he went on, “we’ll be up with the dawn. The O. C. told me that just before I left. Said we could go up in five formation.”
“Who?” Dave sat up quick.