The boys got hold of the Mosquito and rolled her out. Arno made off to set his flares. Before the boys piled in, Stan handed his tommy-gun to Allison. "You're an artist with this sort of banjo. You stay on the ground. If any German squads show up, you chase them back into the woods."
"Good idea, old boy," Allison said as he took the gun.
Stan went up and wound up the radial motors. They coughed and sputtered but finally took hold, first with a rumbling gallop that was uneven, then with a smoother roar. The sound of those powerful radials shook the night air. Stan knew their full-throated exhausts could be heard by the Germans.
Flashes of light winked in the woods below, Stan judged that the German squads were not over two hundred yards down the slope. Some might be even farther up the hill. He tested the engines with a jerk of the throttle. They bogged down and sputtered, too cold to take off.
Suddenly rifle fire broke out across the open meadow. The Germans were firing at the flaring exhaust flames from the Mosquito's engines. Bullets whistled past the ship. Allison opened up and the firing from the woods ceased. Suddenly a machine gun began to blast. Its bullets ripped into the ship and around it. Stan gunned the engines and they caught, bursting into a perfect and unbroken stream of power.
On the ground Allison could tell by the sound of the engines that the ship was ready. He began shouting to Arno. Stan throttled down to allow Allison's shouts to carry.
Suddenly a flare blossomed. A few minutes later another flamed. Stan waited impatiently for what seemed a long time. He could tell by the stabs of flame from the rifles across the meadow that the Germans were charging down upon Arno. Then the red flare burst into flame. Stan fixed the spot in his mind, just in case a German got to the flare and put it out. Allison was blistering the Germans rushing down upon Arno, but the distance was too great for a tommy-gun.
Stan kicked the motors on, setting his brakes hard. The attackers were now fanned out and charging across the meadow. Allison could not halt them because they had spread out thinly over a wide front.
"Should we leave Arno?" Tony asked. "He would want more than anything else that you men got away."
"We're not leavin' him!" O'Malley shouted. "I'll get down an' go help him. He may have been hit by a bullet."