"Won't be long, now," Freddy murmured with a look at the radium-figured dial of his wrist watch. "But I agree with you. I'll feel much better once we get in the air, and are getting on with the show. Remember all of Major Barber's instructions?"

Dave laughed and then whistled softly.

"Twenty years from now you could ask me, and I'd be able to recite them word for word," he said. "The Major should be a school teacher, or something. He can sure put details in your head, and make them stay there. He's a swell guy, the Major is."

"That he is!" Freddy echoed the statement. "A bit of all right. No doubt his ancestors were English."

"Listen!" Dave shot back quickly. "I said the Major was a swell guy, see? Just skip casting slurring remarks about him, see?"

"As if--!" Freddy blazed, and then saw the grin on Dave's face. "Well, his ancestors didn't come from the Belgian Congo, like one chap's I could mention!"

"Stop talking about yourself!" Dave threw at him. "Besides, we were originally talking about this raid. What do you think our chances are, Freddy?"

The English youth was silent for a moment. He walked a few steps forward, staring unseeing at the ground.

"I don't know," he said finally. "My brain refuses to try and figure the odds. Which is just as well for my nerves, I guess. I'm only hoping it comes off as easily as the planning makes it appear. One thing, though.

Selecting me to go along with you is just about the finest honor I ever received."

"Oh, think nothing of it, my friend!" Dave said with an airy wave of his hand. "Back in New York when Major Barber asked me if I thought you were well enough trained to--"

"Rot!" Freddy cut in harshly. "I was being serious, Dave. True, we've seen quite a bit of the war. And we've accomplished an odd job or two here and there. But there are plenty of men older than us, better trained, and far more experienced in this kind of thing. It was a mighty high honor to pick a--well, you might say, a couple of kids like us."

"You've got something there, pal," Dave said gravely. "But as the Major pointed out, age doesn't mean a thing in this war. Kids and grown men alike can turn out to be heroes with the right stuff. And, not to boast, there are a couple of points in our favor. We're pilots, experienced ones. We know that area pretty well from the first year of the war. We also speak German well. And--well, there're a couple of other good points about us, but skip them. The main point is that the Major selected us. As far as that goes for me, it's okay. I don't care about why he picked me as one of the pair. I only hope and pray I live up to the trust he's put in me."

"Quite, and me, too!" Freddy Farmer breathed as though in prayer. "I suppose I feel as I do every time we're handed a tough a.s.signment, but I truly feel that I want to accomplish this job tonight and tomorrow dawn more than I've ever wanted to accomplish anything. It's--it's as though my whole life had been built up to this night. Do I sound crazy?"

"Nope, not at all," Dave told him quickly. "You're simply saying the words I couldn't think up. Say, how long now? I'm getting so jittery to get going that if I wait much longer I won't have the muscle co-ordination to hoist myself up into the pit. How long, Freddy?"

"Twenty minutes," the English youth replied. "Steady on, Dave. Don't let it get you down, old chap. Things will start soon enough. Be like I am, calm, cool, and--"

"A c.o.c.keyed liar!" Dave finished with a laugh. "But thanks for the effort, pal. Your voice does have a soothing effect upon me, at times.

And note that I said, at times!"

"Grat.i.tude for you!" Freddy snorted angrily. "But of course, I expected that kind of a comment, coming from you. By the way! I hope you checked to see if your n.a.z.i uniform was stuffed in the pit?"

"I did," Dave replied, and laughed. "And my rigger mechanic saw it, too.

Made him plenty curious. The bundle, I mean. He couldn't tell that it was a n.a.z.i uniform. I thought it best to offer some kind of an explanation, so I told him that it was an extra uniform in case I got shot down in flames, and burned the one I was wearing."

"Good grief!" Freddy gasped. "What a crazy thing to say! And what did he say?"

"He didn't," Dave chuckled. "He didn't say a thing--to me. He just walked off, muttering something about all Yanks being a little balmy."

"And he wasn't far from wrong!" Freddy Farmer leaped at the opening.

"Particularly in your case. But let's start on back to the tarmac, shall we? They should be starting up the engines for a brief warm-up soon. And it isn't good to, give the other chaps the idea that we're trying to snub them."

"Nuts!" Dave snorted. "Those guys are regular. They wouldn't think anything like that, ever. But let's get on back, anyway. I want to give my bus one more check, just for something to do. Oh-oh! There go some of the egg boys. Happy landings, fellows! And smack them plenty, the b.u.ms!"

As Dave spoke the last he and Freddy threw back their heads and stared up into the dark sky that was suddenly filled with the roaring thunder of many bombers winging out across the Channel to "lay" their "eggs" as planned. For a couple of minutes both sky and earth trembled from the steady thunder of powerful engines. Then gradually it faded away in the southeast.

"Boy! That was a bunch of them!" Dave exclaimed with a whistle. "The whole raid area will probably be flat as a pancake by the time the Commando troops arrive. Gosh! I hope their eggs don't scare von Staube and von Gault away!"

"Or make the blighters hide in some bomb shelter where we can't find them!" Freddy echoed with a little nervous laugh. "Well, let's buzz over. There's the first of the Merlins starting up. Getting close now, Dave."

Dawson didn't comment. He licked his suddenly dry lips, swallowed hard a couple of times, and hurried with Freddy across the drome to the line of twenty-one Spitfires on the tarmac. Pilots gathered in small groups were breaking up, each man going over to his plane. Dave went over to his, and Freddy to his own which was next to it. Both knew their planes by heart, but from force of habit they each made one last and final check, and found every little thing just as they knew it would be.

Then they met between the two planes and waited for the engine fitters to climb in the pits and kick the Merlins into life. The whole drome, now, was echoing and re-echoing to the roar of Merlin engines. But to Dave and Freddy, and everybody else for that matter, the thunderous roar was the sweetest music on earth.

"Well, have you two got it all straight, eh?"

They both spun around at the sound of the voice shouting above the Merlins' roar. Squadron Leader Parkinson stood there dressed and ready for flight. He was calmly smoking a cigarette, but there was a flashing, eager-to-be-off look in his eyes. Dave nodded and answered for himself and Freddy.

"All okay, sir!" he shouted back. "We go off second with Green Flight.

Up to ten thousand, and fly line astern by flights until we pick up the Para-troop transports five miles off sh.o.r.e."

"Right!" the Squadron Leader said with a nod. "Then spread out in top cover. Green right, blue left, Red center, and Purple Flight covering our tails. Right you are, lads. Good luck to you both. If any night Messerschmitts or Focke-Wulfs put in an appearance, don't let the blighters go any place but down!"

"And with flames for company, sir," Dave added with a grin.

"Quite!" the Squadron Leader echoed the statement, and started to turn away. He checked his movement, however, and turned back to give each of the two youths a searching stare.

"I meant that," he said a moment later. "About good luck to you both. I don't know a thing, but I fancy you didn't go over to Commando H.Q.

yesterday just to have a spot of tea. Anyway, mighty glad to have you with us--until you have to peel off, and go on your own. Cheerio, until we meet again sometime!"

Without giving either of the boys a chance to say anything, Squadron Leader Parkinson flipped a hand to his goggles in salute and went quickly away.

"Jeepers!" Dave presently e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Maybe we should wear signs on our backs, or something! That Parkinson is no dumb bunny, what I mean!"

"Oh, quite," Freddy said. "But after all, old chap, we're not strictly R.A.F. these days, you know. And--well, I fancy it must have struck everybody a bit queer, our just joining up with the Squadron wearing U.

S. Army Air Force uniforms. Plenty of Yank squadrons over here, now, for us to be a.s.signed to. And that call from Commando H.Q. would start any chap thinking."

"Yes, I guess that's right," Dave said with a nod. "But here's hoping the birds on the _other_ side of the Channel aren't so bright. But why should they be? Oh, nuts! I'm just yelling down a rain barrel. Well, Freddy, old tin of herring, Papa will look after you as best he can. But try not to get in my way, and on my neck too much, see? I've got important things to do from now on."

Freddy took the extended hand, and the pressure of Dawson's grip told him all he needed to know.

"You mean that the other way around, I fancy!" he snapped. "And I warn you, young fellow, this is absolutely your last chance! Mess up this show tonight, and I'll definitely leave you behind in all doings in the future. I'm completely fed up with shielding your mistakes from our superiors each time we go out on a show. Those things in the leading edge of your wings are guns, understand? They shoot bullets. But bullets meant for n.a.z.i planes, not British or Yank or French or Polish or Canadian. Please have sense enough to remember this time. So don't forget! This is your last chance to prove you're the type to tackle big things with me."

"Boy! What a soap box artist you'd make!" Dave cried with a chuckle.

"Give that vocation a thought, if you last out this war, Freddy. And right now stop breaking my fingers! What do you think you're doing?

Cracking walnuts! Go on! Get into your ship before I break into tears. A tender babe like you, going along on a man's job! There should be a law, or something."

"Rot!" Freddy snapped, but his voice was a little husky. "Well, happy landings, Dave, old thing. See you anon at that cl.u.s.ter of sh.e.l.l-battered barns over in Occupied France."

"I'll be there waiting, sweetheart," Dave said. Then as a parting shot, "And don't forget the rip-cord ring. You have to yank it hard for the thing to open. Very necessary, you know."

"I'll do my best to remember, Dave," Freddy Farmer a.s.sured him.

And the two air aces climbed up into their Spitfires.