tousled head out from under a blanket. Stan knew he had been lying there waiting for the stove to get hot.
They dashed water over their faces and hurried out into the raw morning. Stan glanced at his watch. It was four o’clock. They walked to the briefing room where they joined a crowd of pilots who were seated on benches staring at a square of transparent talc pinned over a wall map. Red lines showed the route of the Forts and Libs. Soon a sleepy buzz of conversation filled the air. As the pilots talked, they watched the little group of officers gathered before the map.
Suddenly the Old Man, Colonel Holt, turned and faced them. There was an immediate hush.
“A lot of people think we just go along with the bombers to catch a bit of fresh air and to keep from going stale. This mission promised to be our chance to crack the enemy, but unfortunately, Weather reports clouds up to our return point.” The Old Man stared unwinkingly at his men. He read the disappointment in their faces. “We are hoping that for once Weather will be wrong.”
This brought a few grins and a snort or two from the pilots. The Old Man went on talking.
“You are to fly formation as planned. This will be strictly a team job. There will be no free-lance hunting. Understand?”
Everyone looked glum. O’Malley scowled. It was not his nature to like strict rules. He had learned what he knew in the days of the Battle of Britain and later in the South Pacific and then over Africa and Italy. O’Malley always had been a rip-roaring fighter who accepted battle against any odds. If trouble did not come his way, he went looking for it.
Stan wondered if that last warning was not aimed at O’Malley and himself. All of the other fliers were trained to this sort of fighting. Stan and O’Malley were the only old heads in the flight.
O’Malley and Stan marched out with the others and climbed into heavy flying suits. The Thunderbolts were high fliers and worked best at twenty-three thousand feet or more. That meant heavy equipment with oxygen and all of the other trappings, including heated undergarments.
The pilots waddled out to their planes and climbed up. Ground crews moved back. They had serviced and checked the fighters and now their Pratt and Whitney twin bank radial engines were turning over smoothly. Exhausts flared blue flames which sent wavering shadows across the wet cement of the apron. Flight Officer Mickle was running about like an old hen with a scattered brood of chicks.
Stan glanced down the wet and gleaming runway. An Aldis lamp winked down toward the shadow bar. Stan eased himself back against the shock pad. He glanced at his temperature gauge and across his instrument board. The throb of his Pratt and Whitney engine hinted at power, though it was rolling over smoothly and effortlessly. Stan remembered other nights many months past when he had sat in a Hurricane waiting for the flash of the lamp and the order from the tower to go up through the blind alley between the barrage balloon cables to wage unequal war against invading Germans. Things had changed a lot since then. Now he was a part of the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army and was fighting for his own country as well as Britain.
“Red Flight, check your temperatures.” That was the voice of Flight Leader Sim Jones.
The boys checked in one at a time.
“Up to fifteen thousand. Stay in close,” Sim ordered.
Suddenly a motor burst into full-throated roar. A dark form hurtled down the runway and lifted like a flash. Another ship darted away, and then another. Stan slammed his hatch cover shut and opened up his throttle. He jammed down hard on one brake and the Thunderbolt swept around. She poised an instant, then knifed down the slippery runway. Stan hoiked her tail with a blast of prop pressure and hopped her off. He went roaring out over a mobile floodlight and up into the dark sky for the rendezvous with Red Flight.
High above the channel, the ships of his flight tucked in and circled. Soon they picked up the flight of Liberators and Fortresses. At twenty-five thousand feet the big bombers left broad vapor trails behind them. Stan looked down upon the killers from his perch in the sky. Dawn was breaking and the scene was no longer drab.
Red Flight was covering the flank of Second High Squadron. Stan could clearly see Third Low Squadron and First Lead Squadron. Each squadron was composed of a first flight of three bombers and a second flight of three bombers. Stan grinned. He knew exactly where his pal March Allison was flying. He was in left-hand slot, second flight, Second High Squadron, the hottest spot in a bomber formation.
Stan eased over a bit and shook O’Malley off his wing. Sim was waggling his wings, ordering the boys to spread out and get set for interception. Red Flight spread out but stayed in position like a football team moving into formation for a screen pass. The bombers roared on toward Germany, keeping tight formation so as to be able to lay out a deadly cross fire from their fifty-caliber guns. Each Fort and each Lib was a bristling pillbox with nose guns, waist guns, belly guns, and ball turret guns. Stan wondered if he would not be flying one of the big fellows very soon.
Everything went off smoothly and according to plan, except that for once Weather had missed a bet. As the flight neared the point over Germany where the Thunderbolts were to turn back, a cold wind washed the sky clear of clouds and a cold sun shone upon the raiders.
“In the good auld summertime.” Stan heard O’Malley humming.
“Shut up, O’Malley,” Sim grated.
Suddenly flak began to blossom out from the countryside below. It blossomed in the sky over the bombers and in the middle of Red Flight. Thunderbolts ducked and dipped but went roaring on.
Down below, the bomber boys were scanning the skies.
In his Fort, Allison drawled over the intercom, “Pilot to navigator.”
“Go ahead, pilot.”
“Everybody set?”
“Navigator to pilot, hot stuff coming up.”
“Right waist gunner to pilot, sir. 190’s at eleven o’clock. They’re after the flight ahead.”
“Rear gunner Roger, sir. Flock of Focke-Wulfs at six o’clock. Coming in on our tail.”
“I say, old man, don’t get itchy fingers. No ammo to waste.” Allison’s voice was calm and unruffled.
O’Malley’s voice broke in over Stan’s headset. “Hey, sure an’ we ought to go down an’ bust that up.”
“Stay where you are, O’Malley,” Sim snapped. “We have plenty of Me’s coming in at twelve o’clock.”
Stan had been so busy watching the bombers he had not checked his own part of the sky. A glance showed him Sim was correct. A flight of some twenty Me fighters were diving and circling above.
“Keep them up there,” Sim ordered. “But stay in your slot. You happen to be outnumbered and you also happen to have the job of seeing that those Me’s stay up there away from the bombers.”
Red Flight knifed along through the thin air, ready to smash any Me daring to go down the chute upon the bombers.
“Come on down and fight, ye spalpeens!” O’Malley was yelling.
Stan saw that the Forts and Libs were slamming lead at the Focke-Wulfs in a blaze that rivaled a Fourth of July celebration. He kept an eye on Allison’s Fort and saw an FW go down flaming after a thrust at the bomber. Stan chuckled softly.
“Allison got one!” O’Malley yelled. “’Tis a sad day, this, for Mrs. O’Malley’s son.”
Allison’s Fort got another FW and O’Malley’s flow of abuse against the Me’s increased. He was in a towering Irish rage. But it did no good. The Me’s hung on, waiting for the Thunderbolts to turn back. It was a case of who ran short of gas first. Now “lace-panty” flak was blossoming all over the sky. It exploded in pretty pink bursts and that was why the boys gave it such a fancy name.
“We have to go in,” Sim ordered grimly.
“Go in!” O’Malley bellowed. “Why not give them birds a scare anyway?”
“We’ll zoom up and scatter them,” Sim said. “But any man who stays to put on a show will have to walk back.”
Stan eased over and kicked on a bit more power. The Germans had the attack route well charted. They knew just how far the Thunderbolts would be able to penetrate. With a burst of speed Stan went up and over. Every Thunderbolt did the same, but O’Malley beat them all to it. He roared over Stan’s head, almost ripping away his hatch cover.
The Me’s ducked gracefully and scattered. They looped and dived for it. Stan saw at once the chase was hopeless. The Jerries meant to tease the Thunderbolts deeper into Germany so that they would be sure to run out of gas. It was infuriating, but there just was nothing that could be done about it. Stan watched O’Malley as he roared after a Jerry.
