When they came up they were well inside the enemy lines and no Royal Air Force ships were in sight, though the air was full of assorted Jerries.
“Get back on our side of the fence!” Stan shouted.
“Sure, an’ it’s nicer over here,” O’Malley called back.
But a minute later he took Stan’s advice. A Messerschmitt came up from below and a Heinkel dived from above with another ME closing in from the rear. The three fighters raked the Hawk as they closed upon her. Her Double-Wasp coughed and sputtered. She kept on running but her zip was gone and oil and air came sucking back inside her. Stan knew it was the sea for him again.
“Mind getting wet?” O’Malley called back cheerfully as he sent the Hawk down and away from the enemy.
“No, you wild man, but I do mind losing this ship,” Stan shouted back.
“She isn’t lost,” O’Malley called back.
They were sliding down and away from the big fight. Even with a crippled motor the Hawk could show her tail to a Messerschmitt. They saw the Spitfires and the Hurricanes now, battling the Jerries up above, keeping them from opening a path for the Stukas. The cruisers and the destroyers were throwing shells into the sky recklessly and at the same time pounding to pieces two floundering Nazi battleships.
“Sure, an’ it’s a fine show,” O’Malley crowed.
He had hardly finished speaking, when the Wasp backfired savagely, shook herself, then died completely.
“Now, you wild Irishman, slide her home if you can,” Stan rasped.
“An’ what do ye suppose they have carriers for?” O’Malley called back.
“This bus won’t set down on a carrier!” Stan snapped.
He looked down and saw the carrier, her deck looking about the size of a banana peeling. Stan figured the chances of landing on the carrier were about one thousand to one, but he realized that would seem like attractive odds to O’Malley.
The Irishman was circling down upon the carrier in a very businesslike manner. So much so that the crew was running about like wild men. The superstructure panel flashed signals neither Stan nor O’Malley could understand. The little men on the deck fired warning rockets and a couple of flares, and then potted at the Hawk with a pom-pom which splattered the side of the ship.
“A nice welcome to be givin’ the King’s two best recruits,” O’Malley growled.
As Stan looked down, the things that could happen to them ticked through his mind. They could run over the side and be chewed up by the screws, coming up in the wake of the carrier as foam and grease spots. They could top the bow and be smashed under by the monster plowing ahead at thirty knots. They could slap up against the superstructure island and burn there like a huge flare. Stan upped the chances. They were one in a million, not one in a thousand.
He didn’t kick or order O’Malley to bail out, which was the sane thing to do. He didn’t even think about his own chute.
The sailors were signaling again and there didn’t seem to be any welcome letters in the signals. But the deck was clear as O’Malley swung the Hawk into line and set her for the crazy attempt. The panel flipped black and white warnings frantically as they zipped in.
“The wing flaps!” Stan shouted as the idea struck him.
“Sure, an’ I’m dumb,” O’Malley came back.
He set the flaps and they nosed over dangerously, but they slowed a lot. The carrier was rolling about, trying to take her proper position, which she had deserted when she started fooling with this strange Royal Air Force plane. She was now paying no attention to the Hawk at all.
Shells from the pocket battleship sent up huge columns of water alongside. Stan squinted through a bullet hole in his hatch cover. The forward plane lift was down, leaving a neat but restricted patch of deck.
Four long, pen-shaped bombs whistled down from the sky. The sea swallowed them and a second later belched an eruption of water.
The Hawk was settling fast now and it seemed the carrier would get away from her. O’Malley cut the incidence. The Hawk lifted a bit, lunged forward and slid over the edge. Then it squashed down, hit and plunged. Stan could see the flying bridge and many staring, white faces.
O’Malley was showing a rare amount of knowledge of carrier landings. He stalled the Hawk as the deck opened under her, then clamped her down furiously. There was a thud, dull but solid. The Hawk wrenched around, screamed complainingly, then set herself at landing position.
Stan tossed his arm over his face and set himself for the crash that would tear him apart. The blow did not come. He slid his arm down, and all around the ship a ring of red-faced sailors peered at him, some of them grinning broadly. Then a cheer broke out.
O’Malley was first out of the ship. He plumped down on the deck and faced an officer who came charging from somewhere. He saluted solemnly. Standing there, with his flying suit hanging on his bony frame, his hawk face peering at the officer, he looked more like a scarecrow than one of His Majesty’s crack pilots.
“Where did this come from and what is it?” the officer demanded.
“’Tis a dive bomber, the very colleen that smacked that pocket battleship not so far back. An’ ’tis a valuable specimen as must be delivered to His Majesty’s air forces,” O’Malley said gravely.
“Go up on the bridge and report at once,” the officer said and his voice was not so harsh. He had seen the Hawk make a direct hit on the deck of the Nazi battleship.
They clumped up to the bridge, Stan edging in ahead of O’Malley. There ought to be a bit of diplomacy used and he was afraid O’Malley might not use the proper approach to the skipper. The flag officer, who had piloted them to the bridge, saluted smartly and retired. Stan faced a grizzled man of about sixty. Steel-blue eyes regarded him frostily. Then the commander smiled.
“My compliments, gentlemen,” he said. “A mighty fine effort though a bit risky.”
“Thank you, sir,” Stan answered. “This plane is a test job and we felt she was so valuable she ought to be salvaged.”
“I see, so you set that superdemon down on my deck.” He gave Stan a searching look. “Your navy training is good. How does it come that you are not with the sea forces?”
“My friend, Lieutenant O’Malley, made the landing, sir,” Stan said.
O’Malley grinned broadly at the commander. “Sure, an’ it was pure luck, the luck o’ the Irish,” he said.
“You will be cared for and your specimen plane will be landed,” the commander promised. “In fact, I watched you dive bomb that battleship and I believe the navy could use some of this type of ship. I will make a memorandum to that effect.”
As they walked down from the bridge, Stan looked at O’Malley. “I never asked you where you learned to fly,” he said. “Could it have been the Royal Navy?”
“It could have been,” O’Malley answered and closed his big mouth tight.
Stan didn’t ask any more questions. They went below and had a good meal. Later they received word from the commander that the carrier was headed across to the Norwegian coast, but they would be sent home by motor launch. The Hendee Hawk would have to wait until the naval patrol swung around their course and slipped into Portsmouth, or some other port.
“How long will the swing take?” Stan asked.
The young officer who had delivered the message shook his head. “One never knows.”
They had to be satisfied with that. No one could tell what the squadron would run into, or when their course would be changed. Nor, of course, whether the carrier would ever see port again. In the meantime all they could do was trust to luck that the Hawk would be delivered ashore somehow. They were fortunate that they were being sent back by a motor launch and wouldn’t have to accompany the squadron across to the Norwegian coast.
CHAPTER VIII
STAN’S PAST RISES
