"The poor fellers," grated O"Malley.
Stan said nothing but he felt cold all over. He looked down at the carrier and saw torpedo bombers sliding off her deck like little swallows. O"Malley"s voice chopped off his thoughts.
""Tis a pocket battle wagon we get, no less," he almost crooned.
"Thick weather down there," Stan warned.
The muck of anti-aircraft fire made the stratum above the sea look as though it was on fire. The smoke was stabbed by blossoming sh.e.l.ls hurling ragged pieces of iron in every direction. There was a swarm of Messerschmitts and Stukas and Heinkels all messed up with a crisscross of darting, thrusting Hurricanes, Spitfires and Defiants. The Hampdens were not having any better luck in getting through to their objectives than were the Stukas.
"We better set the firecrackers off or we"ll miss one foin sc.r.a.p,"
O"Malley called.
He nosed the Hawk down and sent her into a screaming dive. The little boats that Stan knew were pocket battleships began to grow in size, and the muck swarmed up closer to them with Hades breaking loose around their ears. None of the Messerschmitts tried to stop them. The Jerries thought the odd plane was just another crazy fighter who didn"t know where he was going. The c.o.c.kpit shuddered and the instruments on the board seemed to dance.
"Set your wing flaps!" Stan screamed. "Set your flaps!"
The Hawk began to steady as O"Malley remembered the flaps and applied them. Holding a plumb line at 350 miles per hour, she dropped upon the battle wagon below. Stan could see the deck of the ship coming up toward them as though a mighty hand were lifting it.
The wind screamed above the din of exploding sh.e.l.ls. The gunners on board the battleship were taking notice and frantically trying to swing guns to bear upon the plummeting Hawk. Stan caught his breath and held it. This was exhilarating, almost glorious. He didn"t think about the danger of meeting a bursting sh.e.l.l, all he thought about was the drop and the mighty surge of power. The plane swayed and shuddered as big sh.e.l.ls burst close to her.
Then the field of blossoming sh.e.l.ls was above them and the deck below was big. They could see men scrambling about, their faces white blobs as they looked upward.
"Left a point," Stan shouted as he set the bomb sight. "Now right a bit ... left more."
"Ready!" O"Malley bellowed.
"Ready! Hold her steady!"
O"Malley released the bomb selection levers, both of them.
All Stan had to do was to press the b.u.t.ton and the sticks of bombs were off. He pressed it hard and almost instantly the ship zoomed upward as though tossed into the sky by a mortar. As they wound upward with the Wasp engine roaring Stan looked back.
Where the deck of the battleship had been there was now a great burst of smoke and flame.
"That card will make "em watch their course, me bye!" O"Malley crowed.
Stan could not tell whether they had put the pocket battleship out or not. She shifted her course and moved more slowly, but she kept going.
Now the Messerschmitts decided the crazy ship was a bomber and not a fighter. They swarmed upon her, which was exactly what the wild Irishman wanted.
Stan went to work with his guns, but he kept track of the doings of his crazy pilot. O"Malley seemed to have gone stark mad. He plunged up into the path of the oncoming fighters and his banks of Brownings opened up.
Lead spattered all over the Hawk and a lot of it came through. But two Messerschmitt One-Tens went down before the flock discovered that this new ship had more wicked fire power than a Spitfire. They zoomed and dived and circled like angry hornets.
"They need a bit of educatin"," O"Malley shouted. "An if they"ll be swarmin" around I"ll give it to them."
Stan didn"t answer because at that moment his hatch cover splintered into a million tiny cracks and a maze of ragged holes, the line of bullets moving across not six inches above his head.
O"Malley decided the only thing was to select a Messerschmitt and run him down. He picked one and roared after it. The ME, confident that he had superior speed, darted away. But he soon discovered this strange ship had plenty more engine than his One-Ten. He banked and shot down.
O"Malley dived and was on his tail, slicing away great chunks of the Jerry"s ship.
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 a.s.sorted 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 sh.e.l.ls into the sky recklessly and at the same time pounding to pieces two floundering n.a.z.i 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.
Sh.e.l.ls 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.