Stan restrained a smothering eagerness. He wanted to jump up and down and shout, to slap the Commander on the back. A lot of experts had turned thumbs down on the Hawk. But the saboteur boys had known she was the super-plane and had done everything they could to get her junked, including a nice frame-up on himself. He knew they had just about succeeded if there was only one ship here in Britain.
"I"ll fly her, sir," he said and added eagerly, "she is the greatest combination of fighter and strafing plane ever built. She packs enough bombs to do real damage, as well."
The Wing Commander smiled. "We shall see," he said.
The way he said it convinced Stan it was up to him to show both the British and the Jerries just what the Hendee Hawk could do. If this ship failed, there would be no more of the machines he had worked so hard to help perfect.
"She carries two men," Stan said.
"I have been considering that." Suddenly the Wing Commander laughed outright. "Do you suppose your friend, the pie-eating Irishman, would care to work with you? I should like to have Allison become familiar with the ship, too. In that way we would have three men able to instruct others if we order more of these fighters."
"I don"t know," Stan said honestly.
"I could a.s.sign them to you, but I prefer to let you ask them," Farrell said. Then he got to his feet. "You will report to 7-B at once."
Stan grinned broadly. It would take him away from Garret, at least until the snooping Lieutenant was able to locate him again. He saluted and hurried out of the office.
Stan actually sneaked into the mess. He couldn"t afford to have this chance smashed by a cluck like Garret. The coast was clear. Only a few fliers were lounging about, with Allison and O"Malley among them. Stan crossed the room and sat down between his pals. He did not notice, in his excitement, that they seemed to be expecting him. The clock over the counter showed that in one minute Allison and O"Malley would go on duty.
He wondered who would fill in for him in Red Flight.
"Sure, an" you"ve been shunnin" us," O"Malley greeted him.
Stan came to the point at once. "How would you like to copilot a real ship, an American ship?" he asked, looking from one to the other.
"I"d prefer a glider," Allison said with a wicked leer.
"How about you, Irisher?"
"I wouldn"t mind if me pal didn"t hog the controls all the blessed time." O"Malley grinned.
"She"s a stinger. You"ll see something you never thought was in the bag.
She"s tricky as a Navaho Indian."
"Is that a Canadian tribe of wild men?" Allison drawled.
"Sure," Stan came back. "Hudson"s Bay."
Allison snorted.
"I"m with you," O"Malley cut in. "Anything to get off this deadhead beat the muckle heads have us on. Mrs. O"Malley"s boy came down to London to see some action."
"Good. I"ll get in touch with the O.C. at once." Stan got to his feet.
"Really, old chap, you"re not going to rush off without my final answer.
I"m in on this if I have to fly a kite," Allison said with a wide smile.
Stan put on a cold expression. Allison hadn"t fooled him. He had known the lank Britisher would come in. Allison had that look in his eye he always got when something was up.
"Thanks, Allison."
"You should thank me. I"m giving up a flight lieutenant"s job."
"You"ll still be leader and we"ll demand the Red Flight label. We"ll have three of the meanest brutes that ever rolled out on a line to make the other boys jealous." Stan slapped Allison on the back. "Let"s go."
They reported to the Wing Commander, then shifted their things to B-7.
Later they went over to the hangar to have a look at the Hawk. Allison said very little, but O"Malley was as tickled as a kid with a new top.
He went over everything and the only thing he crabbed about was the cramped quarters furnished for the copilot, who handled the bomb release and the extra guns.
They checked in at their new mess and Stan felt better. He looked in at the briefing room and found it presided over by a fat young man with a broad smile. In the mess he met no one he knew. Everything looked fine and he settled down to watch O"Malley devour a pie.
O"Malley finished his pie and looked hungerly across the room at the counter in the corner. He shook his head sadly.
"If I eat one more me lunch will be spoilt sure."
Stan grinned as he glanced at his wrist watch. It lacked a half-hour until official eating time.
After lunch they made further arrangements for their new job. Allison was to fly with them in a Spitfire. O"Malley went along with Stan as a gunner and student, with care of the bomb racks in his hands. With everything set and ready to go, the revised and rehashed Red Flight prepared to take a little outing. Being on test work gave them plenty of freedom to choose their own jobs.
They slipped away without much notice being taken of the new ship.
Everyone was busy with his own job and paid no attention to the big fighter sliding out on its tricycle landing gear with a Spitfire nosing right after it.
Stan settled back to have some fun with Allison. Out of the corner of his eyes he watched the vertical speed indicator and a wide grin spread over his face. The Hendee Hawk was going up at a terrific pace. Already the Spitfire was far behind. Stan knew Allison would fly the wings off the Spitfire to keep him from getting away. He laughed softly.
He kicked her over and into a tight bank and she zoomed around, boring away. He kicked her back and looped in a dizzy blur of speed. Allison shot in below him and Stan came around to knife past his pal. He glanced back and there was a happy, vacant grin on O"Malley"s homely face, as he absorbed the drone of the 2,000-horsepower, two-row, radial motor.
Allison dipped his wings as Stan went boring past him. It was really a salute and it meant a lot, coming from Allison with his dislike of radial motors.
They roared out over the channel at 15,000 feet. As the French coast line began to show through a thin mist, Stan laid over and started to climb again. Very soon they were nipping at their oxygen, flying at 26,000 feet. They saw no planes at all and the excursion seemed doomed to be no more than a spring frolic.
O"Malley growled into his intercommunication phone. "The Jerries must o"
heard we were comin" out for a spin."
"There"s a cloud or two down and to the east," Stan answered. "We"ll drop down and pick up Allison, then go have a look."
"That"s where the bushwhackin" spalpeens will be lurking," O"Malley agreed.
They knifed over on one wing, peeled off, and roared down. The gyro-horizon did a lot of strange maneuvers and the altimeter was unrolling like ticker tape off a Wall Street machine. They picked up Allison and Stan decided to give the Irishman a lesson. He set the air flaps, and before the startled O"Malley could save himself, he had lost a couple of inches of skin off both shins. The Hendee Hawk seemed to have decided to stop in mid-air. She was pointing her nose straight at the ground, but she had slowed to a steady 350 miles per hour.
"Mother o" pearl!" O"Malley shouted. "What a nice day for dive bombing.
Show me how you do it."
"Just watch." Stan pulled the Hawk out of her dive and then sent her in again with O"Malley watching him closely.
Then Allison"s voice cut in. "You fellows better cut out the grandstanding and have a look west."
Stan looked and saw that Allison was streaking away toward a formation of nine Junkers Ju 87"s. The Stukas were bent upon business and were moving toward the English coast, undoubtedly bent upon intercepting a ship they had received a spotter"s report upon.
"Me bye, you may now show Mrs. O"Malley"s son a few things," O"Malley bellowed. Stan sent the Hawk sizzling away after the Stukas. The Jerries had now sighted the two fighters, but they were keeping on their course, which meant that up in the big clouds above lurked a fighter patrol of Messerschmitts. The Junkers were slow and low-powered, not being able to exceed 170 miles per hour. Stan zoomed up and pa.s.sed Allison who was also going up with the cloud ambush in mind.