He cut his throttles while he studied the six blue ships. The men piloting them wore helmets, goggles and overalls, . and he saw, as they came out of their dives in a precise formation, that they could fly.
A thousand thoughts raced through Bill's mind as he watched them spiral upward and return to the attack. He knew he was justified in returning their fire. Yet he hesitated. He knew he could open the throttles of the Lancer and run away from them. He could land safely at Ma'an, but he would still know nothing about their base.
He could climb to a ceiling they could not reach and follow them to their base, but he was worried about his fuel supply. If his tanks had been punctured the night before and he was forced to land, he and Sandy would be at their mercy.
Then one of the blue ships was on his tail again. He heard the tat-tat-tat of its machine guns, followed by the fire of another. He could feel the bullets lashing through the Lancer's tail assembly and creep forward. He pulled the stick back and sent the Lancer skyward in a desperate zoom.
“All right, kid,” Bill shouted into the telephone. “Let's dish it out!”
He heard Sandy's swivel gun chatter as the six rugged biplanes closed in on them from every side. He gunned the Lancer and pulled away. The light-blue ships tried desperately to stay on his tail.
“Now, kid!” he roared. “We'll take it to 'em!” He whipped upward in a chandelle and dived head-on at the six rugged one-seaters. He dived with his two .50-caliber guns yammering. But his speed was too great for accurate fire. The blue ships dived and zoomed and skidded to get out of his mad path.
A blue ship came under his sights for that fraction of a second that is enough. His finger fastened down hard on his gun trips. He raked the blue ship with a withering fire. The pilot's head jerked upward, then slumped forward on his chest as it became a mask of blood. The plane slipped off to the right and began a fluttering descent to the desert, until the nose fell and the tail began to spin.
Bill gunned his engine again and came over in a normal loop on the tail of another ship. His line of tracer smoke curled above the head of the pilot. His bullets crashed into the fuselage and crept-forward into the engine block. Little wisps of smoke rose along the engine housing. Then orange flame raced out and back into the face of the pilot.
As Bill zoomed upward he heard Sandy's swivel gun chattering again. He glanced back over his shoulder, and saw that Sandy's eyes were gleaming like balls of fire in a face that was streaked with black.
Then the air seemed to be filled with flashing, slashing blue planes. They darted about the Lancer like wasps about an enemy who has disturbed their nest. They were everywhere, charging in from all angles, trying to get the Lancer in the vortex of their fire.
Bill whipped the Lancer through the air with the speed and precision of an automaton. He knew that the Lancer was taking a terrific pounding, and he knew that one bullet in the reserve tank on which he was running might be fatal. But he was determined to fight it out now. He was determined to fight until he had the knowledge he wanted. And that meant he must drive off those four planes so that he could land beside the pilot who had bailed out of his burning plane.
As another blue plane came under his sights his finger clamped down on the trip of his 37 mm. cannon. A half dozen roaring barks sounded above the din of throbbing motors and yammering machine guns.
What had been a sturdy biplane became a great cloud of black smoke, stabbed with streaks, of saffron and crimson. Ribbons of bright orange shot out of it as it broke in all directions. The three ships behind it zoomed upward to get out of the path of the flying debris. Wings and fuselage hurtled through the air as the shells of the 37 mm. gun struck the engine block and detonated. The engine dropped from the black cloud and raced toward the desert. A gust of wind struck the black cloud of smoke and lore it apart. All that was left of the biplane and its pilot were bits of cloth and metal falling earthward.
“That ought to teach 'em something!” Sandy gasped. ,
But Bill was too busy avoiding the six streams of death that were aimed at him to answer. He grimly counted three in his mind as he came up in an outside loop and dived. Again his fingers fastened down on his machine-gun trips. The pilot of the ship that was under his sights tried to stand up and walk off into space. Or so it seemed. But he would never try to walk again. His body had been made into a sieve, from which his life's blood poured out into the cockpit as the ship plunged toward the silent, endless desert.
It was then that the other two biplanes decided that discretion was the better part of valor. They stuck the noses of their ships down and opened their throttles wide as they saw the fourth of their comrades go to his death. Their faces were white and frightened as they glanced back and up over their shoulders.
Bill wiped the perspiration out of his eyes as he watched them go. For an instant he had an almost overwhelming desire to follow them and tear their ships to pieces with his bullets. They had tried to gang him, thinking their superior numbers would give them an advantage he could not overcome.
The blood pumped through his body like liquid fire as he watched them go. They were the murderers of young Douglas. And they had tried to murder him. He debated whether or not it was his duty to go after them. Then he decided against it. It he could pick up the man he had seen bailout of his burning ship he would take him back to Kestrel, and Kestrel would make him talk.
He took his eyes off the fast-disappearing ships and scanned his instrument panel. The blood in his body, which had been boiling with rage a moment before, seemed to freeze.
His fuel gauge showed zero as his engines began to spit and sputter! He idled them out and tried to hold his altitude while he studied the barren wastes of sand below them.
“Gosh, Bill.” Sandy's voice came to his ears. “We'll never get out of here.”
“Shut up!” Bill answered as he threw his radio key and began to chant Shorty's call letters into the microphone.
But Shorty's voice did not answer. No sound came back to Bill but the faint crackle of static. He twirled the volume, wave-length control, and the master tuning control to get the radio station of the Royal Air Force field at Ma'an.
As an answering voice came back he spoke his name once. Then all was silence. He stared at his radio controls and twirled them while he continued to chant the field's call letters into the microphone. But no voice answered except Sandy's.
“It's dead, Bill,” he said as Bill threw his telephone switch.
“Get out some glasses,” Bill said to him. “See if you can locate Ma'an. I can't see it because of the mountains to the east. Perhaps you can find it with the glasses. I'm trying to stretch out our altitude, but we're almost out of it.”
“I can see where it is, approximately,” Sandy said in a moment. “But it's a long way from here. What do you suppose is wrong with the radio?”
“Something shot away,” Bill said curtly. The cold hand of fear clutched at his heart as he gazed at the interminable sea of sandy hillocks that stretched on and on, forever.
He knew that unless one of Kestrel's men sighted them in that vast expanse of sand it would be their last resting place. A man might fight his way through to water and civilization, but his chances would be small.
He threw a switch and watched his instrument panel until his wheel-landing-gear light and float-landing-gear light burned. Then he flattened the Lancer out until his wheels were just kissing the sand. They struck the irregular surface at eighty miles an hour, with flaps set well down. The engines gave their last sputtering gasp as Bill threw on his wheel brakes and cut his switches.
Suddenly he sat bolt upright in his bucket seat and probed the air above him. Then he tore out his radio headset and shouted at Sandy.