“Get your gun ready, kid!” he said. “Those two planes are coming back. They must have seen us banking down and came back to find out what was the matter.” He went over the side of the Lancer with a bound, saying, “I'll get the submachine gun and the rifle out of the emergency locker. Be ready; they'll come shooting.”
They came shooting! They came roaring down like two attack ships with all four or their machine guns yammering and their engines wailing in protest.
But they had not counted on the flexible gun in the rear cockpit or the Lancer. They had expected to find their two victims helpless.
Nor could they shoot with the accuracy young Sandy displayed. After that first terrific onslaught they zoomed upward as Sandy's .30-caliber gun sent burst after burst into them.
“Gosh, Bill,” Sandy said after that first attack, “if we could only use the cannon!”
“Take this Thompson gun,” Bill said grimly. “I'll handle your gun. They'll be back in a minute.”
But they didn't come back. Bill watched the two circling ships, waiting ( for one or them to rock his ship slightly t and extend an arm upward, meaning I to attack.
Instead, the leader or the two ships rocked his plane violently and “peeled off” toward the south, indicating that he was going out or action. The other one followed close on his tail. They had had enough or the accurate shooting of Bill Barnes and Sandy.
“They'll probably come back with reinforcements,” Bill said. He ran his tongue across his dry lips and was startled as he caught himself doing it. He knew that the terrible hands or desert thirst were flicking him. He knew that unless one or Kestrel's men located them they would never be able to get out of there alive.
But he kept those thoughts to himself as he looked at Sandy. He knew that it would be useless to tap the radiators for water because or the chemical mixed with it. It would make them both deathly sick. He thought about two French airmen who had been forced down in the Sahara. They had kept themselves alive by scooping the dew off their wings in the morning and putting it in a container.
That, and a thousand other things, flashed through Bill's mind in those first terrible minutes. Then he got hold or himself and grinned at Sandy.
“We'll have to get under the ship, kid,” he said, as though this was something that happened to them every day. “We can take advantage of the shade. We won't get so thirsty. KestreI and Shorty will have men out looking for us in no time.”
“I'd like to get hold of that grease monkey who said our fuel was 0.K.,” Sandy said.
“Perhaps,” Bill said slowly, “he told us that with a purpose.”
VIII—TRUE HORSEMANSHIP
THE NEXT FEW HOURS were burned into their brains indelibly by the desert sun. When it seemed that they could stand no more, the sun turned on its most scorching rays. At midday they lay panting below the float of the Lancer, moving every few minutes to stay within its shade. Their lips were beginning to crack and their tongues swell into things that felt like huge, dry sponges.
Bill tried to tinker with the radio. But each time he thought he had mended the defect and threw the switch, no crackle of static came to his ears.
“Gosh, Bill,” Sandy said at two o'clock, “do you suppose they'll look for us? I-I-”
“Sure, they will,” Bill said hastily. He gazed at Sandy's burning eyes and cracked lips and turned his head away to hide the thing that came into his own eyes. “They're probably scouring the countryside now. They may not pick us up until morning. But they'll find us. It gets cool out here at night. We'll be able to get water then by scraping moisture off the wings. Keep your chin up, kid. We've been in tighter spots than this one.”
“Oh, I'm all right,” Sandy said, trying to laugh. But it wasn't much of a laugh. It was more like the hack of a consumptive. “We—we'll be laughing about how thirsty we were in a few hours.”
“That's right, kid,” Bill said. But he knew it wasn't right as he anxiously scanned the sky. He knew it would be a long time before they laughed about that day-if they ever laughed again.
In the late afternoon Bill broke out some chocolate from the emergency equipment in the tail locker of the Lancer. And he jotted down in his memory to the effect that if they ever did get out, in the future the emergency equipment would include a certain amount of water.
The sun was poised, ready to plunge into the sea of sand to the west when Sandy let out that first startled exclamation and began to shout at Bill, and point.
Bill followed the direction in which he was pointing, and his eyes narrowed after their first moment of astonishment. Between two hillocks of sand they could see a half dozen mounted men. They wore the bright-colored mantle and head cloths of the desert nomad, and Bill could see that they were armed to the teeth with lances, rifles, shotguns and yataghans. Then they were gone from view. .
“Wait a minute, kid,” he said. “Stop yelling! They may not be so friendly. Remember, they took shots at us before.”
“I'd do anything for some water, Bill,” Sandy said desperately.
“If they're unfriendly you don't want to fall into their hands.” Bill answered sharply. “Kestrel said the natives were ready to revolt. It may be a tribe on their way to join others in the revolt.
Bedouins are notorious for their methods of torture. Get into the rear cockpit of the Lancer. I'll get in the front. If they come toward us in a friendly fashion, stay in the cockpit and have your gun ready. If they come shooting, let 'em have it.”
As twilight settled upon them, the desert became a place of exquisite color for that brief period between daylight and dark. Then the day's fierce heat began to radiate away through the clear, dry air, and the chill of night crept upon them. In an hour's time the moon was high overhead, making the night nearly as light as day.
Suddenly Bill sat up in the front cockpit and threw the switch on the infrared-ray telescope. He had seen what he thought were moving forms on the crest of the hillock ahead. He took one look through the telescope, then spoke to Sandy.
“They're coming, kid!” .he said. “There are forty or fifty of them all around us. I can cover the front with my machine guns. You'll have to take care of the rest. They'll charge on horseback. Use your-”
That was as far as he got when that horde of wild tribesmen came charging over the hillocks of sand from every side, their; robes flapping out behind them, their guns spouting fire and death, their horses driven half crazy by their high-pitched screams.
Bill's finger came down on the gun trips of the two .50-caliber guns in the nose of the Lancer as that first mad wave reached the crest of the hillock. His guns cut a path through the charging tribesmen before they began their charge. As they tore down the side of hillock, out of range, he snatched the Thompson gun from the deck and swung it in an arc.
Behind him, Sandy ran the .30-caliber gun over its track with the swift precision of a trained gunner. Horses and men fell in screaming heaps as his bullets tore into them.
The desert night became a place of horror as the deadly fire of the two machine guns cut down the charging zealots. Yet, on they came, shooting from the saddle, screaming their chant of hate and war.
When they were within twenty yards of the Lancer the thin line wavered. Horses and men piled up in struggling, howling masses. The unwounded men behind them could not advance. For an instant they hung there, returning the machine-gun fire with poorly placed shots from their rifles.
Then they broke and went streaming back over the hillocks, with half their number dead or dying. “
“Take it easy, kid,” Bill said. “They'll be back. You'd better get some more ammunition ill your gun while you can.”