As the telescope picked up the eight lanes racing upward, Bill gasped and continued to peer with unbelieving eyes. The ships were fast, rugged one-seaters with flat, short wings, lean fuselage, stripped down undercarriage and mighty power plants. But those things were not what made him gasp. He gasped because he could see the squadron insignia of the Royal Air Force painted on the sides of the fast little ships!
As fire and orange flame jetted from the machine-gun troughs along the engine housing of the eight ships, Bill jerked the control column of the Lancer back into his stomach and stuck the nose upward to escape that hail of lead. He could feel the Lancer tremble from em to stern as bullets drove into the tail assembly. Then he was away from them. He leveled the Lancer off and began to spiral upward.
His mind was a maelstrom of thought. Why had a portion of a squadron of British planes attacked him? He wasn't sure, but he believed that the insignia he had seen was the insignia of a squadron stationed at Ma'an.
Then all of that left his mind as he thought of Red Gleason. He flipped his switch and made contact with Red on the radio.
“How are you coming, fella?” he asked him anxiously.
“I'll do, Bill ” Red said weakly. “But I'm losing a lot of blood. I'll have to sit down soon.”
“Do you think you can make it to Ma'an?” Bill asked. “It's a half hour. It will be dawn by then, We'll stay at twenty-five thousand until just before we're ready to land. It will be safer than landing on the desert, with those ships over us. Do you think you can make it?”
“I'll make it all right,” Red said. “Three hundred miles an hour,” Bill ordered. “Keep your radio open and shout if you think you're going to be in trouble, Red.”
“0. K.,” Red said. “Bill!” Sandy said excitedly. “I can see those planes streaking off to the west with their running lights on. They tried to get up to us, but began to wallow at about twenty-two thousand feet. Who are they, Bill?”
“'They were British army planes,” Bill said grimly. “And the pilots wore British uniforms. I can't figure it out.”
“Shall I follow them, Bill?” Shorty asked quickly.
For a moment Bill hesitated. Then he spoke with his usual decisiveness. “No,” he said. “Let 'em go. They might gang you. And we've got to stay with Red in case he has to land.”
V—EXPLANATIONS
DAWN was creeping out of the east when the Silver Lancer and the three Snorters circled the field at Ma'an twice while they studied the wind sock and the layout of the field.
Five minutes later Bill led the way in. He had set his brakes, killed his engines, and was over the side before the man in the uniform of the Royal Air Force reached his side.
“Oh, Barnes! Mr. Barnes!” the man called as Bill ran toward Red Gleason's Snorter. Bill knew that Red must have fainted because his twin props were still whirling after he set his brakes and the ship came to a halt. He turned his head and waved a beckoning hand at the man in the light-blue uniform.
Bill's face was white, and the muscles in his cheeks stood out like whipcord as he dived into the front cockpit of Red's Snorter
Red was curled up over his stick, and his left shoulder was a sodden mass of red. Bill's breath whistled through his nostrils as he slipped the catch on Red's safety strap and lifted him bodily out of the cockpit and tenderly slipped his feet to Shorty Hassfurther.
The eyes of the man in the sky-blue uniform widened with horror as he saw the blood-saturated body of Red Gleason. But he didn't forget why he had been sent out to greet Bill Barnes.
He saluted and began, “Wing Commander Kestrel sends his compliments to Mr. Barnes and his men, and re—”
“Stow that!” Shorty Hassfurther snapped at him. “We need an ambulance. Hop!”
Kestrel's adjutant stared at Shorty for a fraction of a second. “Right!” he exploded as he swung on his heel and sprinted toward a group of buildings.
Bill Barnes had cut away Red's white overalls and was packing gauze against his horribly mutilated shoulder. Shorty was doing what he could to help, while Sandy looked on with that touch of sadness and horror in his eyes that bespoke his youth.
“Do you think it's very bad, Bill?” he asked.
“Plenty bad,” Bill growled. “The bird who did that is going to pay for it. Red's lost a lot of blood, and I don't see how the bone can avoid being shattered.”
He glanced up as an ambulance came clanging across the field with two or three men hanging on the back—then back at Red. His hard eyes became misty as he gazed at the calm stillness of Red's white face.
“Guts!” he said, half to himself. “He has what it takes.” He knew what pain that last forty-five minutes must have cost Red. He knew how he must have struggled to fight off unconsciousness until he had his ship down safely.
“That,” Shorty Hassfurther said, his voice husky, “is something he learned in France when they used to give us orders to bring our ships back. They didn't care if we got shot through the head. That was all right with them. But they needed the ships.”
Bill and Shorty lifted the inert form of Red into the ambulance, hung on the back step while it clanged its way across the field to the hospital.
Ten minutes later they saw Red wheeled into the operating room, his face as white as the sheet that covered him.
BILL BARNES' face was a thundercloud as he faced Wing Commander Kestrel across his desk. Both he and Shorty had shaken the commander's hand.
“How did this thing happen, Barnes?” Kestrel asked, “Is he badly hurt?”
“We left Sandy with him,” Bill Said. “He is still under the ether. We don't know how bad it is. But some one is going to pay for it.”
“Could he have shot himself accidentally while he was in the air?” Kestrel asked. “They told me it was a bullet wound.”
“It is a bullet wound,” Bill said grimly. “It's a wound from a machine-gun bullet fired from a Royal Air Force plane by a man in British uniform!”
“I say!” Kestrel exclaimed. He started to rise from his chair, then sank back again while the color drained from his face.
“ A bullet fired from a British plane by a man in British uniform,” he said stupidly.
“What about it?” Bill barked. “We were about two hundred miles from Ma'an when eight one-seater biplanes dived on us with all their machine guns yammering. Luckily Gleason was the only one who was hit. The rest of us managed to get out of their line of fire. Hassfurther and Sandy joined Gleason at twenty-five thousand feet. I stayed down to learn who had attacked us.”
“Eight one-seater biplanes,” Kestrel repeated. He talked like a man under the influence of a strong drug. “How could you tell who they were at night?”
“My Lancer is equipped with an infrared-ray telescope,” Bill said. “I could see them as plainly as I could in the daytime. I saw their uniforms. They were not wearing overalls. And I saw the British cockade and the squadron insignia checked the insignia with a plane on the field a few minutes ago. They are the same.”
“Yes,” Kestrel said, like a man who is tired beyond endurance, “they are the same. About two hundred miles northwest of here?”
“That's right!” Shorty barked. Kestrel looked at him for a moment as though he didn't see him. Then a faint smile flickered on his twisted lips.
“I'm sorry this has happened, Barnes,” he said. “I am more sorry than I can say. Things are happening so fast I can't keep up with them mentally. I must explain to you, I'll try not to bore you. You must be patient. I hope this won't make a difference. I've been hoping since I learned you were coming you would help me, Barnes:”