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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dave Dawson,
Flight Lieutenant
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Dave Dawson, Flight Lieutenant

Author: Robert Sidney Bowen

Release date: November 6, 2015 [eBook #50400]

Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVE DAWSON,

FLIGHT LIEUTENANT ***
 DAVE DAWSON,
FLIGHT LIEUTENANT

by
R. SIDNEY BOWEN

Author of
"DAVE DAWSON AT DUNKIRK"
"DAVE DAWSON WITH THE R. A. F."
"DAVE DAWSON IN LIBYA"
"DAVE DAWSON ON CONVOY PATROL"

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

AKRON, OHIO · NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY CROWN PUBLISHERS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any

evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
renewed.]
 Contents
CHAPTER ONE Wings of the Brave
CHAPTER TWO A Present from Satan
CHAPTER THREE Broken Wings
CHAPTER FOUR Hero's Homecoming
CHAPTER FIVE Nazi Intrigue
CHAPTER SIX Pilots' Plans
CHAPTER SEVEN Dave's Plan
CHAPTER EIGHT The Dead Speak
CHAPTER NINE Vultures Over Europe
CHAPTER TEN Doomed Wings
CHAPTER ELEVEN Airman's Courage
CHAPTER TWELVE The Voice of Death
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Satan's Brother
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Steel Nerves
CHAPTER FIFTEEN A Chance in a Million
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Gods Laugh
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Midnight Madness
 CHAPTER ONE
Wings of the Brave

Squadron Leader Markham, O.C. of the famous Eighty-Fourth

Squadron of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command, leaned back in
his office chair, dug knuckles into his tired eyes, and heaved a long
sigh of relief.
"I say, but am I fed up to the teeth with the blasted paper work that
goes with this kind of a job!" he groaned. "Not at all like in the last
mess we had with Jerry. A chap could fly every day, then, regardless
of rank. That is, up until the last nine months or so. Then C.O.s were
grounded, as being too valuable to lose. But still there was no paper
work. Not a bit of it."
"True, it is a bit of a task and a bore," Adjutant Phipps agreed from
his desk in the corner. "Seems Adastral House must know everything
from what the lads have for breakfast to whether or not they wear
their socks on the wrong feet. All for a good reason, I suppose. But
it does give a chap the writer's cramp. What do you make of this
latest memo that came through, sir? Number Six-Four-Two-Nine."
The Squadron Leader pulled his hands down from his face and
blinked.
"Eh?" he grunted. "Don't believe I saw that one. Must have passed it
over. What's it about, Phipps? Does it make sense or is it like the
usual stuff that comes through?"
The Adjutant fished an official looking sheet of yellow paper from a
pile on his desk, got up from his chair and crossed the office.
"There it is," he said placing it in front of the Officer Commanding.
"Frankly, I haven't the faintest idea, sir. Looks to me like some bloke
at Air Ministry wasn't quite recovered from a terrific binge, or
something. All a lot of Greek, as they say."
Markham blinked his eyes a couple of more times, leaned forward a
bit and squinted at the yellow sheet of paper. The top half was filled
with all the routine junk ... code letters, numbers, and file reference
marks ... that always accompany official communications. So he
gave that part just a sweeping glance. It was the communication
itself that attracted and held his attention.
It read:

Reconnaissance pictures considered obsolete as of Twenty-Fifth.

Zone K-24 believed to be evacuated. It is essential that
confirmation of this be obtained at the earliest possible
moment, regardless of cost. Plan X-4-B depends upon complete
knowledge of the situation. You are advised to communicate at
once with Squadrons assigned to this task, and to make your
arrangements as speedily as possible. You are also advised to
carry out the assignment on a voluntary basis. Please
acknowledge this.
Group Captain Ball
Air Ministry

Squadron Leader Markham read the thing through three times, then
pushed back from his desk and cocked a stern eye at Phipps.
"I'm surprised, Phipps!" he said.
The Adjutant gulped a little and blinked.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" he said.
Markham tapped the paper with his finger.
"About this," he said. "Do you mean to tell me that you don't
understand? You don't comprehend?"
Phipps licked his lips, fumbled with a loose button on his tunic, and
wondered if he should have enlisted in the artillery instead of the
R.A.F. So many blasted mysteries in the Air Force.
"Well, sir," he began. "That is ... I mean.... Well, frankly, sir, I don't
think I do understand."
"Don't think?" Markham barked at him. "Well, that's the difference
between us!"
"Yes, sir," the Adjutant said weakly.
"Exactly the difference!" the Officer Commanding said with a curt
nod of his head. Then grinning broadly, "You don't think you know,
Phipps, but I blessed well know I don't know. It's the craziest memo
I've ever received. I'd almost say that Group Captain Ball was stone
spiffed, but I know him personally, and he never touches a drop. Get
him on the wire for me, will you, Phipps? I believe I have half an
idea as to what's up."
"You have, sir?" the Adjutant echoed with interest.
"I read lots of detective books," the Officer Commanding said with a
wave of his hand. "Fine for taking a chap's mind off this blasted war.
Yes, I fancy the postman stopped at the wrong house this morning."
"Eh, sir?" Phipps mumbled with a frown.
"Obvious, I think, Phipps," Markham said and tapped the paper
again. "This was supposed to be delivered to some other bloke, not
to me. Now, get Ball on the wire like a good chap, eh?"
"Yes, sir," Phipps said and spun back to his own desk. "Oh, quite,
sir."
As the Adjutant reached his desk he stopped short and turned
toward the window. So did Squadron Leader Markham for that
matter. Outside the air had suddenly become filled with the roar of
powerful aircraft engines. Markham leaped over to the window and
looked out and up at the five plane formation playing tag at some
three or four thousand feet over the field. They were Supermarine
Spitfires, the new Mark 5 type; the latest and fastest fighter plane
off the British aircraft factory assembly lines.
They looked exactly like the old Spitfires, and in many ways they
were just the same. But there were also many changes, and
improvements. There was more horsepower in the Rolls-Royce
engine in the nose. There was more fire power due to the addition
of four 20-mm. aircraft cannon to the already standard equipment of
eight death chopping machine guns that could blast out bullets at
the rate of nine thousand odd per minute. And there were a few
very hush-hush gadgets on the new Mark 5 that the Nazi Luftwaffe
would sell its soul to have on their planes. But that is the difference
between the Royal Air Force and Hitler's Luftwaffe. The Royal Air
Force will always be better tomorrow than it is today, but the
Luftwaffe gets just so good, and there it stops. There just isn't that
something in the Nazi aeronautical make-up that drives a man on to
improve upon his best efforts!
"Those Mark Fives!" Markham breathed as his face lighted up with
honest pride. "What a plane! And, do I wish I was just a Pilot Officer
again, instead of a Squadron Leader. See those two flying Number
Two and Three on the right, Phipps?"
"Yes, sir," the Adjutant nodded with a smile. "Flying Officers Dawson
and Farmer, aren't they, sir?"
"That's right," the O.C. replied. "And it was a lucky day for Eighty-
Four when those two were assigned to us. Just kids, both of them,
but worth their weight in gold. They're going far, I fancy. Fact is, if
this blasted war lasts long enough, I'll probably one day be giving
them the salute, and calling them, sir! Just look at that!"
Phipps was already looking at the five plane formation wheeling
around into the wind to come in to land. Number Two and Three
planes on the right slid down through the air as though they were
wired together. There wasn't an inch change of air space between
the two planes as they wheeled around and down. It was precision
flying, plus! And Squadron Leader Markham was breathing hard
when he finally turned away from the window.
"Born in an airplane, those two!" he grunted. "I swear they must
have been. I ... I say there, Phipps, old thing! Did you get Ball on
the wire? After all, this crazy paper may be very important, and all
that sort of thing. Hop to it, my lad!"
Adjutant Phipps hopped to it, and in less than a minute he had the
Air Ministry official on the wire. Markham took the call, and talked
with his superior for some ten minutes. Phipps listened to the
snatches of conversation he could hear, but it all made very little
sense to him.
Eventually the Squadron Leader hung up. That is to say, he banged
the receiver back in its cradle, and sat glaring at the instrument as
though he would like to hurl it against the wall. Phipps waited a
minute or so, and then couldn't stand the suspense any longer.
"Bad news, sir?" he ventured.
Markham snorted and reached for a cigarette.
"You've been in Service long enough to know that every time you
talk with Adastral House it means bad news!" he growled. "Blast it!
Why did you show me that confounded thing in the first place,
anyway? Why didn't you tear it up and throw it away, and say
nothing?"
"But, sir!" Phipps protested. "That wouldn't be quite right, you know,
sir!"
"There are times when a wrong is perfectly right!" Squadron Leader
Markham grunted between puffs on his cigarette. Then with a faint
gesture of his hand, "But don't go and shoot your brains out, old
thing. Not your fault, of course. Some nit-wit, balmy bloke at Air
Ministry who put it in the wrong dispatch pouch. Fact is, I was wrong
to have called Ball. Now we're in for it, I fancy."
"A special assignment, sir?" Phipps asked.
"Something like that," the Squadron Leader nodded. "Don't know the
details, but I'm quite sure that it'll turn out something very messy.
That blasted paper should have gone to Hundred and Seven
Squadron, not us. When I told Ball we had received it he was over-
joyed, blast his hide. Said he realized that we should have been
selected in the first place. And having received the thing by mistake,
he is going to assign us to it, anyway."
"To what, sir?" Adjutant Phipps persisted.
Markham sighed and shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "Ball wouldn't give details over the phone, of
course. Said he was flying down here, himself. Be here sometime
this afternoon. But you can be sure that it'll be something like
capturing two whole Nazi Staffels complete with equipment, or
kidnapping Hitler, Goering, and Himmler, and bringing them back
here to England to keep Rudolph Hess company. And chances are,
it'll be something even more difficult. You know, Group Captain Ball
has been given a standing order at Air Ministry."
"A standing order, sir?" Phipps echoed with a blank look.
Squadron Leader Markham crushed out his cigarette and stood up.
"I suspect it, anyway!" he mumbled and stared fixedly at the huge
pin-pointed map of Europe on the opposite wall. "I believe he has
orders to think up the strangest, the riskiest, and the craziest patrol
assignments. And then pass them out to poor blasted beggars like
us. Well, I suppose a lot of chaps have got to take-off and get
themselves killed before this confounded war is won. But it's a rum
business, Phipps. Always bear that in mind."
"Yes sir, I will," the Adjutant said and shook his head sadly from side
to side as Markham walked out of the office.
When the door slammed shut Adjutant Phipps sighed heavily, leaned
back in his chair and stroked his greying hair.
"Yes, I should have joined the artillery," he murmured. "I'm too old
to understand these brave young lads who wear wings. They're
chaps from another world, I fancy."
 CHAPTER TWO
A Present from Satan

Out on the tarmac of Eighty-Four Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer

stood peeling off their flying gear and feasting their eyes on the new
Mark 5 Spitfires. Lights of joy danced in their eyes, and their faces
were flushed with excitement and eagerness for the future to
become the present in a hurry.
"That is an airplane!" Dave cried and slung his parachute pack up
into the pit. "That's a dream. The sugar in my coffee. The moonlight
on a summer night. The smell of a lovely rose. The goal from the
field in the last ten seconds of play. The whozit of the whatzit. And
how!"
Freddy looked at him and sighed unhappily.
"And he was such a bright chap before he took that Mark Five up for
a test hop!" he murmured. "He could count all the way up to ten. He
could write his own name. And he even knew what day of the month
it was. But, now.... O well! They say his kind last just so long. And,
of course, he's a blinking Yank at heart. So.... Hey! Ouch!"
The swinging Mae West life preserver jacket caught Freddy on the
ear, and almost toppled him off his feet. He caught himself in time,
ducked as the Mae West came sailing around again, and charged at
his best pal. Dave backed up and stepped quickly to the side.
"You had that coming to you, my little man," he said sternly. "You
should learn to understand expressions of beauty."
"Sugar in his coffee!" the English youth snorted. "Moonlight on a
summer night! Good grief! Whoever heard of such things?"
"Oh, I've got lots more of them," Dave chuckled. "Better ones, too.
Listen."
"Don't!" Freddy groaned.
Dave ignored him and stuck one hand inside his tunic and extended
the other palm up toward the nearest Spitfire.
"A Mark Five is the lace in your shoe!" he cried. "It is the frosting on
mother's cake. It is the apple in her dumpling pie. It is the breath of
spring. It is the kiss of your girl. It is...."
Dave stopped short and shook his head.
"No, that's wrong," he said. "No girl would kiss that map of yours,
Freddy. They'd.... Hey! So I'm talking to myself, huh?"
It was true. Dave was simply throwing beautiful words at free air.
Freddy had left him cold and walked over to Flight Lieutenant Barker,
who had led the test hop patrol. Dave went over there scowling.
"Fine business!" he growled. "I try to better his education and he
walks out on me!"
Freddy snorted in disgust and Flight Lieutenant Barker grinned.
"You've got a bite, Dawson?" he asked. "Fleas, perhaps?"
"Huh, me?" Dave echoed, and then turned beet red.
He still had one hand stuck inside his tunic. He pulled it out and they
all laughed.
"No kidding, though, Flight Lieutenant," he said. "Isn't that Mark Five
the best thing that ever came down the pike?"
"Down the pike?" the senior officer murmured. Then brightening,
"Oh yes, I get what you mean. Quite! Best bus in the R.A.F. I'm all
for having a go at a Jerry or two right now. I think we'll sweep the
skies with the Mark Fives. But I hear that even better planes are on
the drafting boards right now."
"Phew, that's hard to believe!" Freddy breathed. "I mean, that
anything could be better than the Mark Five."
"Shame, Farmer!" Barker said with a grin. "And that statement from
the lips of an Englishman!"
"Is he?" Dave asked with a mock gasp.
"Is he what?" Barker wanted to know.
"Is Freddy really and truly an Englishman?" Dave replied and set
himself to jump fast. "From the way his eyes slant up, I'd always
thought that he was a little bit...."
Dave didn't finish the rest. And it was not Freddy making a dive for
him that choked off his words. On the contrary it was the wail of the
alarm siren mounted atop the Operations Office. As one man the
three spun around and dashed over to the little hut that was the
nerve center of the Squadron. And so did every other pilot on stand-
to duty.
The Operations Officer met them at the door. He waved a slip of
paper at them.
"Zone Ten Spotters!" he snapped. "A single Messerschmitt One-Ten
sneaking in from the coast. Altitude twenty one thousand. Course,
due west. Intercept and teach the beggar a lesson. Chap's balmy to
try it alone these days. Off with you. I'll give you further spotter
reports in the air."
The half dozen pilots turned from the Operations Office door and
raced back to the line of Spitfires. Mechanics already had the
propellers ticking over. Dave skidded to a halt by his ship and
practically jumped into the parachute harness and Mae West that his
own mechanic held up for him. Then in a single leap he vaulted into
the pit, snapped his safety harness in place, plugged in his radio
jack, and reached for the throttle.
"Get one of the dirty beggars for me, sir!" the mechanic cried out. "I
come from Coventry, you know, sir!"
"Fair enough!" Dave yelled and sent the Mark 5 Spitfire streaking
straight out across the field. "One Messerschmitt coming up, for
Coventry! I mean, coming down!"
Split seconds after the words popped off his lips he was in the air
with wheels up, and curving up and around toward Zone 10. He did
not have to glance at his map to determine the location of Zone 10.
Its location, like the locations of all the zones that Eighty-Four
guarded, was stamped indelibly on his brain. Zone 10 was on the
coast south of Harwich, and he headed in that direction at top
speed.
Out the corner of his eye he saw the other planes of the flight
streaking along in the same direction. He grinned and jammed his
hand against the already wide open throttle as though in so doing
he might get more power out of the singing Rolls-Royce in the nose.
And he knew that Freddy, Flight Lieutenant Barker, and the three
other Spitfire pilots were doing the same thing. If the alarm had said
two or more enemy aircraft were sighted the Eighty-Four lads would
have dropped into formations of flights of three with Barker giving
the orders for attack and so forth. That wasn't necessary, however,
with just one lone Jerry plane in the offing. Instead, it was a case of
first come, first crack at the Jerry. And so the six Eighty-Four lads
were hopping their planes along as fast as they could so that they
might be the one to get first licks at the Messerschmitt. True, that
sort of thing wasn't strictly regulations, but the R.A.F. lads did it ...
and often.
"Ten shillings says you guys are wasting your time!" Dave shouted
happily into his radio mike.
"Ten shillings says you've forgotten there's lots of radios in England,
Dawson!" Flight Lieutenant Barker snapped back at him in the
earphones.
Dave gulped and went beet red to the roots of his hair. In his
excitement he had clean forgotten that ground stations are tuned in
on aircraft aloft all the time. Whatever is said up there goes right
into the ears of the big shots, if they happen to be listening.
"I mean when the formation reaches the objective!" Dave said
hurriedly. "One Mark Five is more than enough for any One-Ten!"
Barker's laugh came over the radio.
"That's nice quick thinking, Dawson," he said. "No wonder you've
got more than a couple of the beggars in your bag."
"Luck! Absolutely nothing else. I was present each time!"
The voice was Freddy Farmer's. Dave opened his mouth to make a
fitting retort, but checked himself. At that instant he heard the voice
of the Operations officer back down on the field.
"Tiger Flight!" he called, using the code name for the patrol in the
air. "Change course twenty degrees north. Clouds ahead of you.
Enemy aircraft climbing to twenty-four thousand. Operations to
Tiger. That is all!"
"Tiger to Operations!" Dave heard Flight Lieutenant Barker check
back. "Changing course. Right you are!"
Dave had already swung his ship around more to the north, and was
hunched forward over the stick staring hard at the mountain cloud
bank looming up ahead. His eagle eyes swept it from side to side
and from top to bottom. But he failed to see a single moving dot
that could be the Messerschmitt One-Ten trying to climb up over the
stuff. He saw nothing but that bank of clouds and the crazy shadows
that marked nature's nooks and crags in the stuff.
And then he heard Freddy Farmer's excited voice coming into his
earphones.
"Enemy aircraft sighted! Five more degrees northward. Just under
the tip of that finger of the stuff on the left!"
Dave snapped his gaze in the direction indicated, and then suddenly
saw the blurred dot curving upward and to the north. He grinned
and gave a little shake of his head.
"Old Sharp Eyes Freddy Farmer!" he grunted. "Boy! How does he do
it?"
"Simple!" the radio's earphones told him instantly. "I jolly well fly
with my eyes open. Try it sometime, old bean. You'll be surprised at
the difference."
Dave didn't make any comment. At that instant the moving dot
moved right into the billowy clouds and was completely lost to view.
"Spread out, chaps!" came Barker's orders. "Don't think the beggar
is turning back. Spread out and keep your eyes skinned. And bear
northward."
As he was flying on the extreme left Dave cut around sharp north,
and stuck his nose down for additional speed. The dot had entered
the cloud bank at approximately the same altitude as that of his own
Spitfire, but he had the sudden hunch that the Jerry pilot was going
to stop climbing. That he was going to go down and try to sneak out
from under the cloud bank while the lads of Eighty-Four fruitlessly
hunted for him at high altitudes.
"Maybe I'm wrong," Dave murmured. "And that won't be anything
new, and how. But if he sticks to those clouds it'll mean he isn't on
photo reconnaissance. And if he goes down under the stuff it'll mean
the same thing. Right! There's nothing down there that Goering's
little dopes haven't taken a million pictures of since they started this
cockeyed war. Yeah! It's my hunch that lad is over here on other
business."
With a nod for emphasis he steepened the Spitfire's dive a bit and
went cutting down across the English sky like a comet gone haywire.
In less than practically nothing flat he was down below the altitude
of the belly of the stuff. He pulled out and let the Mark 5 prop claw
straight forward at an even keel. At the same time he threw back his
head and raked the underside of the cloud bank with his eyes.
He saw nothing, however. Nothing but clouds and more clouds.
Seconds ticked by to form a minute. He banked slightly and glanced
back to see if any of his pals had the same hunch. His was the only
Spitfire to be seen, however. The others were way up above him and
completely out of sight.
"A horse on you, Dawson," he grunted, "if they smack the guy
down, and buzz back for a spot of tea, leaving you to hunt the little
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