Air Stories, April 1936 — page 96: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AIR STORIES across the fuselage, his long limbs straddling the doped fabric as he clutched at the padded rim of the pilot’s cockpit. Sudden tumult was let loose, and guttural voices were raised in alarm as Blaney jabbed open the throttle, risking a choke. To his intense relief the engine responded with a throaty roar, and the Fokker leapt forward like a shot from a gun. Crack! Crack! Spurts of flame stabbed the darkness. Revolver bullets raked the hurtling machine, beating a grim tattoo against wires and struts. The Fokker yawed horribly. The con- crete wall seemed to leap towards the starboard wing, and Robin Blaney had a horrible vision of an almighty crash. Spasmodically he straightened out, and more by luck than judgment, hurtled down the launching chute and shot across the crater. There followed nightmarish moments, struggling with a machine with whose vices he was unfamiliar. The crater bank hurtled into his line of vision. He yanked back the stick, crazily clearing the ridge by inches, and somehow he flattened out. ‘“Good lad! Keep her going.’’ Steele yelled encouragement in his ear, and ducked his head again in the fierce lash of the propeller’s slip-stream. Unaware of the tumult in its wake, the leading Fokker still circled beneath the lumbering F.E., waiting for its companion to join it for the ‘‘ kill.’’ Blaney chuckled. ‘‘A sitter, if only I can get these darned Spandaus working.’’ He groped for the unfamiliar gadgets. His hand found the grips, and he pulled up the nose and let loose a flaming burst. The range was so close that he could not miss the Fokker floating serenely in the ring-sights. The twin streams of tracer lashed into the fighter’s fuse- lage. There was a sudden puff of black smoke and a lapping of flame, and the . Fokker went hurtling down in a shroud of fire. Crash Crater had claimed its last victim. As the fighter went flaming earth- wards, Blaney yanked back the stick, climbing with an almost hysterical urge to get away from the pit of death. He felt weary and spent. Reaction after the prolonged nerve strain of the past hectic hours was setting in. Yet there was still one thing left to do. The Fokker, Fe had noticed to his surprise, Was equipped with wireless—part of the general scheme, no doubt, for keeping in touch with the listening-post in the vault. His hand groped for the wireless key, and he goaded his weary brain into remembering the map reference numerals of Wytschaete crater. But somehow his mind would not function, and it was the spreadeagled Tony who, in response to his frantic request, shouted the pin-point numerals in his ear. ‘But what’s the big idea, Blaney P ’’ His companion laughed grimly. ‘‘I’m going to blow that hornets’ nest off the map.”’ IS hand had closed over the wireless key, and already he was sending down a Zone Call, that devastating $.0.S. that was only permissible in grave emergency or in the event of the discovery of a target of important tactical value. They circled, waiting for the response to the wireless call. There came sudden ripples of flame from the dark rim of the night, and a shattering reverberating roar. Shells, screaming from the distant British batteries, crashed down on Wytschaete crater. Two thousand feet below the circling Fokker, flame seemed to leap from the ground. Earth and scattered débris were hurled skywards in a mosaic of death and destruction. Not until the last reverberating explo- sion had died away, and the Wytschaete crater had been reduced to a flattened morass of mud, did Blaney swing the Fokker with its double burden, westwards. ‘‘ That’s the end of their game,’’ he said huskily. Tony Steele eased his sprawling limbs on the vibrating fuselage. A_ grin expanded his muddy face. ‘‘Home, James!’’ he _ chuckled, ‘and don’t spare the horses ! ’’ 382 COnmniclooo S (SO)