Dave Dawson on the Russian Front Part 18

A moment later a second flight of n.a.z.i planes roared by toward the front. And then a third flight, and a fourth. Dawson squinted up at each flight, and saw that his guess had been correct. Half of the planes were single-seater Messerschmitt One-Nine fighters. And the other half were Messerschmitt One-Tens. And when the last flight had pa.s.sed over he sat down on the floor again, scowled darkly, and scratched his head.

"Just ducky, just dandy!" he groaned. "We hide our s.h.i.+p just a hop skip and a jump from a mess of high speed n.a.z.i jobs. What a sweet hope we'd have trying to take off. Or is there some way of getting a B-Twenty-Five into the air without using the engines?"

"Lots of ways!" Freddy Farmer grunted unhappily. "But I can't seem to think of one, right now."

"Well, keep thinking, pal!" Dawson told him. "Because I guess we're going to have to do just that. Darn it! Where is that Senior Lieutenant, anyway? She's one bright girl, and always has the right answer. Maybe she'll have the right answer to this one."

"I hope!" Agent Jones echoed fervently.

"I fancy that makes two of us who hope, old thing," Freddy Farmer sighed. "A bit strange, though, there was no sign of the airfield on that mosaic map of Major Saratov's," he went on after a split second pause. "Or could all of us have been so blind as to have missed it?"

"Hardly," Agent Jones said with a grim laugh. "If you ask me, we didn't spot it because you wouldn't even spot it from the air. The Jerries, as you well know, are absolutely top-hole in the art of camouflaging. I think that's the answer, frankly. A very cleverly camouflaged air base that Soviet pilots haven't discovered yet."

"And we have--too late!" Dawson grunted. "Say, listen, you two. What say we give the Senior Lieutenant twenty minutes more, and if she hasn't returned by then we go take a look-see at that airfield, huh? To my way of thinking, we can't count too much on the B-Twenty-Five, with a nest of Messerschmitts this close. Better have a look-see, anyway. Am I right, or wrong?"

"Perfectly right!" Freddy Farmer said.

"The same for me," Agent Jones echoed. "Twenty minutes more for the lady to show up, and then we start snooping around on our own."

Whether the war G.o.ds planned it that way or not will of course never be known. But exactly nineteen minutes had ticked by on Dave Dawson's wrist watch when suddenly a shadow fell across the dawn light on the floor, and Senior Lieutenant Nasha Petrovski came gliding into the room.

Instantly the three men were on their feet, and it was Dawson who found his tongue first.

"Boy! Am I glad to see you, lady!" he gulped out impulsively. "I mean, Senior Lieutenant, it's sure nice to see you back. We were getting mighty worried."

The Russian girl smiled her thanks, but her smile was far from her usual flas.h.i.+ng one. She sat down on the floor and pulled off her tattered peasant cap to show her close cropped jet black hair. Dawson, staring at her for a moment, could not help but admit to himself that Nasha Petrovski in a Senior Lieutenant's snappy uniform, or Nasha Petrovski in the tattered garments of a Ukrainian peasant woman, was still one mighty pretty girl. He brushed the flash thought from his brain, however, and squatted down on his heels in front of her.

"Bad news, eh, Senior Lieutenant?" he asked quietly. "I think I can see it in your face."

She didn't answer him for a moment. She seemed content to wait until Freddy Farmer and Agent Jones had also squatted down on the floor. Then she nodded her head, and her eyes flashed with some inner rage.

"Yes, bad news, my gallant comrades," she said evenly. "It would seem the n.a.z.is here at Urbakh are far more clever than we expected."

"Quite," Agent Jones murmured politely. "The camouflaged airfield. We have just been watching some of their planes fly over."

"Yes, a secret airfield!" the Russian girl said in a low voice, and clenched her two hands into fists. "It is not a quarter of a mile from where we now sit. I have seen it, and though I will hate all n.a.z.is to my death, I must speak praise of that secret field. It is all underground, under a large flat-topped hill. You almost stumble into it before you see the screens of branches that hang down over the entrance. When planes are to take off, the screens are lifted by wire cables and the valley at the base of the hill becomes a smooth take-off runway. It is clever. Yes, it is ingenious. It is also most unlucky for us that n.a.z.is are so close."

"Well, they haven't spotted us yet!" Dawson said, to cheer her up a little. "And we'll just make sure that they don't."

"Yes, of course," the Russian girl replied in a dull voice, and shrugged sort of hopelessly. "But it is blame that I must put on my own shoulders. I am ashamed to--"

"Now look, Senior Lieutenant!" Dave spoke up quickly. "We--"

But that's as far as he could get. She silenced him with her eyes, and an upraised hand.

"Let me finish, please, Captain Dawson," she said. "Then you will realize why I am so ashamed. It is my sad duty to report to you three gallant ones that the n.a.z.is have _already_ discovered our airplane.

There is a strong guard about it this very minute. And, of course, they realize that we must be somewhere in this area."

Had Hitler himself stepped through the c.o.c.keyed slanting doorway at that exact moment, the three youths wouldn't have been much more stunned. To Dawson it was like something exploding inside his head. And quick as a flash he thought of the incident aboard the Flying Scotsman, and of the air battle just before the Wellington's arrival in Moscow. Was it true?

Was it true that the Gestapo had been here all the time waiting for them? Had they seen or heard the B-Twenty-Five sliding down for the night landing, and just waited for daylight to capture it? Was that the truth? Dawson wondered. He wondered hard, and little by little he began to get the feeling that the n.a.z.is didn't know who, or how many, had arrived in their midst. If so, why had they not swooped down on the landed plane instantly, and shot or captured everybody right then and there? Was it because they had not been able to reach the bomber before its crew had slipped away in the darkness? Or was it because they, themselves, hoped to be led to the hiding place of one Ivan Nikolsk, who was such an important link in the revealing of their war plans?

Dawson wondered and pondered in silence, and then suddenly he was conscious of Freddy Farmer speaking.

"Let them have the blasted aircraft, and welcome to it!" the English-born air ace was saying. "It makes matters a bit more difficult, but far from impossible. I fancy that there isn't one of us who hasn't been stranded behind n.a.z.i lines before this. We'll get away from the beggars, somehow. The main thing is to locate this bloke, Ivan Nikolsk, and let Agent Jones, here, do his share in this balmy show we're to pull off."

"But that will not be so easy, either, I am most sad to report," Senior Lieutenant Petrovski said bitterly. "A little luck has been mine since I last saw you. I found Ivan Nikolsk, and it was easier than I had dared hope. There was a certain house I went to, on the east side of the village. An old woman, too old to interest the n.a.z.is. Nina, her name is.

She used to rock me in my cradle. She made for me my first doll, out of thin air and a bit of string, almost. She was there at the house. Half blind, but she knew me at once. She swore that she knew in her heart that I was coming. Perhaps yes. Who is there to say no? And what is planned for us on this earth, and what is not planned for us? Who is there to prove this or that to be wrong, or a miracle?"

The Russian girl suddenly caught herself up and made a little apologetic gesture with her hands.

"But such mysteries of life are not for us to speak of at the moment,"

she continued. "It is just that Ivan Nikolsk went to Nina for hiding. He is there. He is there now. I saw him."

"Oh, splendid!" Freddy Farmer burst out excitedly. "Did you speak to him, Senior Lieutenant? And what did he say to you? By Jove!"

"No." She turned to the English youth with a sad smile. "I have made you happy only to make you unhappy. I spoke to Ivan Nikolsk, but he did not speak to me. He is unconscious. He has been so for four days. He has illness, and a terrible fever. Nina has done what she could. But there is no doctor, and it would mean her life to go to the n.a.z.is in the village. Nina says that he has not long to live. And I have seen him, and so believe her!"

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

_End of the Beginning_

The echo of Senior Lieutenant Petrovski's words seemed to linger tauntingly for ages and ages. n.o.body else spoke. n.o.body could think of anything to say. The stillness of dawn stole in through the broken and shattered windows, and lent to the place the atmosphere of a long abandoned tomb. Dawson tried desperately to think of something to say--anything that would remove a little of the bitterness that was stamped all over the Russian girl's face. Not one bit of what had happened was her fault, but that didn't make any difference to her. She accepted the fault as her own, and it showed plainly in the bitter look on her face.

"Well, that just tightens things up a little," the words finally came to his tongue, and popped off. "We've just got to s.h.i.+ft into high gear a little sooner. The big idea now is to get Ivan Nikolsk to a good Russian hospital, and get him there fast. Right?"

"True enough," Freddy Farmer grunted, and stared at him hard. "But I fancy there are one or two little details to be worked out, what?"

"Right!" Dawson shot right back at him. "And that's where you and I can earn a little of what they pay us. Look, Senior Lieutenant, just where is this Nina's house? Can you tell me exactly, so I'd recognize it when I saw it?"

"But of course!" the Russian girl replied, and brightened up a little.

"It was in that mosaic aerial map. You recall those two roads that formed a Y by those star-shaped fields? You remember speaking about the shape of those fields, eh? It is that house right there in the top part of that Y."

"Check!" Dawson cried eagerly, as he instantly pin pointed the spot on the memory picture of that aerial map in his brain. "Yes! I know just where it is. Now, another question. Are there many n.a.z.is roaming around here? I mean, could you and Agent Jones get to this Nina's house without being stopped and picked up?"

"The n.a.z.is would never see us!" the Russian girl said almost scornfully.

"Too many times have I--"

"Okay, and sorry," Dawson stopped her with a grin. "I didn't mean that the way you took it. Okay, then. Answer me this, if you will? Could Farmer and I get to that house without being nailed?"

The Russian girl flashed him a searching look, and then laughed softly.

"What a Russian girl can do, the Captains Dawson and Farmer can certainly do!" she said. "And much more skilfully, no doubt."

Dawson hesitated the fraction of a second, half expecting a crack from Freddy. But the situation was too serious for the English youth to loosen his tongue in a retort.

"Well, that's all I want to know," Dawson finally said with a grin. "Now look, Senior Lieutenant. You and Agent Jones slide over to this Nina's house, and get ready to move Nikolsk out of there. You know, wrap him up in blankets, if there're any around. But, more important, try to check on the movements of any n.a.z.is who might be around. Meanwhile Farmer and I--well, we're going to take a little walk. However, we'll join you and Agent Jones as soon as we can. But it might not be until nightfall tonight. So don't get worried if we take that long."