Dave Dawson became a flying madman. Instinct, and
instinct alone, caused him to whirl the Lockheed up, over, and down in a
half roll. Hardly had he started the maneuver, than he kicked the ship
over on wing and came around back and straight up toward the sun-filled
sky. Not until he had reached the peak of his power zoom did he take so
much as a second for a look around. But now he did race his eyes about
the sky, and rage boiled up within him as he saw three German
Messerschmitt 109's pulling out of furious power dives, and prop clawing
around and up in an effort to "box" him in a perfect cross fire.

"Not today!" he thundered wildly, and dropped the nose of his Lockheed.
"You had one swell chance, because I was too dumb a sap to think of
keeping eyes in the back of my head. That's the only chance you'll get.
You didn't make good, and now it's my turn. Hey! You there on the right!
How do you like _this_ for a tasty dish?"

As he shouted the words, he touched right rudder a bit and slammed down
almost at the vertical, straight for one of the power-zooming
Messerschmitts. The German pilot must have thought that ramming was the
one idea Dawson had in mind, because the Nazi plane suddenly fell over
on its side and started to circle away to avoid a mid-air crash. But
ramming was not Dawson's idea. No, not while he had slugs for his aerial
machine guns and shells for his air cannon. However, he waited until the
last second before he gave the Nazi aircraft everything the Lockheed
had. The almost instantaneous result indicated that it was much, much
more than enough. One minute the Messerschmitt was curving away, and the
next it just wasn't there any more. That is to say, it was just a shower
of flaming and smoking embers falling away to the sun-scorched Sahara
far below.

"One!" Dawson bellowed, and cut his fire.

Yes, one! And that left two others in the sky. However, those two were
crafty veterans of the _Luftwaffe_, and they had not been wasting time.
Nor had their actions been with the idea of getting away from the wild,
mad flying Yank eagle. On the contrary, they had simply maneuvered to
await their time. And that time came as Dawson cut his fire and started
to wheel up out of his thunderous power dive.

As he started up, those two let fly at him. Maybe both hit the mark, or
maybe one of them missed completely. But what did it matter? The mark
was hit, and the "mark" was Dawson's plane. The air all about him seemed