They may not
try to shoot at us. Once we get on the other side of the Canal, we'll be
safe. We'll go down and land."

But even as Dave spoke the words to give good cheer to Freddy his own
heart was pounding with fear. The other plane was drawing up on them as
an express train overtakes a slow freight. He could see now that it was
a Messerschmitt One-Ten. A moment later he saw the gunner-observer in
the rear pit shove back his bullet proof glass cockpit hatch and stand
up and wave signals with both his arms. Those signals plainly said for
them to go down and land at once, but Dave pretended that he hadn't
seen. He rammed the palm of his free hand hard against the already wide
open throttle, as though if in so doing he might get increased speed out
of the plane.

It was no more than a futile gesture, however. In the matter of seconds
the Messerschmitt had pulled right up along side them. Dave turned and
looked across the air space that separated the two planes. His heart
zoomed up his throat so fast it almost bumped up against his back
teeth. The German observer was still sending signals to land, but not
with his arms and hands, now. He was doing it with the aerial machine
gun fixed to the swivel mounting that circled the rim of his cockpit. He
was pointing the gun at them and then tilting it down toward the ground
as he nodded his helmeted head vigorously.

Dave stared at the gun as though hypnotized. The blood pounded in his
temples, and his whole body was on fire one instant and icy cold the
next. There was death staring straight at him, and he could hardly force
his brain to think. He knew he couldn't just keep on flying. He had to
do something or the German would open fire and turn their plane into a
blazing inferno. On the other hand, his fighting heart refused to
surrender and go back and face the ugly wrath of that Colonel Stohl. For
this Messerschmitt had unquestionably been sent out after them at the
Colonel's orders. Who knew? Perhaps Colonel Stohl had been the German he
had seen climb out of the observer's pit of this very Arado he was now
trying to fly to safety behind the Belgian lines. It would have been
very easy for the German to phone the nearest air field and have a plane
sent out after them.

_Tac-a-tac-a-tac-a-tac!_

Jetting tongues of flame leaped out from the muzzle of the machine gun
in the other plane. The savage yammer sound smashed against Dave's ears
even as he saw the wavy trails of tra