o the rear
of the Belgian lines. But before he had traveled more than a couple of
miles he once more heard the snarl of aerial machine gun fire behind
him. And this time there was more to it than just the sound!

The Arado suddenly bucked and quivered as though it had been smashed by
the fist of some huge invisible giant of the skies. The vicious movement
of the plane tore Dave's hands from the controls and flung him over so
hard he cracked his head on the cockpit rim and saw stars for a brief
instant or so. Then as his senses cleared again and he grabbed hold of
the controls once more, the engine in the nose coughed and sputtered and
shot out a cloud of black smoke ... and died cold.

Realization and action were one for Dave, and so the first thing he did
was to yank back the throttle and cut off the ignition. When that was
done he shoved the nose down and peered hopefully at the ground no more
than five hundred feet below him. A groan of despair rose out of his
throat to spill off his lips. He couldn't see a smooth patch of ground
down there big enough for a fly to sit down on. True there were lots of
fields, but they were pock marked from one end to the other with shell
and bomb craters. There was one spot where he might possibly land
without crashing too badly. But crash he would. That was certain. There
was nothing to do but try it ... and pray!

"A crash coming, Freddy!" he yelled back over his shoulder. "Hold
everything, and hang on hard!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_Fighting Hearts_

As Dave glided the crippled Arado down toward the bomb and shell marked
field the icy fingers of fear were curled tightly about his heart. He
had made one or two forced landings in his short flying career, but they
had been like setting down a plane on a gigantic billiard table compared
to the task he now faced. If he under-shot the patch of ground he was
aiming at he would go plowing straight into a battery of Belgian
artillery guns hurling shells across the Albert Canal into the
on-rushing German hordes. And if he over-shot the field or swerved too
much to the right or left he would go crashing into a maze of shell
blasted tree stumps which would tear the plane to shreds and snuff out
his life, and Freddy's, as easily as one snuffs out the flame of a
candle.

His only hope lay in hitting the field in the center and checking the
forward roll of the plane so that when it did slide over and down into
one of the bomb craters th