CHAPTER FOUR
_Nazi Wings Over London_
Dave gave the bell-hop a shilling and waited for the boy to step outinto the hall and close the door. Then he took three running steps,jumped, and landed flat on his back on the bed. The springs squeaked inprotest but didn't give way. Dave flung out his arms and sighed loudly.
"Boy, a real bed!" he exclaimed. "Look, Freddy, this is a bed. Springs,mattress, sheets, blankets, and everything. And it's all mine untiltomorrow. Of course those things we have out at the squadron aren't tootough. But this! This is a real bed. Turn out that light, pal. I'mpractically asleep right now. Gosh! That train took a million years,didn't it?"
Freddy didn't reply at once. He slung his suitcase onto the other bed,then came over and grabbed Dave by the feet. A good yank and Dave was onthe floor.
"You're not using that bed, yet," Freddy grinned down into his startledface. "There's plenty of time for your beauty sleep. First we're goingout to have a look at the black-out."
"Going out?" Dave groaned and got slowly to his feet. "Me go out andcrack my shins against things in the dark? Nit, nat, no, my little man.Mrs. Dawson's pride and joy is going to bed. And I'm not kidding."
Freddy grinned wickedly and dropped into a wrestler's crouch.
"You think so?" he murmured. "Right you are! Just try and get into thatbed."
"So that's it, huh?" Dave grunted and took a cautious step forward."I've got to tie and gag you first? Or maybe you didn't hear me. _I'm_going to bed. You take London and the black-out. Me, I'm taking the bed.I--"
Dave cut the last off short and leaped forward, but Freddy was too quickfor him. The English youth darted to the side, then turned in a flashand caught Dave's arms and pinned them behind his back.
"Do you go quietly with me, my little American chap?" he said. "Or shallI phone down for the Savoy Hotel manager to come up here and give me ahand?"
Dave struggled for a second or two, but was unable to break his friend'shold.
"Darned if the youngster hasn't a little bit of strength, at that!" hesaid in mocking surprise. "I'd better not be so easy with him afterthis. Okay, you win. Stop breaking my arms."
"We go for a walk?" Freddy asked, still keeping his hold.
"Okay, we walk," Dave said, and groaned wearily. "But if you fall down aman-hole--and you know what I hope--don't go yelling at me for help."
Freddy released his grip and stepped quickly backward. Dave rubbed hisarms and scowled at him.
"Yeah, you do know a couple of tricks, don't you," he grunted. "Butlook. Why can't we see London in the daytime, when it's light? I'm deadon my feet, no kidding. You'd--"
Dave didn't finish. At that moment the familiar but alwaysnerve-rasping wail of the air raid siren filled the night air outside.Freddy jumped across the room, and flipped off the light switch. Thenthe two went over to the window and pulled aside the black-out curtains.Far to the east the black sky was being stabbed by long pencils of whitelight that slowly swung back and forth from horizon to horizon. In amoment there came the dull pounding of distant anti-aircraft batteries.The sound grew louder and sharper as it drew near. Suddenly both boysjumped as a battery nearby went into savage, furious action. It was soclose it seemed practically under their feet.
"Holy smokes!" Dave gulped, and backed away from the window. "I swear Isaw those shells going right up past the end of my nose. Get back fromthat window, Freddy. Concussion might blow in that glass and do plentyto your face. Let's--"
_Br-r-rump!_
The sound of an exploding bomb a few blocks away cut Dave's words offshort. He looked at Freddy, and they both grinned sheepishly.
"I guess you're right!" Dave exclaimed. "I'm not going to bed. Let's goborrow a couple of tin helmets from the manager, if he has any, and goup on the roof."
"The roof?" Freddy echoed, and his eyes widened suddenly. "What in theworld?"
_Wha-a-ang! Br-r-rump!_
Two bombs let go in rapid succession. They seemed to explode almostright outside the window. Dave and Freddy threw themselves flat on thefloor between the twin beds, and held their breath. The hotel rocked andshook violently, and there was the tinkle of glass as the shatteredwindow spilled into the room. They waited until the echo of theexplosions had died away, and then got slowly to their feet. There wasjust a hole now where the window had been--a hole that looked out on aworld gone suddenly mad with roaring sound and flashing red, orange andyellow flame. Freddy groped for Dave's hand and shook it warmly.
"Thanks, very much," he said in a tight voice.
"Thanks?" Dave murmured. "For what?"
"For reminding me to keep away from windows during a bombing raid,"Freddy said. "But just before that blighter scared ten years off mylife, what were you saying? Oh, yes. You want to go up on the roof?"
"Sure," Dave said with a nod. "For a look. We'll be as safe there as anyplace. If one's coming, it'll come. Just standing here waiting gives methe creeps, anyway."
"Me, too," Freddy agreed. "Let's go, then. Bet the manager's in the raidshelter, though, and won't dig up tin helmets for us for love normoney."
"Well, we can try," Dave said. "And--Drop, Freddy! Here comes another!"
Dave's words of warning were just a waste of breath. The screamingwhistle of that bomb hurtling downward cut through all sound. As Daveflung himself flat again, he had the crazy feeling of listening to somehuge invisible giant tearing off the top of the world. Even theanti-aircraft battery close to the hotel was drowned out by theunearthly sound of that falling bomb. Then it struck, and the hotelseemed to rise right straight up in the air. Dave was sure he could feelthe floor heave under him. He closed his eyes tight, and held hisbreath. For a long moment everything seemed to stop dead. Then the hotelsettled back like something alive but so very, very tired. A secondlater there was a short series of sharp cracking sounds, and ceilingplaster fell down on the two R.A.F. pilots.
"That baby was trying to mean business!" Dave said, and got to his feetagain. "Hitler must know we're in town, the way so many of them arecoming close. Hey, that _did_ hit close. The building next door!"
The hole where the window had been was now like the entrance to a longblazing tunnel. Thirty feet away the three upper floors of a buildingwere blazing fiercely. And when the two boys leaped over to the windowhole, they saw that the entire front of the building had been torn awayby the terrific blast. In the glow of the flames they could see rightinto rooms full of broken and mangled furniture and apartmentfurnishings. On the rear wall of one room was a framed picture of KingGeorge and Queen Elizabeth. Everything else in the room was wreckedbeyond possible recognition by its owners, but the picture of the Kingand Queen was untouched. It hung on the blast-scorched wall as straightas could be.
Something about that picture hanging there touched a note deep in DaveDawson. He stared at it for a moment in almost reverent awe. Then,clicking his heels, he brought his hand up in smart salute.
"There'll always be an England," he murmured softly.
Freddy Farmer caught the direction of his gaze, looked himself andsaluted in turn.
"Always!" he said with deep tenderness in his voice.
At that moment a shrill cry of pain came to them from out of the burningbuilding. There was a second cry, and a third. They could see nothingbut the fierce glow of the flames, but the cries seemed to come from therear of the fourth floor.
"There are wounded people in that building!" Freddy cried.
"Trapped, and probably can't get out!" Dave added. "And it's a cinchtheir cries can't be heard by the fire wardens down there in the street.What say, Freddy?"
"Of course!" the English youth shouted, and went bounding for the door.
The elevators had stopped running, so they went down the stairs threeand four at a time. They dashed through the vacant lobby, out the frontdoor, and along the short court that led out onto the Strand. Therethey turned left and headed for a fire lieutenant directing his men atwork trying to put out the fire in the bomb-hit building. Da
ve grabbedhim by the arm, and pointed up.
"There are some people trapped on the fourth floor, sir!" he shouted."We heard their screams from our hotel room. Fourth floor, rear."
The fire lieutenant looked at them, saw their uniforms, and wiped anannoyed look from his tired face.
"Fourth floor, rear?" he shouted above the noise of his fire fightingapparatus. "Thought everybody in that place would be in the shelters.How many, do you figure? Can't spare any of my boys, here, so I'll haveto go it alone."
"Don't know how many!" Dave shouted back. "But you're not tackling italone. We're coming with you. Let's go."
The fire lieutenant grinned.
"The good old R.A.F. every time!" he cried. "Right-o! But wait a bit. Nosense risking things bashing you on the head, you know."
The fire lieutenant jumped over to his car in the street and pulled outa couple of tin helmets. He tossed them to the boys.
"Put those on!" he shouted. "Right-o! Fourth floor, rear, eh?"
Sticking close to the fire lieutenant's heels, the two boys followed himinto the burning building. It was like rushing through the open door ofa furnace, and for a second or so the heat seemed almost to knock themoff balance. Thick smoke swirled about them like a fog, and the smell ofthings burning filled their noses and mouths and made them choke and gagfor breath.
As though the fire lieutenant had lived in the building all his life, hewent straight to the stairs completely hidden by the smoke, and startedup. He paused for a second, half turned and stretched out one hand toDave.
"Give me your hand," he said. "And you take your pal's hand. That waywe'll stick together and not get lost. Right you are, now. Up we go!"
There was less smoke on the second floor of the building, and still lesson the third. On the third floor, however, they ran straight intotrouble. The stair wall had been knocked loose by the exploding bombs,and the stairs were covered by a ton or so of split beams, plaster,brick, and other kinds of debris. The Fire Lieutenant stared at it witha scowl.
"Like climbing the blooming Alps to get over that stuff," he saiddubiously. "It might give way under our weight and bury the three ofus."
"Look!" Dave suddenly cried, and pointed up toward the fourth floor."See there on that hall wall? A fire bucket, and a coil of rope. Look,I'll go up and sling down the other end of that rope, after making myend fast. Then you two can work your way up along the rope."
"No, I'll go up!" the fire lieutenant said. "I say--"
Dave was already scrambling spider-like up the debris-piled stairway.With each step forward he seemed to slide back two steps. He'd grab theshattered end of a beam for support, and it would start to pull out anddislodge chunks of plaster and brick. Plaster dust filled his eyes andhis throat so that his breath came in rasping gasps. When he was halfwayup he heard the fire lieutenant cry out in alarm.
"Watch it, lad!" the man shouted. "That section of wall to your left isstarting to go!"
Dave had just time enough to dart a quick glance to his left. A sectionof wall left standing was bulging out as though a giant were pushingagainst it from the other side. He took that one quick glance and thenscrambled upward for dear life. There was a crash of sound in back ofhim, and the air was thick with plaster dust. He had flung himself flaton the debris and was clinging to a post of the well railing on thefourth floor by no more than the tips of his fingers.
"Are you all right, Dave?" he heard Freddy's voice from below.
He didn't answer for a couple of seconds. He was too busy pullinghimself up onto the solid fourth floor landing. There he turned andlooked down through the cloud of plaster dust.
"Made it okay!" he shouted down. "Stand by to receive the line!"
He went over to the fire bucket and took it down off the hook, alongwith the coil of stout rope. Then, returning to the head of the stairs,he splashed some water down into the cloud of plaster dust.
"Trying to lay that stuff a bit!" he shouted. "Okay! Here comes your endof the rope."
He sent the free end of the coil spinning downward, then knelt down andfastened his end tight about the base of the railing post.
"Got it!" he heard the fire lieutenant's voice, and felt a jerk on therope at the same time.
At the end of three or four minutes Freddy and the fire lieutenant wereon the floor landing with him. The fire lieutenant reached out andsqueezed his arm.
"Stout fellow," the man said. "But you're R.A.F., so of course you'd doit. Right-o. This is the fourth floor. The rear, you said? Don't hear asound. And there doesn't seem to be much fire up here. Guess just thefront of this place is burning. Try the doors, lads, but be careful asyou push them open. Do it easy like, you know. If the room's burning andthe windows are closed, opening the door will be like opening a stoveflue. Hold your breath until you're sure. Let's go."
The three of them started down the hall toward the rear, carefullyopening doors and glancing into rooms as they went along. Not a lightwas burning in the building, but the glow of the flames seemed to bounceback from the walls of nearby buildings and light up all the rooms. Daveand Freddy had tried some six or seven rooms when suddenly they lookedinto a room that made them stop short and catch their breath.
The room was a complete wreck. It was as though that one spot hadreceived the full impact of the exploding bomb. All four walls werecompletely knocked down. Ribbons of plaster hung from the ceiling, andthere weren't any windows, just gaping holes through which streamed thecrimson reflection of the flames of another burning building a good twoblocks away.
It was not the sight of all that, however, that gave them such a start.It was the sight of the four figures trapped under the pile of debris.Three were men, and one was a woman. Two of the men, and the woman, laylimp and motionless. The fourth man, white with plaster from head tofoot, was struggling furiously to wiggle out from under an overturneddesk that pinned him to the floor. And all the time he was mutteringhoarsely under his breath. He saw Dave and Freddy about the same instantthey saw him. He stopped struggling instantly.
"Come in, chaps, and get this blasted thing off my back, will you?" hecalled out.
Dave waited just long enough to shout to the fire lieutenant and thendashed forward. It took every bit of their combined strength for Freddyand him to lift the desk clear. They succeeded, however, and the pinnedman was able to crawl free. He got to his feet and swayed drunkenly.Dave gave him a hand.
"Steady does it, sir," he said. "I'll lead you out into the hall."
The trapped man looked at him out of dazed eyes, mumbled something, andnodded. Dave led him out into the hall and then went back into the roomagain. Freddy and the fire lieutenant were lifting ceiling and wallbeams off the woman. He pitched in and gave them a hand. The woman hadan ugly cut on the side of her head, and one arm was obviously broken.She was breathing evenly, however. They placed her in the hall, thenwent back in for the other two men. Both of them were still alive butbadly hurt.
No sooner had they carried the last man out into the hall than there wasa rumbling sound like a New York subway train coming along the tunnel toa station. The fire lieutenant let out a yell and grabbed wildly forDave, who was the last to step out of the room.
"Feared this!" he shouted. "Jump!"
Dave jumped instinctively. Then he started to speak, but didn't. It wasnot necessary for him to ask the fire lieutenant what it was all about.As he turned, he saw the floor of the room he had just left splitstraight through the middle from hall door to outer wall. The floorcracked open, and then the two halves dropped downward like the twohalves of a hinged trap door. Broken furniture, plaster, brick, andeverything else went crashing down into a room on the third floor. Therumbling roar ceased abruptly, and a great column of smoke and plasterdust fountained up from the floor below.
Dave gulped and wiped sweat from his face.
"Gosh, I don't like it that close!" he breathed.
"Great guns!" a voice gasped in his ear. "If you chaps hadn't arrivedwhen you did--Good heavens!"
/> It was the trapped man they had rescued who spoke. He stood peeringthrough the door opening with eyes that were like dinner plates. Plasterdust still covered him from head to foot, and the red reflection of theflames gave him a weird and eerie appearance.
"Yes, plenty close, sir," Dave said, and then turned to the firelieutenant. "We'd better get these people down," he said. "Wonder ifthere are some back stairs here. Have you got stretchers outside?"
"Yes," the fire lieutenant replied. "And there are back stairs, too. Ispotted them a minute ago. These people need hospitalization at once.That woman is hurt bad. I'll go down and get help, and take this onechap who can walk along with me. He's had a nasty shock, and I'd betterget him out of here. Might go off his topper, or something. You two ladsmind watching over the others?"
"No, go ahead," Freddy said for both of them.
The fire lieutenant nodded, then stepped over and took the arm of theplaster-covered man, who still stared glassy-eyed in through the doorwayat the collapsed floor. The fire lieutenant spoke, and the man turnedand stared at him vacantly. Then his wide eyes wandered over to Freddyand Dave. A strange light glowed in them for a brief instant. He startedto open his mouth as though to speak, but closed it slowly, instead. Thefire lieutenant tugged on his arm, and then led him along the smokyhallway as he might lead a little child.
"He must have caught a good smack," Dave grunted. "He sure doesn't knowwhat the score is right now. He--My gosh!"
"What's the matter?" Freddy asked quickly. "What's up?"
Dave pointed a finger upward and grinned.
"No guns any more," he said. "The raid's over. Guess you can't hear theAll-Clear up here. Gee, do our uniforms look like a couple of wrecks!Wonder if we can get them cleaned at the hotel. Air Vice-MarshalSaunders will heave us out for a couple of bums if we report to himlooking like this."
Freddy looked back into the room and gulped.
"And he'll never know how close we came to never reporting to him atall!" he breathed. "Say, I wish that fire lieutenant would hurry up withthose stretchers. This woman's coming around a bit. Must be in prettybad pain. Blast Hitler, anyway!"
"Check!" Dave said grimly. "And if I ever get the chance to _blast_ him,how I'll do it, and how I'll love it!"
At that moment the fire lieutenant returned with several of his men. Andsome fifteen minutes after that the three injury cases were safely inan ambulance that had arrived in the meantime, and on their way to anearby hospital receiving station. The fire was practically out, and theheroic soot and grime-smeared firemen were getting ready to go elsewherein the city and continue their valiant work. Guns were silent, and thelong probing beams of the searchlights no longer pierced the sky. Therewas not even the drone of planes in the distance. Death had come tostrike at London, and was now gone. Behind, it had left more wreckedbuildings, more smouldering ruins, and more dead and dying. But it hadalso left behind something that Adolf Hitler and all of his followerswould never be able to understand, and never be able to defeat. That wasBritish courage, the superb fighting courage of the high and the low whonow were fighting on a common ground shoulder to shoulder. London hadonce again been hurt, and she was bleeding. But London would never die,just as England would never die.
Those thoughts trickled through Dave Dawson's brain as he stared up atthe flame-tinted heavens. And once again he was thrilled to the verydepths of his soul to be able to be a part of all this; to do hisshare, and fight and fight and fight until the war-thirsty dictatorswere no more--until they were nothing but an evil and ugly memory.
"I say, you chaps! Blessed if I even know your names. You certainlydeserve recognition for tonight's bit. Tell me your names, and I'll seethat the Air Ministry hears of what you did."
Dave lowered his gaze to see the fire lieutenant standing at his elbow.He looked at Freddy, and they both shook their heads.
"We're glad we were able to help," Dave said. "Let's let it go at that.You and your men are the real heroes of London, sir. Freddy and I justhappened along."
"But that's silly!" the fire lieutenant protested, and wiped his smokeand soot-blackened face with a handkerchief that was just about asblack. "This isn't your regular job, you know. And for you two to pitchin and give us a hand, why--"
"Rot!" Freddy grunted. "I was scared pink every second, and knowperfectly well I was only in your way."
"Me, too," Dave nodded. "Let's just leave it that way. Where did thatchap go--that man you led out?"
"My word, lad!" the fire lieutenant gasped, and looked wildly about."I'd plain forgotten all about him. Told him to wait and go along to thehospital with the others. Guess he must have wandered off. Well, I mustbe toddling along. More fires, you know. Good luck, you two. By George,you R.A.F. chaps are certainly right as rain, I say! Well, cheerio!"
"Thumbs up!" the two boys chorused, and watched the fire lieutenantdrive off up the street.
When the car had turned the corner of a block, Dave grinned at Freddy.
"Well, shall we make that black-out inspection tour you were yippingabout?" he asked.
"The one we've made is enough for tonight!" Freddy grunted. "Besides,we've got to do something about these uniforms, because tomorrow we haveto--"
"Yeah, I know," Dave cut in with a worried sigh. "We have to report toAir Vice-Marshal Saunders. Okay, let's see what we can do about theseduds, and then hit the hay."
"If Goering's little boys will let us," Freddy murmured as he droppedinto step. "And I doubt it very much."