Flight into Fear by Duncan Kyle

Author:Duncan Kyle [Kyle, Duncan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

I hauled the pole back, praying that the wings wouldn’t fall off and searching the sky around me for the bi-plane who’d have dived after me and would soon be appearing on one side or the other, pumping bullets at me. He came up to starboard, climbing a little, so I dived away to port and saw him come round in a tight turn across my line of flight. He lost a little height to get at me and I climbed again, staying above him. There’s a technique to dog-fighting and I’d learned it at the hands of some of the Battle of Britain men at Little Rissington. But Spitfires and Hurricanes won their dog-fights as much because they were better aeroplanes as because the pilots were vastly superior. And my little Stripe Tiger was no match for an aerobatic bi-plane.

I shouted, ‘He’ll kill us, you know that? He’ll kill us.’

I looked at Chao Li for a brief second. His face was pale and set. ‘If we die, we die,’ he said. ‘But nobody must know. You understand?’ The gun was steady in his hand.

‘Put it away, then,’ I said. What I’d told Chao Li wasn’t altogether true. I’d back any competent pilot to avoid being hit by sub-machine-gun fire. But collision was another matter and the chances of the two aircraft colliding were very good indeed; if we were to survive, our survival would have to be bought through sheer flying skill.

I switched off my own lights and waited till I saw him coming at me, then turned in to him. Dog-fights, they used to say at the Central Flying School, are games of poker; if the aircraft are evenly matched, it’s bluff and bluff again, pilot to pilot. I’d see how strong this joker’s nerves were. He shot upward across the Tiger’s nose with his motor roaring and I promptly climbed after him. I climbed longer, though, and away from the moon; he was anxious to get after me again and began his turn. He should have looked first. I came at him from down moon at my full maximum diving speed of two hundred and ten miles an hour and almost sat the Tiger on his upper wing. He hurtled to port after me, but I was already climbing and it took him time to get in position. When he did, I went away again on a big bootful of rudder, snarling across in front of him and damn nearly getting a cabin-full of bullets for my trouble. I saw his muzzle flashes but felt nothing.

It did give me an idea, though.

I managed to get above him, then climbed down-moon and, while he was still throttled back looking for me, I came down at him in a low, banking turn that meant the Tiger was approaching him at an angle of thirty degrees or so from head-on. I narrowed the angle to about fifteen, then slid away to port, climbing. I was taking a hell of a chance with the Tiger’s turn exposed to him at close range.

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