plane.

"Mine, or that Nazi I nailed?" he asked himself the question aloud.
"Or--Hey! I remember, now! _Two_ Nazis went down, and I know darn well
that I only got one of them. I--"

He stopped short, caught his breath and held it as though not daring to
let himself speak.

"Freddy?" the whisper finally came out from between his stiff lips. "Was
it Freddy who piled down and nailed that second Nazi? But--But what
then? Where did he go? What did he do? I know he didn't have fuel to get
back to Casablanca, but if _only_ his radio worked, and he was able to
tell them the story! Please, dear God, let Freddy have made good where
I--I failed."

For a long minute he stood there motionless as though waiting for the
answer to his question to come drifting down through the night air.
Suddenly his hand flew to his holstered service gun, and he whirled
around and down in a crouch. Behind him, he had heard the crackling snap
of dry twigs, followed by the rattle of loose stones hitting together,
and the faint thud of something falling to the ground.

With his finger crooked about the trigger, and his heart trying to
slam-bang its way out through his ribs, he waited for more sound. And
when it came to him, he didn't know whether to shout with insane joy, or
to break into crazy laughter. He didn't know which to do because the
sound he heard was a human voice; a hoarse whispering voice that was
filled with seething anger. A voice that said:

"Blast, and eternally blast this confounded darkness!"

For five full seconds Dawson was utterly unable to unhinge his frozen
tongue. The one-in-a-billion miracle left him completely speechless. It
seemed to knock everything out of his head and make all so unreal and
fantastic as to be absolutely impossible as an actuality.

"Freddy! Freddy Farmer!" the words finally forced their way past his
lips. "Freddy! Can you hear me? Over here, Freddy! Over here!"

As his voice died away to an echo, a tingling moment of silence settled
over everything. Then once again he heard Freddy Farmer's voice, like a
ghost voice from out out of the past.

"Dave, Dave! Keep talking, old chap! I'll follow the sound of your
voice. Dave, old thing, are you all right? Don't move, Dave! Just keep
talking! I'll follow the sound of your voice!"

"I'm okay, Freddy!" Dawson replied as hot tears of inexpressible joy
stung his eyes. "And, pal, this is the biggest moment of all, past,
present, and future. I'm over this w