“Good old Ted!” Jack exclaimed without thinking as he headed for that dangerous fringe of mist. “He’s from my home town.”

“What?” Stew exclaimed. “You never told me.”

“I’ve told you now,” Jack snapped. “So keep it quiet. It’s our secret.”

They slid out into the clear blue sky to discover that while the main Jap task force continued to glide serenely on its way, the two cargo ships and three destroyers had lost themselves in a rain squall that reached right down to the surface of the sea.

“Tough luck!” Stew exclaimed. “We’ve just got to locate them and see where they’re going. They may be the grand prize. Very likely those cargo ships are loaded with ammunition, and one of them is a twenty-thousand tonner.”

Jack put his plane into a steep dive. Two thousand feet from the sea he soon lost himself in the top of the rain squall.
28

They went through the squall and were out on the other side in no time at all.

“There they are! Two ships, three destroyers!” Stew exulted. “Still going due east. I’ll get in a report, and then—”

He stopped short to grip his machine gun and exclaim, “Jack! Quick! Back into the cloud! Three Zeros are coming down at us from 5,000 feet.”

As Jack dipped his right wing to circle, he thought, “Looks like curtains for us.”

Their plane, though a sturdy and dependable craft with some forty-five feet of wing spread, was far from fast. The Zeros were small, light, and fast. They seemed to drop with the speed of sound. It looked bad. At that instant, there came a silver flash from just above the cloud, and a U. S. fighter leaped at the three Zeros which were dropping straight and fast and thus unable to change their course.

What followed was a beautiful thing to see. Seeming to stand in mid-air, the U. S. fighter pilot handled his guns as a bird hunter does his fowling piece. He picked off the first two Zeros and sent them flaming to the sea below—then sent the third wheeling harmlessly away.

“Good old Ted!” Jack exclaimed as he slid his plane into the small cloud that hung above the rain squall.
29

“He handles his plane as though he were dancing,” Stew said. There was admiration in his voice.

“Of course,” said Jack. “That’s Ted for you. He was the finest dancer in our school, or our town, for that matter. He played basketball and tennis the same way, with perfect rhythm.”

“Just think what the war has done to the world,” Stew murmured. “Sets a fellow teaching a fighter plane to dance!”

Stew got off his message. He thought it hard that all this radio reporting should be one-way stuff, but of course it was necessary for the carrier to maintain radio silence, otherwise her position might be given away and she herself might be attacked.

“Why don’t the bombers come?” Stew was growing restless with the delay. Since their job was to shadow the Jap task force until the dive bombers and torpedo planes arrived, they would not be free to leave until the others put in an appearance.

“The Commander will hold the bombers and their fighter protection until all scouts are heard from,” said Jack.

“Why?” Stew was puzzled.

“Because there may be other Jap task forces lurking about the sea waiting to send their air fleets after the Black Bee. She must not be left unprotected. She—”
30

“Listen!” Stew broke in. To their ears came the sound of machine-gun fire.

“Ted’s in a fight. We’ve got to get out and help him!” Jack exclaimed. “Can’t let that swarm of Zeros gang up on him.” He set their plane climbing. “We’ll just get some altitude, have a look, then fly right down onto them.”

“Good stuff!” Stew agreed. “We can dive with the best of them.”

It was only after they had climbed out of their cloud on up to the one above, and out at the top of that one, to a height of five thousand feet, that Jack took time out for a downward glance. Then, what he saw all but cost him the chance of a grand fight. What’s more, much of his life might have been radically changed, had he failed to come to a decision in the next sixty seconds. Almost directly beneath them, a little to the left, an air battle raged between four Zeros and a single-seated U. S. fighter.

Jack did not need to be told that the lone fighter was the boy from his own home town, Ted. It could be none other, for the broad, sweeping circles his plane made appeared to be timed to the tune of a Strauss waltz.

At the moment they sighted Ted he was being followed by a Zero that spouted fire. The distance was too great; the shots did not take effect.
31

Instead of turning on his opponent, Ted swung up and under an enemy coming from above and, seeming to stand his plane on its tail, sent a burst of fire into the enemy’s engine. The Zero wavered. Something hung from it for a space of seconds, then rocketed downward.

“Shot off his motor!” Jack exulted.

Stew did not hear. His mind was still on the task before him. The rain squall was over. He spotted the two groups of enemy ships, also some small islands off to the east. With a strange sense of finality coursing through his being, he reported all this to the Black Bee’s radioman. As he listened after that, he thought he heard the low rumble of many distant planes. He could not be sure; too much was going on directly beneath them.

Continuing his magnificent circles, Ted came up behind the very Zero that seconds before had been following him. He let out a burst of fire. Smoking badly, the Zero limped into a cloud.

“Now! Now we’ve got to get down there!” Jack tilted his plane for a steep dive, then set his motor at top speed.

The two remaining Zeros were closing in on Ted. At the same time three others were swinging in on him from the left. The three were flying in formation, rather far apart.
32

“Get ready with your twinflex,” Jack ordered. “We’ll go right into that trio and break it up.”

Did the Japs see them coming? No matter. They came in too fast for the Japs to dodge. At just the right instant Jack pulled up short, then let out a burst of fire that cut squarely across the lead plane of the Japs.

At the same time Stew swung his twinflex gun on the second plane and let him have it for all he was worth.

What happened after that came so quickly that it remained a blur in Jack’s memory. Afterward he seemed to recall seeing two Jap planes falling, and Ted, with a damaged plane, disappearing into a cloud. At the same time something had creased his forehead. He went dizzy for an instant, then he was all right again.

“They got our radio!” Stew reported.

“She doesn’t steer right!” Jack headed her into a cloud.

“Well, that’s that,” Stew sighed. “No radio. No more work for us.”

Jack scarcely listened. He was hearing a rumble. It came from the west. “Bombers! Our bombers!” he exclaimed.

“Our work is finished!” Stew exulted.
33

“All but getting back. And that we can’t do.” There was an air of finality in Jack’s voice. “That Jap did plenty to this plane. Nearly got me too. Take a look at my right temple.”

Stew leaned forward, then whistled. “Burned you, all right. Bleeding a little. Wait. I’ll fix you up.”

They circled slowly in their cloud while first aid was applied.

“There are some islands off to the east,” Stew suggested.

“How far?”

“’Bout fifty miles.”

“Good! That’s our best bet.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“Nothing.” Jack eased his plane over toward the edge of the clouds.

“What about the Zeros?” Stew asked.

“It’s a chance we have to take,” Jack replied soberly. “This old kite won’t stay up too long. Be prepared to give them the works if they show up.”

“The works it shall be,” Stew replied grimly as he reloaded his powerful weapon.