wan said, after watching
his face for any hint of quailing, "I will send two other planes with
you. They might help reduce the odds in case of unavoidable combat."

"Oh, that's not necessary," Siddons replied. "In fact, one plane has a
better chance to escape combat, especially if there are some clouds to
duck into. Anything else, sir?"

Cowan made a clicking sound with his tongue. The fellow wasn't human; he
was an iceberg!

"That is all. And I wish you luck."

"Thank you, Major. And thanks for the mission." He gave McGee and Larkin
the pitying look of one who has just drawn the grand prize in an open
competition, and without another word turned quickly and passed through
the door.

Cowan's face had a baffled look. "Well," he finally said, "he acts like
a gamecock, anyhow."

"Do you realize the danger of the mission?" McGee asked.

"It's not for me to consider that angle," the Major replied. "G 2 wants
information, and I am under orders to help supply it. Danger? Yes.
That's war. If we lose--well, I'd rather not discuss it."

At that moment the door opened. There, framed against the night, stood
Nathan Rodd! In salute he brought a gauze-wrapped hand to his head, a
head so thickly swathed in bandages that only his face was showing and
his service cap sat perched at a ridiculous angle.

"Lieutenant Rodd reports for duty, sir," he said.

Cowan, McGee and Larkin had stood transfixed, as men might who thought
they were seeing a ghost. But Rodd's words, concise and strikingly
characteristic of the taciturn Vermonter, snapped them into action. This
was no ghost!

"Rodd!" Major Cowan exclaimed, and rushed across the room to grip Rodd's
unbandaged left hand. "You here?"

Rodd considered it unnecessary to waste words on so stupid a question.
He merely offered his hand, when the Major released it, to McGee and
Larkin, who were pounding him on the back in great glee.

"We thought you were dead," Cowan said.

"So did I--until I woke up," Rodd answered.

Cowan, noting the pallor of his face, pressed him into a chair. "Tell us
about it," he urged. "Were you badly hurt? What happened? Didn't you
crack up--"

Rodd lifted his good hand in protest. "One question at a time, Major.
That German found my motor and it conked. I regained control just in
time to level off, but not in time to miss a tree. After that I don't
know what happened. Came to, flat on my back, fifty feet away from my
plane. It was burning. That's al