ot's eyes fluttered open, and his lips sprayed
drops of blood as he tried to speak. Dawson didn't have time to listen.
He leaped into the pilot's seat, grabbed the control wheel with one
hand, hauled back on it steadily, and eased off the throttles with his
other hand.

Little by little the crazy downward plunge of the B-25 eased off. The
plane began to climb back into the sky. There was still brilliant white
light all about. It had a silverish tint to it, and Dawson had the
impression that he was flying straight through a phosphorescent ocean.
In an abstract way be realized the white light was caused by flares that
had been dropped from high above the bomber and were bringing it out in
clear relief for a mysterious aerial night raider.

"Where is it, and what?" Dawson gasped as he squinted his eyes in the
brilliant glare. "It's just one ship. I can tell it from the guns. But
what--"

He cut the rest off short and heeled the B-25 way over on its wing and
brought it around and up in a climbing turn with the engines wide open.
He did so because he had caught a glimpse of a shadow boring in and up
at him from the left. Just a shadow, but he knew instinctively that it
was another plane. At the top of its climb, he whipped the bomber over
and around in the opposite direction. The bomber was neither a P-40 nor
a Lockheed Lightning, and his heart seemed to stand still in his throat
as he waited for the big craft to come around. With each passing second,
he expected to hear the savage yammer of guns blazing away at him.

As a matter of fact, a moment later he did hear guns, but they came from
the B-25, not from the other plane. They came from the port side, and
impulsively he jerked his head around in that direction. As he did so,
he saw a sight that brought a wild cry of joy from his lips. Silhouetted
against the brilliant background of light was a Nazi-marked Arada AR-95
twin-pontoon seaplane. He could see the silverish disc described by the
spinning propeller, but the aircraft seemed to be standing still.
Rather, it seemed to be held motionless in the air by twin streams of
tracer smoke that reached out to it from the B-25.

It was motionless for only a moment, and then suddenly a sheet of flame
spewed out from under its engine cowling. Fire mushroomed out in all
directions, and in the wink of an eye, the Arada completely disappeared,
and there was just a great cloud of fire hanging in the flare-lighted
heavens. To Daws