down and leaned out, waving an arm in a signal
that he was leading off. O'Malley and Allison answered the signal. They
knew it was their job to see that Stan got through with his reports and
maps.

Stan kicked the throttle open and the Nardi roared to life, leaping
forward with surprising speed. Stan hoiked her tail with an added blast
of prop pressure and tested her. She lifted at once. Unburdened by the
armor plate carried by a Lightning or an Airacobra for the protection of
the pilot and constructed of much lighter materials, she bounced off the
ground before half of the short runway had been covered.

Stan leveled off close to the tops of the trees. He wanted to make sure
Allison and O'Malley got away, and so he did not want to stir up the
swarm of German fighter planes on the big flying field just a few miles
away.

O'Malley came up and then Allison. They dropped into formation beside
Stan and he set his course by compass, straight for Sicily.

CHAPTER IX

HOMEWARD BOUND

Stan was not sure of the terrain he had to fly over. He wanted to avoid
the German flying fields if possible, but knew there would be many
dispersal areas and flight strips. Getting through would be largely a
matter of luck.

The formation of Nardi FN's swooped over the ridge above Bolero Villa.
Stan was flying low and pushing the Nardi hard. He grinned as he glanced
at the air-speed indicator. They were topping three hundred miles per
hour.

Suddenly they swept away from the hilly country and were over the German
air base. There was nothing to be done about it but keep on going. Stan
cast a critical eye downward and laughed softly. He took in the details
of the carefully hidden dispersal plots, the tree-shaded oil dumps and
the shrub-covered barracks. The picture he was fixing in his mind might
be useful later.

They had reached the center of the area when the surprised ack-ack
gunners woke up. A half-dozen groves of trees suddenly erupted flame and
the sky above the three streaking Nardi's was filled with smoke tracers
and exploding steel.

The Yanks went on and were away from the field before the gunners got
their altitude spotted. Stan drew a deep breath of relief. He was glad
that he had followed his hunch to fly low. Then he noticed O'Malley, on
his right, zoom upward, while Allison looped off to the left. An instant
later he spotted the reason for this maneuver. He had been so interested
in the ground below that he ha