make the grade. Good luck, again."

As the colonel stopped talking there was no burst of applause, or
anything like that, from the pilots. Each man simply nodded gravely and
then went up to the table to collect his sealed orders. Dave got the
envelope for Freddy and himself, and without stopping to open it the
pair hurried top-side to where their aircraft was waiting with prop
already ticking over. Settling themselves in the aircraft, they took out
their orders and read them over carefully. The course they were to fly
extended out over the water for some three hundred and fifty miles in a
dead northwest direction. They were to keep at an altitude of eight
thousand feet, unless clouds or storms interfered, and their code call
was to be Tiger, just as it had been yesterday.

"Okay, Mister Navigator," Dave said, and passed the course chart over to
Freddy. "You keep track of our position, pal. And don't bother to
explain if you get us lost. Just jump over the side and leave your
parachute behind, see?"

"Oh, really?" the English youth growled. "Well, don't worry about me, my
good man. I'll take care of my end, thank you. Just concentrate on
keeping us _in_ the air. Matter of fact, I think it's rather silly of me
to take you along. Perhaps I should speak of that to Colonel Welsh,
right now."

"Do, sweetheart, by all means!" Dawson snarled, and pointed a finger
toward the sky. "I'll be up there waiting for you when you get back!"

Freddy started to say something in return but checked himself as he
caught sight of the signal officer pointing his flag.

"Get going, Dave," he said, and winked. "Off we go, and luck to both of
us, old thing."

"Right on the old beam, pal," Dawson replied, and turned front. "You,
me, and this baby with wings. Maybe we'll all be heroes of the task
force, come sundown."

"You be the hero," Freddy laughed at him. "All _I_ want to be is
_lucky_, and to find the Jap force!"

"And you've really got something there, kid!" Dawson agreed instantly,
and then gave his attention to the flag pointing signal officer on the
flight bridge.

Just three minutes and twenty seconds later Dawson took the Dauntless
off the flight deck and nosed it up toward the early morning sky. He
kept on going up until the altimeter said eight thousand feet. There he
leveled off, set his course according to the instructions Freddy Farmer
gave him, took a last look down at the Carson that was launching her
planes at the