he task force's commander at the head end of the room. He
waited a couple of minutes for feet to stop shuffling around. Then he
grinned and made a little half salute with one hand.

"Now it comes, Gentlemen," he said with a chuckle. "Now you'll get the
answer to the one question that has burned holes in the brain of each
and every one of you since the moment you received word to report to
H.Q. at Sydney. Or could I be wrong?"

The short, hooting laugh that spread from lip to lip of those present
was proof enough that the colonel had hit the nail right smack on the
head. Every last one of them had thought of little else but the reason
he had been summoned to H.Q. at Sydney.

"Well, here is the picture," Colonel Welsh continued, but there was no
smile on his face now, nor any light note in his voice. "The Southwest
Pacific Command is going to try and beat the Japs to the punch. In other
words, we're pretty sure that the Jap is about set to let fly with
another of his blows at us, so we're going to beat him to it. In brief,
we're going to go after them in the Solomon Islands."

The colonel paused for breath, and a mounting murmur of suppressed
excitement ran its course about the Ready-Room. Nobody said anything,
though, not even a whispered word of comment to his friend sitting next
to him. On the contrary, each man simply hitched forward a little more
on the edge of his chair, and kept his attention riveted one hundred per
cent upon the Chief of Combined U.S. Intelligence.

"The assault upon the Jap-occupied Solomons," he went on presently,
"will be a two part affair with land, sea, and air forces cooperating
throughout. The first part will be the capture and holding of an airport
on Guadalcanal Island. And the second part, which will be carried out
simultaneously with the first part, will be the capture of Tulagi on
Florida Island some twenty-two water miles north of Guadalcanal. That is
what we have made plans and arrangements to carry out. However, a good
part of whether we do it or not will depend upon you pilots."

The senior Intelligence officer paused again and for a moment let his
keen eyes roam over the collection of faces before him.

"I doubt that any of you will be taking any active part in either of the
two surprise attacks of which I've spoken," he suddenly hurled the
thunderbolt at them. "Your job will be to find, checkmate, and stop cold
Jap forces that could prevent us from carrying out either of th