Big fellows. Four-engined jobs.

The notes of the call to action stations were still screaming through
the ship. The Idaho, at the touch of the magic sound, was coming to
life. Thirty-five thousand tons of steel was going into action. Craig
could feel the pulsation as the engines kicked the screws over faster.
The ship surged ahead. Fifteen hundred men were leaping to their
stations. The guns in the big turrets were poking around, hoping that
somewhere off toward the horizon there was a target for them. The Idaho
was a new ship. She was lousy with anti-aircraft. The black muzzles of
multiple pom-poms were swinging around, poking toward the sky.

An officer was peering through a pair of glasses. "Seventeen of them,
sir," he said. "I can't be certain yet, but I think there is another
flight following the first."

* * * * *

The Idaho was part of a task force that included a carrier, cruisers,
and several destroyers. Craig could see the carrier off in the distance.
She had already swung around. Black gnats were racing along her deck and
leaping into the sky. Fighter planes going up. Cruisers and destroyers
were moving into pre-determined positions around the carrier and the
Idaho, to add the weight of their anti-aircraft barrage to the guns
carried by the big ships.

"Three minutes," somebody said in a calm voice. "They've started on
their run."

The anti-aircraft let go. Craig gasped and clamped his hands over his
ears. He had left the Navy before the advent of air warfare. He knew the
roar of the big guns in their turrets but this was his first experience
with the guns that fought the planes. The sound was utterly deafening.
If the fury of a hundred thunder-storms were concentrated into a single
area, the blasting tornado of sound would not be as great as the thunder
of the guns. The explosions beat against his skull, set his teeth
pounding together. He could feel the vibrations with his feet.

High in the sky overhead black dots blossomed like death flowers
blooming in the sky.

The bombers kept coming.

The anti-aircraft bursts moved into their path. Death reached up into
the sky, plucking with taloned fingers for the black vultures racing
with the wind. Reached and found their goal. One plane mushroomed
outward in a burst of smoke.

Craig knew it was a direct hit, apparently in the bomb bay, exploding
the bombs carried there. Fragments of the plane hung in the sky, falling