tled too much, and stalled the engine. There
was no way of knowing that, and no time to wonder about it. If there was
something else wrong, and the priming can didn't do the trick, then he
and Freddy could at least save the boat from being slammed up against
the rocks.

It was time for Lady Luck to smile again, however. Dave primed the
engine, and stepped on the starter pedal, and the engine roared up
instantly in full throated song. He leaped for the wheel, yanked back
the throttle, and then swung the wheel over hard. The rudder bit into
the water, and the power boat slid by the jagged rocks with but a few
feet to spare and glided out toward deep water.

"Made it!" Dave shouted wildly.

"Right-o!" Freddy yelled back from the bow. "This is one Herr Hitler
doesn't get, by gosh. Not if _I_ can help it! Oh, Dave, let's...."

"Me too!" Dave interrupted him. "I know what you're going to say. Let's
go over and pick up as many of those fellows as we can! You're doggone
right! Here we go!"

At that exact moment, however, the fates of war changed their plans. At
that moment a steel fish made in Nazi land slid past the watchful eyes
of a destroyer and let go a single torpedo straight into the maze of
craft hovering off shore beneath the raging sky battle above. True,
only one torpedo. And even as it streaked out from its tube the eyes
aboard the destroyer saw it, and the destroyer's guns spoke ... and
there was one U-boat less. However, one torpedo was on its way. And it
slammed into the bow of a sturdy coastal vessel plodding out to the
center of the Channel.

In the blaze of light that spewed up from the side of the vessel Dave
saw the decks crowded with khaki clad soldiers. Then they were lost to
view as the vessel heeled way over and was engulfed in a mighty cloud of
smoke. No sooner had what his eyes seen registered oh his brain than he
hauled down hard on the wheel and pulled the motor boat's bow away from
the shore and out toward that floating cloud of smoke and dull red
flame.

Other boats did the same thing, but Dave and Freddy were closer than any
of the others, and they reached there first. Killing his speed as much
as possible Dave worked the craft inch by inch toward the cluster of
heads that were now bobbing out from under the edge of the cloud of
smoke. Then when he was real close he throttled all the way back and let
go of the wheel and raced with Freddy to the stern of the boat. They
grabbed the first ha