ore. Back there he could cripple
down and they would not shoot him. They would be glad to get a sound
Spitfire and they would keep him locked up for the rest of the war.
Ahead lay the gray waters of the English channel, rough and sullen, cold
as ice.

"Wilson out of gas. Making a try for home," he shouted into his flap
mike.

Above him he saw that Messerschmitt One-Tens had joined the Heinkels in
trying to finish off the Spitfires. He leveled off as the Merlin gave
its last gasp of power and sent the ship gliding toward home.

For a time Stan thought the Jerries had missed him, they were so busy up
above. Eight thousand feet below his wings the rough waters of the
channel were moving up to meet him. The first warning Stan had that he
was not to escape without a fight was a terrific jolting and ripping
that almost shook him loose from his seat; the next was the staccato
rattle of a rapid-fire cannon that was ripping great chunks out of his
right wing.

The Spitfire writhed up on her side, then rolled over on her back and
shot seaward. Stan pulled the stick back against his stomach and kicked
the right rudder viciously. He looked up just as the Jerry loosed
another broadside which missed the ship. The Jerry zoomed back up,
satisfied he had finished the Spitfire that was trying to slip away.

Stan gave the Jerry but a glance. He was battling to pull the Spitfire
out of the spin he had jammed her into. He soon realized that there was
no control left in the ship, so he unbuckled his belt and rammed back
what was left of the hatch cover. He squirmed out of the cockpit and
dived. As he slid away from the ship he felt himself caught and held.
His chute bellied out and the shoulder straps wrenched at him. A second
later he was ripped loose and whirled away from the crumpled wreck. As
he leveled off he saw that he was about 3,000 feet from the water.

It appeared also that Stan had the channel to himself. Overhead he could
hear the faint drone of motors; otherwise there was no sound except the
cries of a half-dozen excited gulls that swooped down about him
curiously as the chute let him drift downward toward the gray sea.

An inshore wind whipped at his clothing, twisting him dizzily as he
dangled there in mid-air, and he had a brief, crazy hope that it might
carry him in to land before he went down. But that wild hope died at
once when he realized the shore was miles away.

There was nothing for it but to take his wetti