muck enveloped him along with the pall of smoke from the edges of the field. Just ahead of him he saw something that looked like a huge rocket lift toward Sim's ship. It exploded with a blinding flash directly under the P-51. Sim's ship shot upward and a wing swirled away like a dark strip of paper torn from a wall. Then the P-51 nosed into the ground and exploded. Cold sweat broke out all over Stan's body as he pulled his ship over and up.

At five thousand feet up and well away from the hot spot, Stan took stock. He tried to call O'Malley and found his radio was shot out. Looking through his spattered hatch cover, he saw that his port wing had three gaping holes in it. But the engine was singing sweetly. His first thought was to locate O'Malley, but he had another when he spotted three Focke-Wulf fighters roaring in on his tail.

"We'll see what you have to offer, sister," he said softly as he kicked the Mustang wide open and laid her over.

The big ship responded with a surge of power that yanked her into the sky and over in a perfect roll before Stan could decide what was going on. Leveling off, Stan looked for the FW's. They had missed him by a wide margin. Stan grinned.

"You don't need a pilot, lady," he said.

Coming over he tried a burst on one of the FW's. It was a long shot, but the Jerry was lined up neatly in his sight. The heavy guns of the P-51 roared and bucked. Up ahead the FW wobbled and dived. The other two went up for altitude. Stan went up, too. The P-51 was a high-altitude lady and would do better up where she had rare air and plenty of space.

Stan eased away from the FW's and did not challenge them. They circled, taking a good look at this new type of fighter. They had learned from sad experience that any new Yank ship might prove to be deadly. The Forts had taught them that.

Stan was well up now where he could look down on the flight strip below. He saw nothing of O'Malley but he did see two wrecked planes at the far edge of the field away from the hill. Nosing down Stan dived toward the field. The two FW's dived after him, but he soon eased away from them.

Sweeping in a few yards above the runway, Stan laid over just a little. He checked the wrecks and saw that one of them was Sim's ship. The other was an FW fighter minus one wing. The Germans behind their hidden batteries opened up with a savage burst of fire. Stan went straight toward the hill, flying low 

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