have to have proof that the tank wasn't filled when he took off. But he had to decide at once.

A guarded voice spoke. It was Allison's. "Peel off and dive by position. Come up after a check below clouds."[Pg 41]

[Pg 41]

The Flight Lieutenant's Spitfire lanced over on its side and streaked down like a rocket. O'Malley followed. Stan's lips pulled into a hard line. He flipped the Spitfire over on its side and went roaring down the chute. The air speed and altimeter were going insane. The shriek of the dive shook every nerve in Stan's body, and set him back against the crash pad, holding him there with a powerful grip. The three Spitfires roared out of the clouds at the same instant. They streaked into the clear blue for a moment, then shot upward and ducked back into the cloud again.

They had seen nothing except a low and rocky coastline with white lines of breakers beating against it. Not a plane in the world, except the squadron, so it seemed.

And then the clouds broke away and a harbor was in the frame of their windscreens. It looked like a toy harbor with its oblong breakwater. A great hangar with a black painted roof looked out upon the gently rolling waters. There were seaplanes in the picture somewhere. Stan craned his neck and saw what was holding the eyes of the men in the Blenheims and the Bristols.[Pg 42] Three toy boats rode at anchor beside a dock. Those were supply ships that had slipped through the blockade. Headquarters was taking a last desperate chance of keeping that valuable cargo from getting through.

[Pg 42]

Then the Rose Raid actually started. The radio began to crackle. "Rose Raid at targets! Rose Raid over targets!" That was the squadron leader telling headquarters they were going down.

The nine light Spitfires went down in a screaming dive to cover the Blenheims and the Bristols. The big Bristols swung into line-astern formation and bashed through the first upheaval of Flak-88 shells. Black and white blooms of bursting shells bracketed them as their leader slid into the curtain of fire. The next instant the big Bristol disappeared in a mass of smoke and flame.

A Blenheim on Stan's right twisted upward, threw away a wing and went down in a dizzy spin, ramming its nose into the roof of the black hangar.

The remaining four bombers plunged down upon their objective with the 

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