at ten-forty-five. You’d better be in bed by then or you’ll get a black mark.”

“Every night?” Norma asked in surprise.

“From Saturday noon to Sunday night is all your own. You’ll learn about that later.”

For a moment they walked on in silence. It was Norma who broke that silence.

“Can you tell me a little of what the WACs of the Interceptor Control do?”

“A little is right,” was the quick reply. “Much of it is a deep, deep secret. You’d love it all, I know.

“But listen. This is how it works,” she went on. “Some high school girl is watching from a cliff. There are many girl watchers, and how faithful they are!”

“This girl hears a plane in the dark. It’s off shore. She rushes to a phone and calls a number. A WAC at the switchboard replies.”

“And then?” Norma whispered.

“Then the girl on the cliff says: ‘One single. High. Off five miles. Going south.’

“The WAC knows from the spot on the switchboard where the girl is. She reports the call. Another girl locates the spot on a chart. A third WAC reports to three men. One of these men represents the Army, one the Navy, and one the Civil Aeronautics Authority. These men consult their records. Perhaps they discover that no plane belonging to any of their organizations is supposed to be on that spot.”

“And then they send out a fighting plane,” Norma suggested.

“Not yet. Perhaps that girl watcher heard a vacuum sweeper instead of a plane, so they wait.”

“And?”

“Then, perhaps two minutes later, there comes a flash from another watcher—this time a fisherman’s wife.

“Flash! One single. High. Going south. Very fast.”

“‘Three hundred miles an hour,’ someone says. Then a fighter plane goes up. And soon, if it’s really an attack, the sky will be filled with fighter planes.”

“Lives saved—many lives saved by the WACs,” Norma enthused.

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