As Jack dipped his right wing to circle, he thought, “Looks like curtains for us.”

Their plane, though a sturdy and dependable craft with some forty-five feet of wing spread, was far from fast. The Zeros were small, light, and fast. They seemed to drop with the speed of sound. It looked bad. At that instant, there came a silver flash from just above the cloud, and a U. S. fighter leaped at the three Zeros which were dropping straight and fast and thus unable to change their course.

What followed was a beautiful thing to see. Seeming to stand in mid-air, the U. S. fighter pilot handled his guns as a bird hunter does his fowling piece. He picked off the first two Zeros and sent them flaming to the sea below—then sent the third wheeling harmlessly away.

“Good old Ted!” Jack exclaimed as he slid his plane into the small cloud that hung above the rain squall.

“He handles his plane as though he were dancing,” Stew said. There was admiration in his voice.

“Of course,” said Jack. “That’s Ted for you. He was the finest dancer in our school, or our town, for that matter. He played basketball and tennis the same way, with perfect rhythm.”

“Just think what the war has done to the world,” Stew murmured. “Sets a fellow teaching a fighter plane to dance!”

Stew got off his message. He thought it hard that all this radio reporting should be one-way stuff, but of course it was necessary for the carrier to maintain radio silence, otherwise her position might be given away and she herself might be attacked.

“Why don’t the bombers come?” Stew was growing restless with the delay. Since their job was to shadow the Jap task force until the dive bombers and torpedo planes arrived, they would not be free to leave until the others put in an appearance.

“The Commander will hold the bombers and their fighter protection until all scouts are heard from,” said Jack.

“Why?” Stew was puzzled.

“Because there may be other Jap task forces lurking about the sea waiting to send their air fleets after the Black Bee. She must not be left unprotected. She—”

“Listen!” Stew broke in. To their ears came the sound of machine-gun fire.

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