“Ted’s in a fight. We’ve got to get out and help him!” Jack exclaimed. “Can’t let that swarm of Zeros gang up on him.” He set their plane climbing. “We’ll just get some altitude, have a look, then fly right down onto them.”

“Good stuff!” Stew agreed. “We can dive with the best of them.”

It was only after they had climbed out of their cloud on up to the one above, and out at the top of that one, to a height of five thousand feet, that Jack took time out for a downward glance. Then, what he saw all but cost him the chance of a grand fight. What’s more, much of his life might have been radically changed, had he failed to come to a decision in the next sixty seconds. Almost directly beneath them, a little to the left, an air battle raged between four Zeros and a single-seated U. S. fighter.

Jack did not need to be told that the lone fighter was the boy from his own home town, Ted. It could be none other, for the broad, sweeping circles his plane made appeared to be timed to the tune of a Strauss waltz.

At the moment they sighted Ted he was being followed by a Zero that spouted fire. The distance was too great; the shots did not take effect.

Instead of turning on his opponent, Ted swung up and under an enemy coming from above and, seeming to stand his plane on its tail, sent a burst of fire into the enemy’s engine. The Zero wavered. Something hung from it for a space of seconds, then rocketed downward.

“Shot off his motor!” Jack exulted.

Stew did not hear. His mind was still on the task before him. The rain squall was over. He spotted the two groups of enemy ships, also some small islands off to the east. With a strange sense of finality coursing through his being, he reported all this to the Black Bee’s radioman. As he listened after that, he thought he heard the low rumble of many distant planes. He could not be sure; too much was going on directly beneath them.

Continuing his magnificent circles, Ted came up behind the very Zero that seconds before had been following him. He let out a burst of fire. Smoking badly, the Zero limped into a cloud.

“Now! Now we’ve got to get down there!” Jack tilted his plane for a steep dive, then set his motor at top speed.

The two remaining Zeros were closing in on Ted. At the same time three others were swinging in on him from the left. The three 

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