The crazy motion of the bomber knocked Dawson off balance and sent him lurching heavily against the flare rack as he reached the navigator's nook just aft of the pilot's compartment. The air whistled out of his lungs, and balls of colored fire danced before his eyes. Fortunately, though, his outflung hands caught hold of something, and he was able to prevent himself from pitching headlong on his face.

The B-25 was still flooded by brilliant light, and above the screaming roar of the over-revving Wright-Cyclones, Dawson could hear the chatter of aerial machine guns. He gave no thought to the thing that was happening. He had but one idea in his head, and that was to fight his way forward to the pilot's compartment. As he dived past the navigator's nook, a hand grabbed him by the arm, and he heard voices, but he could not understand the words above the din of other noises. With a savage wrench of his arm he freed himself, and piled forward into the pilot's compartment.

One glance gave him a complete picture, and his racing heart seemed to stand still. The glass of the pilot's compartment was shattered to bits. The pilot was slumped over against the Dep wheel, and the weight of his limp body was pushing the control forward so that the bomber remained in its mad dive. Beside the limp pilot was the co-pilot, flopped over against the side of the compartment and looking for all the world like a man dead tired who had simply leaned over to brace himself and catch a couple of minutes of sleep. That is, he looked like such a man except for the crimson blood that gushed from a gaping wound in his neck just below the left ear.

After one look at the hideous sight Dawson flew into action. Bracing himself behind the pilot's seat, he grabbed the limp figure by the shoulders and pulled him back on the seat. Holding him upright with one hand, he reached around and opened the catch of the pilot's safety harness. That done, he braced himself again and eased the man to the floor boards. The pilot's eyes fluttered open, and his lips sprayed drops of blood as he tried to speak. Dawson didn't have time to listen. He leaped into the pilot's seat, grabbed the control wheel with one hand, hauled back on it steadily, and eased off the throttles with his other hand.

Little by little the crazy downward plunge of the B-25 eased off. The plane began to climb back into the sky. There was still brilliant white light all about. It had a silverish tint to it, and Dawson had the impression that he was flying straight through a phosphorescent ocean. In an abstract way be realized the white light was caused by flares that had been dropped from high above the bomber and were bringing it out in clear relief for a mysterious aerial night raider.

"Where is it, and what?" Dawson gasped as he squinted his eyes in the brilliant glare. "It's just one ship. I can tell it from the guns. But what—"

He cut the rest off short and heeled the B-25 way over on its wing and brought it around and up in a climbing turn with the engines wide open. He did so because he had caught a glimpse of a shadow boring in and up at him from the left. Just a shadow, but he knew instinctively that it was another plane. At the top of its climb, he whipped the bomber over and around in the opposite direction. The bomber was neither a P-40 nor a Lockheed Lightning, and his heart seemed to stand still in his throat as he waited for the big craft to come around. With each passing second, he expected to hear the savage yammer of guns blazing away at him.

As a matter of fact, a moment later he did hear guns, but they came from the B-25, not from the other plane. They came from the port side, and impulsively he jerked his head around in that direction. As he did so, he saw a sight that brought a wild cry of joy from his lips. Silhouetted against the brilliant background of light was a Nazi-marked Arada AR-95 twin-pontoon seaplane. He could see the silverish disc described by the spinning propeller, but the aircraft seemed to be standing still. Rather, it seemed to be held motionless in the air by twin streams of tracer smoke that reached out to it from the B-25.It was motionless for only a moment, and then suddenly a sheet of flame spewed out from under its engine cowling. Fire mushroomed out in all directions, and in the wink of an eye, the Arada completely disappeared, and there was just a great cloud of fire hanging in the flare-lighted heavens. To Dawson the cloud seemed to hang not for seconds, but for minutes. And then, as though an invisible cable had been cut, the cloud of fire dropped straight downward.

"Sweet shooting! Pretty!" Dawson heard his own voice yell. "And I've got a hunch that it was good old Freddy who nailed her! If it—"

He stopped short, as he happened to glance ahead and to the left. By now the flares were burning out, and were down close to the water. Because of that he was able to see the seven-or eight-thousand-ton tramp steamer that was leaving a broad, churning wake as it made off at top speed toward the darkness to the north. The surface vessel flew no flag, and there was little to distinguish her from any of the thousands of tramp steamers.

She was no mystery to Dawson, however. One look at her racing away from the light of the fading flares was all he needed to know the truth. That ship was one of the few Nazi sea raiders left, and the Arada seaplane had come from her decks. By looking carefully he could see a cradle on the forward deck, and a huge hoisting crane that must have lifted the seaplane over the side.

"The dirty dogs!" Dawson grated as he glared down at the fleeing vessel. "If only we had some bombs or depth charges aboard, what a finish we could put to that sea murderer! We'd—"

"Dawson! Thank God!"

The words seemed to explode in his ears. He jerked his head around and saw the strained features of Colonel Welsh. The Intelligence Officer's eyes were wide with both anger and amazement. His lips moved silently for a couple of seconds before he spoke again. "That was close! It would have been too close, but for you, Dawson! What's that down—"

"A Nazi raider that was carrying the seaplane," Dawson cut him off. "We can't do anything about her now, though. Even our radio is smashed, so we can't send out her position. But the pilot and co-pilot, Colonel! Get help and get them aft. The pilot is still alive, I think, but this chap—"

Dawson stopped as he turned and looked at the co-pilot in the seat next to his. Cold rage filled his heart, and his bitter hatred of all things Nazi flared up again. Too many times had his youthful eyes looked upon death not to recognize it now. Nothing in the world could help the co-pilot. He had passed on to join his buddies in the airmen's Valhalla.

"Better get to work on the pilot behind me!" Dawson said with a sharpness he didn't realize was in his voice. "There must be a medical kit aboard this bomber. I'll stick here and keep us going. Or do you want to turn back?"

"No, keep going!" the colonel replied. "It wouldn't do to turn back now. Here, Corporal! Give me a hand with your pilot. Where's the medical kit?"

The last words were directed to one of the aircraft's crew who had come forward into the compartment. Dawson paid no attention to him, for at that moment the port engine started to kick up a bit, and he had to give all his attention to getting it to run smoothly again. By then the glow of the flares had faded out, and the B-25 was thundering on through the darkness of the night. Dawson switched on the small-instrument light so that he could keep a careful check on engine performance and hold the aircraft to her course across the Atlantic. Only once did he take his attention from his flying, and that was when the dead co-pilot was lifted from his seat and taken aft. Once again red rage burned within Dave, as it always did when one of his countrymen was killed. He gripped the control wheel hard to prevent his hands from shaking.

Presently somebody slid into the co-pilot's seat and touched him on the arm. It was Freddy Farmer.

"Well done, old thing!" the English youth said in a voice that shook with feeling. "Fancy we've all got you to thank for saving our hides. Personally, I was too scared to move for hours, and—"

"Nuts!" Dawson interrupted with gruff affection. "Anybody can haul a plane out of a dive. If it hadn't been for your sweet shooting, that rat might have nailed us!"

"Good grief, how did you know?" Freddy gasped. "You couldn't see me from here!"

"I didn't have to look back," Dawson chuckled. "I simply saw the kind of shooting it was and knew at once you were behind the guns. How's the pilot making out, or don't you know?"

"Not too bad, for which he can thank his lucky stars," the English youth replied. "He'll pull through all right, but I guess the chap will be out of the war for some time. What kind of blasted business was it, anyway, Dave? That beggar was waiting for us right up on top, with his confounded flares. We were—well, as you would say, a sitting duck."

"Yeah, and we were darn near a dead pigeon, too!" Dawson said grimly. "But how, and why? Don't ask me, pal! I just haven't got the brains it would take to figure out this crazy mess. To me it looks like one of those little items of fate the colonel was talking about. Unless—"

"Unless what, Dave?" Freddy Farmer pressed as Dawson fell silent.

"Unless there's no connection at all," the Yank air ace finally remarked.

"I'm afraid that doesn't make much sense to me," young Farmer said. "What do you mean, no connection?"

"Well, figure it this way," Dawson replied. "Say that the President's forthcoming trip to Casablanca is as much of a perfect secret as ever. That—"

"But that's silly!" Freddy Farmer cut in. "The fact that this plane was mysteriously attacked means that some blasted Nazi agent found out what was in one of those sealed envelopes. I mean, that the next bomber through would have the President aboard."

"Are you all through sounding off?" Dave snapped. "Or don't you want to hear the rest of what I have to say?"

"Sorry, and all that!" the English youth snapped right back at him. "I'll be still. What were you going to say, Dave?"

"Figure the President's trip business out," Dawson went on speaking again. "Okay. So for what other reason should we be attacked by a mysterious plane from a mysterious raider in the middle of the Atlantic? I can think of only one, and this is it. Take it or leave it. The Nazi U-boats aren't doing so hot for Hitler these days. We're sinking his steel sharks left and right, and he's going to run out of them before long. Okay. Where is a lot of our stuff going these days? To North Africa. And a lot of it is being flown over. Okay. The Nazis don't stand a chance of going after our transports with their planes, like they can on the supply route to England. So what do they do? They send a sea raider out, fitted with a scout seaplane. The sea raider's detector picks out one of our planes crossing at night, and the seaplane goes up to high altitude and waits. Maybe those distress signals are part of the gag to get our plane to go down for a look. Anyway, the seaplane pilot drops his flares. They light up the target for him and also blind those aboard the transport plane long enough for the Nazi rat to do his stuff with his guns. And there you are. Take it or leave it!"

"Just the point, Dawson," Colonel Welsh suddenly broke in. "I don't know whether to take it or leave it. I certainly don't!"

"Oh, you there, sir?" Dawson gulped as he turned his head around. "I was just—well—"

"I know, and I'm glad I heard what you said," the colonel interrupted him. "I was certain that they were laying for us because they believed the President to be aboard. Yet I swear I don't see how they could possibly have found out. I'd stake my life that only we three know the contents of those sealed envelopes."

"If I may say so, sir," Freddy Farmer spoke up, "I have a feeling that Dawson has come very close to the truth, if he hasn't hit it exactly. Frankly, sir, it was just too perfect for the Nazis to have planned it this way. There—there just wasn't enough time, I'd say."

"What do you mean by that last?" the colonel asked him."I mean that if we had been attacked by a land-based plane, we could take it that the Nazis had got wind of the truth and had come after us," the English youth started to explain. "But that aircraft was from a surface ship—a surface ship that was directly in our path. Tell me this, sir, if you will. On the way down, what did you plan to do when you reached Trinidad?"

"Eh?" the senior officer grunted. "Why, see you two, of course, and find out what had happened, if anything. After I had heard what you had to say, I'd decide what to do next. Why?"

"Well, there you are, sir!" young Farmer cried. "That proves that Dawson's idea must be right. Don't you see? Even you weren't sure as to where this aircraft would go next. You didn't even give the pilot his course instructions until the very start of the take-off. So how could the Nazis possibly have found out and radioed that surface vessel to sail to a point directly in our path in the time it took us to fly out here from Trinidad? It's—it's silly, if you'll forgive me, sir."

The colonel said nothing for a moment. Then he gave a long-drawn-out sigh.

"Yes, I guess you're right, both of you," he said. "The secret of the President's trip must still be as safe as ever. Yes, it must be that way. We just happened to bump into something that any plane flying this route would have bumped into."

"I sure hated to see that sea raider get away!" Dawson grumbled. "Talk about lucky shots! That first blast got the radio set cold, unless the radio man can fix it up, sir? I saw the shambles it was as I dived by the navigator's nook."

"No, no such luck," Colonel Welsh replied. "I asked him quite a while back, and he said it was hopeless. The navigator, of course, has a record of the exact position at the time, so we can report it when we reach Casablanca."

"How's the pilot, sir?" Dawson asked. "Were there any other casualties besides that poor co-pilot?"

"The pilot will pull through," Colonel Welsh replied. "The only casualty was the co-pilot. Well, I'll go aft now to see if I can do anything for the pilot. You two can get us through all right, eh? I mean—"

"If the engines keep ticking over, we'll make it, sir," Dawson said quietly. "The tanks were spared, praise be! So I think it will be all good flying from here in.""Then I'll leave you to it," the colonel said. "And—and God bless both of you!"

Neither Dawson nor Farmer had a chance to say anything, because the Intelligence officer quickly turned and went aft.

"Well, you convinced even me with that swell sales talk of yours, Freddy," Dawson eventually broke the silence between them. "I guess maybe I did hit on the right idea, at that."

"I think you did," the English youth echoed. Then with a chuckle he added, "But I suppose I'll never hear the end of it from now on!"

"Now ain't that gratitude for you?" Dawson groaned, and shook his head sadly. "So help me, why I keep getting that food-craving hide of yours out of tight spots, I'll never understand. I must be nuts, I guess!"

"And for once," Freddy Farmer laughed, "I won't argue with you!"