It took every ounce of his will-power, but Dave Dawson forced himself to wait until he and Freddy had the Fulmar clear and well out of sight of the Plymouth Base before he took the sealed orders out of his pocket. He turned in the seat so that Freddy could read them at the same time, but he didn't rip open the envelop at once. He held it up and looked at Freddy.

"Let's fool Manners," he said with a straight face. "Let's just toss this over the side and go on down back and land. There's probably nothing in it anyway. What say, huh?"

Freddy's jaw dropped, his eyes popped, and his face turned white as a sheet.

"Good grief, Dave, have you gone mad?" he gasped and grabbed for the envelop. "Don't you dare...!"

The English youth cut himself off short and turned beet red as he saw the grin on Dave's lips. He swallowed hard and balled one hand into a hard fist.

"Some day you'll pull one of your bad jokes just once too often!" he growled. "Open that letter before I throw you out bag and baggage. Phew! What years you took off my life, you ... you...!"

"Naughty, naughty, don't say it!" Dave said with a laugh as Freddy floundered around for a suitable word. "Mama wash your mouth out with soap! Okay, pal. Sorry you almost had heart failure. Guess it is a bum time to pull one like that."

"Shut up and open that letter!" Freddy shouted in a fuming voice.

Dave nodded and tore open the envelop and pulled out two typewritten sheets of paper. He smoothed them out, let the ship fly itself, and then started reading the orders. They read:

Flying Officers Dawson And Farmer

You are to first make sure that no aircraft either British or Nazi are in sight. Then you are to set a course for the area off the French coast as indicated on the second sheet of these orders. En route you will tune your radio to wave length reading 429-6B and leave it at that reading regardless of what happens. For your information when your radio is set at that reading it will be in constant contact with special directional finder apparatus aboard certain British naval craft in surrounding waters. They will know your exact location every second of the time, but your signal will not be heard by any enemy aircraft or surface vessels.

When you reach the area marked on the second sheet you will cruise about and maintain a constant look-out for a single funneled Nazi surface sea raider of some seven thousand tons. The craft will probably be painted a dull grey, and may be flying the flag of almost any country. The craft has flat decks from bow to stern and sets low in the water. Even from close range she looks like an ordinary tramp. She is, however, heavily armed and is fitted with hidden guns that can be hoisted above decks at an instant's notice.

Most important of all she is the fuel ship for a wolf pack of some ten to fifteen Nazi U-boats. They will be close to the ship but will submerge the instant your plane is sighted. You probably will not even see them. So concentrate only on the surface raider.

Make no attempt to attack the raider! Do not touch your radio! The raider's set will be open and although it will not be able to hear your directional finder signal it will pick up anything else.

Even though you are attacked by enemy aircraft do not give battle!

You are to act as though you are lost. As though you are having engine trouble, or are out of fuel. When you sight the raider start down and keep on going down. You are to make a crash landing in the water.

As soon as you have crash landed your signal will stop going out over the air. British naval craft in that area will then head under full draft for the spot. And Fleet Air Arm craft will be launched with torpedoes and bombs. The two units will attempt to trap the raider and her U-boats and blow them out of the water.

When you have landed your job is done, and you are to save your own lives as best you can. This area is believed to be the rendezvous point of the most dangerous raiding pack England has yet battled. It is absolutely essential that this pack be destroyed. And it is hoped ... and expected ... that you will fulfill your orders to the letter. The success of the entire venture depends upon your causing the raider no alarm, keeping your directional finder signal going out over the air all the time ... and creating the impression that you are lost and making a forced landing in the water without being able to send out your position.

Good luck, and God bless you!

Manners
Emergency Command

Dave waited until Freddy nodded to indicate that he was through reading, and then took a look at the second sheet. It contained a complete navigation course that led to an area of the Atlantic about seventy-five miles west-south-west of Brest on the coast of occupied France. One glance was enough to tell them both that surface and under-sea raiders working out of that rendezvous area could fan through England's trade lanes with Canada and the United States in the matter of a few hours and then go scooting back to any one of a number of bases on the French coast.

"Well, Manners certainly wasn't kidding when he gave us that little pep talk," Dave finally broke the silence. "Boy, he sure did hand us something sweet, didn't he?"

Freddy didn't reply at once. He swallowed a couple of times and ran a finger around the strap of his helmet as though it had suddenly become a little bit too tight.

"And not a chance to fire a shot!" he groaned. "Blasted clay pigeons, that's what we've got to be."

"Dead ducks, and how!" Dave breathed. "Nope, I don't think it's going to be nice at all sitting in the water with the British navy and Fleet Air Arm lads heaving everything at the raider and her subs. Of course, though, I can still pitch this thing overboard, and we can swear Hays didn't give us a thing."

"Never mind that!" Freddy growled. "As you would say, we stuck our chins out, and we've got to keep them out. Set the course, my little man, and tune in on that wave length. No, wait, I'll do that little thing. Who knows but what you might get Manners on the thing and start offering brighter suggestions. Blast it, though, I hate swimming. Specially in mid Atlantic this time of year."

"Cheer up, pal!" Dave laughed. "I'll save you, my boy!"

"In that case I'm doomed for sure!" the English youth groaned and turned his attention to the radio.

For the next several minutes neither lad spoke. Each was busy with his own thoughts. And be it said they were not pleasant ones. However, they were not unpleasant thoughts simply because almost certain death awaited them out over the Atlantic. That their chances of surviving this assignment were almost nil didn't bother them a bit. What rankled was that they had to go down to whatever kind of doom awaited them without so much as starting to put up a show of resistance. Aerial decoys, that's what they were. Just a couple of lads sent out to act as helpless enemy bait, and when they had done their job probably get blown to atoms forty ways from Sunday. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair. But it was orders, and that was that!

"A penny for your thoughts, Freddy!" Dave suddenly called out. "If they're the same as mine they're not worth that much."

"Matter of fact, I was thinking about that directional finder gadget," the English youth replied as he stared at the radio. "It sure must be something pretty neat. Just think, British war craft know where we are right now. The chaps at the other end can put a dot on their navigation charts marking the spot of water we're over now. What will this war bring out next?"

"Don't ask," Dave grunted and fixed his eyes on the distant horizon. "One thing I hope, though. When we crash land and our signal automatically stops, I hope those boys will get to the spot in a hurry. The Jerries are no dopes. They may smell something fishy. And they sure will once they spot naval craft smoke on the horizon."

"The bombers will be on top of them long before that," Freddy said. "Besides, though Manners didn't say so, it's up to us to delay the raider as long as we can. Ten to one she'll hove to to pick us up. Particularly the plane. This Fulmar is a new job, you know, and it would be a feather in the raider captain's cap to take one back to port."

"Sure, that's true," Dave nodded. Then with a frown, "But the set-up doesn't appeal to me so much. No, I don't mean about our necks. I mean, Manners' hope that the navy and Fleet Air Arm will wipe out the raider and her tin fish children. Seems too much to hope for, the way I figure it. Frankly, I wish we could have talked with Manners instead of only being able to read what he wrote. I've got ideas that...."

"Don't I know it!" Freddy cut in. "But forget them, my friend. You'd have Manners tearing out his hair in two minutes. Don't worry, he's considered this thing from every angle, and picked the best way to do the job."

"Maybe," Dave grumbled reluctantly. "But I still would like to have been able to talk to the guy."

"And that's a break Manners will never know about," Freddy chuckled. "Anyway it's no good now. The area's just ahead, and who knows what else. And by the way, Dave, did I ever tell you that it's been nice knowing you? I'm afraid I'll have to admit it's true."

As the English youth's quiet voice came to Dave's ears a hard lump formed in his throat and for a brief instant the horizon ahead became just a little bit blurred.

"Well, I guess I've got to admit that you're aces, too, Freddy," Dave said, a moment later and reached back a hand.

Freddy took the hand in his own and gripped it hard. Neither spoke a word. They didn't have to. All the words in the world meant nothing compared to the real meaning and significance of that handclasp. It was Freddy who finally broke the silence.

"What am I?" he said gruffly. "Your precious little girl friend, or something? Let go, and get to work."

"Now isn't that just like the guy?" Dave sighed and kept his eyes on the sea and horizon ahead. "I hold his hand to help stop him shaking and trembling with fright, and he bawls me out. Yes, the English are a screwy race, no fooling. I...."

"Shut up, Dave!" Freddy cut in sharply. "Take a look to the left! What in the world do you make of that?"

"Huh?" Dave echoed and bent forward slightly to stare down over the left wing of the plane at the rolling grey green swells of the North Atlantic. "What do you mean, look? I don't see a thing but water."

Freddy reached forward and rapped him sharply on the shoulder.

"Not down, up!" he shouted. "Off to the left about three miles, and a couple of thousand feet above us. It's a plane!"

Dave jerked his head up and stared hard in the direction indicated. For a couple of seconds he saw nothing but sun bathed blue sky and scattered patches of clouds. Then suddenly he saw the flash of sunlight on wings. He took a good second look and gave an angry shake of his head.

"Now what?" he grated. "Aren't we ever going to get started on anything? That's a British plane. From here it looks like a Fairey 'Swordfish' torpedo plane of the Fleet Air Arm. It's a biplane, and not a low wing monoplane job like this one we're in."

"It is a Swordfish torpedo plane!" Freddy cried excitedly. "And look, Dave. There! See? See its markings? What in the world?"

"Boy, what eyes you've got, pal!" Dave grunted and squinted hard at the distant plane. "I can't see a thing. That darn sun is.... Hey! Holy smoke, Freddy! That ship is carrying the markings of Seventy-Four Squadron! Our own outfit!"

"Exactly!" Freddy echoed. "It means that somebody was sent out to signal us that the show was all off. Or else some lad has been trailing us just to find out what we're up to."

"Well, it can't be the first," Dave said as a tiny tingle of worry rippled through him. "Our orders were sealed, you know. Nobody at the Plymouth Base knows where we are."

"Well, one chap does," Freddy said and pointed. "That chap up there."

Dave made no comment to that. He turned his head front and searched the rolling swells all the way south to the horizon line. And to the east and to the west as well. But that was all he saw. Just miles and miles of rolling grey green swells. There wasn't the sign of a single thing on the surface, nor the faint shadow of a U-boat lurking under the surface. In fact, there wasn't so much as a single puff of smoke to denote the presence of surface craft.

"Somebody's either taking us for a sweet sleigh ride," he grunted to himself. "Or else we just naturally read those orders wrong. My guess is that...."

Dave never stated what his guess was. At that moment the savage yammer of aerial machine gun fire crackled against his ear drums above the roar of the Bristol engine. He jerked his head around just in time to see Freddy Farmer clutch at his left cheek and slump over against the side of the cockpit. The English youth straightened up almost immediately and took his hand away from his cheek. Dave's heart started beating again when he saw the thin narrow red line that cut down from the lobe of the ear toward the point of the jaw. Freddy had been slightly creased by a bullet. An inch or so more to the right, however, and the English R.A.F. ace would have been stone dead.

In practically the same instant that Dave looked at Freddy he jerked his gaze skyward. The strange plane from Seventy-Four Squadron was racing down at them with all guns blazing. The thick glass hood over the Fulmar's two place cockpit was being turned into a mass of millions and millions of tiny cracks as the bullets from the Fairey Swordfish's guns slammed against it. Hardly realizing that he was doing so, Dave jumped hard on the controls and whipped the Fulmar up over and down in a wing screaming half roll. The maneuver took them clear of the other plane's gun for a moment or so. But no longer. The biplane followed through in a similar maneuver and came tearing down in again.

"You dirty rat, what gives?" Dave bellowed angrily and slid off the safety catch of his gun triggers. "If you're asking for trouble you're getting it now ... and plenty!"

Even as the words raced off his lips he kicked the Fulmar through a vicious half roll and then hung it on its prop. The Swordfish's pilot was caught cold and a ten year old kid could have picked him off at that distance. It so happened, though, that Dave didn't have the chance to fire a single shot. Quick as a flash Freddy leaned forward and knocked his thumb off the trigger button.

"Don't, Dave!" Freddy screamed. "Are you crazy? Our orders were not to shoot even if we were attacked!"

"But this is different!" Dave roared. "That bird...."

"No!" Freddy cried insistently and hung onto Dave's hand. "We've got to follow orders. Fake that you've been hit, and try to get away from him. Gosh, Dave, we haven't even sighted the raider yet. Get away from this chap. A Fulmar can fly rings around a Swordfish. Get away from him and let's continue with the patrol."

Whether it was Freddy's convincing argument, or whether it was the fact that the Swordfish was no longer a perfect target, Dave didn't really know. Anyway, he kicked the Fulmar off its stall and went sliding off and down to the right. However, the stall had cut the Fulmar's speed to practically nothing. Also there was more than just an average run of the mill pilot flying the strange plane with Seventy-Four Squadron markings. Before Dave could pick up sufficient speed to do any fast maneuvering the Swordfish came ripping in again with its guns spewing out jetting streams of flame.

Dave felt the plane tremble as it was hit in a hundred different places. Then suddenly the Bristol in the nose began to cough and sputter, and the controls went wishy-washy in his grasp. A cold lump of ice took the place of his heart, and a load of buckshot began to bounce around in his stomach. For a moment he couldn't move a single muscle. He simply sat there like a man of stone waiting for the next burst from the Swordfish's guns to rip and tear into his body. Instinct, however, took charge where his brain failed. The next thing he realized he had put the plane into a tight spiral and was working down toward the surface of the water as fast as he dared.

It was not enough, though, for the mysterious Swordfish pilot to know that the Fulmar was crippled and going down. The plane tore in for three more bursts before it zoomed up for altitude and went thundering away at full throttle toward the east. Luckily the parting burst did no further damage to the Fulmar. The plane was finished for good, however. The engine made one last gasping sound and then died completely. Dave gingerly worked the wabbly controls and eased the craft out of its tight spiral and put it into a long flat glide. Then he turned around and glared at Freddy.

"Right or wrong, we should have plugged that tramp!" he growled. "I had him pinned to a cloud when you knocked my hand away from the trigger button. But skip it, pal. Orders are orders, I guess. How's the face feel?"

"Can't feel a thing!" Freddy called out and impulsively touched the bleeding bullet crease on his cheek. "What do we do now, Dave?"

Dave laughed harshly and pointed down.

"Three guesses!" he said. "And all of them correct. We go down and play we're in the Navy. And I.... Oh my gosh, Freddy! Look! That rotten bum plastered our radio and knocked it haywire. That means our signal's stopped going out over the air. And that means that the navy ships and planes will come a-running, and there's not a raider or a U-boat within miles of here, I bet."

Freddy looked blank for a moment. Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

"What a lad, what a lad!" he finally cried. "Yes sir, one in a million. Sure the planes and ships will come a-running. But won't it make you feel good to be picked up instead of floating around until you sink?"

Dave grinned and gave a little shake of his head.

"Yes, I guess it will at that," he said. "But, heck, once we crashed the signal would have stopped, and they'd have come anyway. But darn it, I don't like this, Freddy. Not even a little bit. I've got a funny feeling that Manners didn't think of this possibility at all."

"What do you mean by that crack?" Freddy exclaimed as he saw the look on Dave's face.

The Yank R.A.F. ace slowly raised a hand and pointed ahead and toward the east. Freddy looked in that direction, gulped, but said nothing. About a mile away and just beneath the surface of the water was the tell-tale shadow of a submarine. It was slowly coming to the surface, and as the boys watched it they saw that it was a Nazi U-boat. Just a lone Nazi U-boat in an area where they had been expected to sight ten or fifteen in the company of a powerful surface raider.

Dave slowly turned and looked Freddy in the eye.

"And on second thought I like it even worse," he said. "That U-boat knew that we were coming here. It also knew that a Fairey Swordfish was going to shoot us down. Catch on to what I mean?"

"No, I don't quite follow you," Freddy said with a worried shake of his head.

"The old double cross, or whatever you want to call it," Dave said and flattened the glide of the plane even more. "We were going to set a nice little trap for the Nazis, but they've crossed us up. It's my guess they have set a nice little trap for the naval ships that are right now racing to our rescue!"

Freddy Farmer's face paled as he looked at the damaged radio.

"And there isn't a thing we can do about warning them," he said in a hoarse voice.

"Not a thing," Dave said as he stared at the submarine again. "But there's something we can do, Freddy. Hang onto your hat, pal! You and I are going to crash right on top of that baby! By the time he gets clear of our wreckage it'll be too late for him to crash dive and let go with his torpedoes at our navy ships. Hang on, pal!"

"Right you are!" Freddy sang out. "Give it to the beggar! At least we can do one more thing to help. Let her rip, Dave, and the heck with our necks!"