Dawn sunshine rippled along the broad wings of the American built Consolidated Catalina flying boat, but ominous coal black clouds were beginning to pile up high in the western sky. Even as Dave Dawson stared at them they seemed to fling a dark shadow far out over the rolling swells of the North Atlantic. He gave an angry shake of his head and impulsively took a tighter grip on the controls of the flying boat.

"That storm ahead looks pretty bad, Freddy," he said wearily out the corner of his mouth. "What do you think?"

Freddy Farmer stirred in the co-pilot's seat and glanced haggard eyed at the altimeter. The needle pointed to exactly nine thousand feet.

"We'll just have to hit it on the nose and pray," he said after a moment. "If we climb over it we might just as well go back to port and give up. I'm positive the raider's under it somewhere. Those signals were so weak I couldn't make head or tail of them. All we can do is take a chance we're right this time. If we aren't then...."

Freddy shrugged and left the rest hanging in midair, and bent forward to recheck the radio's adjustments for the umpty-umpteenth time in the last six hours. Dave nodded absently and kept his gaze fixed on the mountainous coal black clouds ahead. There was a dull throbbing in his head, his eyes smarted and ached, and his whole body felt stiff and sore. But what bothered him most was the bitter, empty feeling of helpless despair in his heart.

He and Freddy had been aloft in the Catalina for a good eight hours, and for the last six of those hours they had done everything within their power to make radio contact with the mystery raider and her wolf-pack of U-boats somewhere on the vast expanse of the Atlantic below them. Several times they had received code signals in answer to their call, but because of a static band the signals had been too weak for Freddy to understand. The very fact, though, that they had picked up bits of the same signals several times convinced them both that they had made contact. No definite proof, however, and hour after hour they had cruised about in the dark shrouded sky groping like a blind man in a strange room.

That alone was enough to fray their nerves and put them on edge, but to add to their helpless misery was the fact that they picked up spots of other signals they knew did not come from the raider. Some were in British code, and it was easy to guess that aircraft on the hunt for them were communicating with each other and their shore bases. And then there were signals in German code that were obviously being sent out from Nazi aircraft. Those signals worried them more than the fact they could not establish definite contact with the raider. The same question burned through their brains in letters of fire a foot high. Had scouting Nazi aircraft spotted the all important convoy and were they establishing contact with the raider? And were the raider and her wolf-pack already sneaking into position to pounce upon those precious cargoes destined for England?

Hours of groping blindly about in the dark. Hours when at any minute they might plow headlong into R.A.F. planes searching them out. Hours of heart crushing failure to achieve their all important goal, contact with the raider. Hours during which every tantalizing thought possible rose up to peck at their tired brains like vultures over a dead steer.

And, now, dawn! Dawn and light. Light that would reveal them to the pilots of other planes that might come across them in the air. The eyes of British pilots. And the eyes of Nazi pilots. Dawn and one last hope, a final prayer. That the mystery raider was hugging the area below that storm ahead, and the static created by the storm was the reason they couldn't contact the raider. One last hope. One last fight, not against aircraft, but against the raging fury of an Atlantic storm. If they could not find the raider somewhere in that storm area then their mission was doomed to failure. Time's sands were running out in the glass. If they did not find the raider this time, it would mean that the raider was nowhere about. That it was far away, in contact with a real Nazi scouting plane, and ... and perhaps in the very act of pouncing upon the convoy.

Dave shuddered and wiped sweat from his brow as the last thought whipped across his brain. Then almost instantly he gritted his teeth, got his chin up, and squared his jaw.

"Nuts to that storm!" he muttered. "This Cat-boat can take worse than that. We'll find that darn raider if we have to hunt it out from pole to pole. Got your safety belt fastened tight, Freddy? We're going to get a nice tossing."

"As tight as it'll go," the English youth replied. "I'll be okay as long as the wings stay on."

"They'll stay on," Dave said grimly. "This job is Yank built, and good. Make a check on our course. I want to head into that mess ahead in the direction of the nearest British Fleet unit to our position. The direction signals you last flashed out to the raider. I'm just banking on a hope she caught them and is heading that way, too."

"That would almost be too good to be true," Freddy sighed. "But hold your horses a minute and I'll make a definite check."

Freddy busied himself with his charts and navigation for a moment or so, then straightened up and nodded.

"Keep her as she goes, Dave," he reported. "We're right on the old beam, now. And...."

The English youth didn't finish the rest. He didn't for the plain reason that an invisible express train seemed to come roaring out of nowhere and crash into the right wing. The flying boat heeled over drunkenly to that side, shivered and shook from stem to stern, and then tried to drop by the nose and plunge madly seaward. Dave's face paled and the cords of his neck stood out like taut steel cables as he battled with the controls, and by sheer strength fought the flying boat up onto even keel.

"And that's the starter!" he panted. "Just a puff of air compared to what's coming. But I'm going straight in to the middle and then down as low as we dare. We may find a hole underneath that will give us enough visibility. When we find it, keep your eyes open. Don't close them for a second. And keep working that radio for all it's worth. Try every darn code in the book, including the emergency one. The instant you get a definite contact let me know."

"I'll let you know, never fear!" Freddy Farmer bellowed as a sudden roaring sound closed in from all sides to make the thunder of the engines little more than a murmur. "I'll let you know ... but it may be in the next world!"

Dave hardly heard the last, and he didn't bother to make any comment. He had no strength to waste trying to yell above the world of sound into which they had plunged. Every ounce of strength was needed to hold the controls firm, and keep the crazy crisscross tornado of wind from spinning the huge Catalina up on wingtip as though it were bit of torn paper in the air. The sun was now gone, swallowed up behind them, and the flying boat was rocking, and bucking, and pitching through a swirling world of slate grey and eerie shades of purple. Every so often the roaring of the wind would die away as though by magic. There would be only the powerful roar of their sturdy engines. And the craft would tear forward without so much as a tremor in either wingtip.

And then just as suddenly a coal black mass of cloud would zoom up straight in front of the nose of the hull, and the fury of the weather gods would crash in on them with terrifying force. A wall of slashing rain would fall down upon them, and it would be impossible to see an inch ahead or in any direction. The nose of the hull, where the forward gunner ordinarily sat, would disappear from their view completely. Tossed and heaved this way and that, they would hurtle onward completely blind.

A hundred times the flying boat would give a sharp lurch and Dave's heart would stop cold in fear that something had given way, and that the Catalina was breaking up in midair. Or a hundred times the engine instrument needles would go on a crazy rampage about the dials, and either the starboard or port engine would cough and sputter for a second or two that was a whole lifetime to Dave Dawson's jangling nerves. But always, no matter what, the Catalina kept on valiantly fighting its way toward the center of the storm.

Finally a sudden calm and a flood of grey light told Dave that they had hit the center. He winked sweat from his eyes, sweat that had streamed down off his forehead, and took a look below. He saw an expanse of thin fleecy cloud that was traveling in a slow circle as the result of the whirling movement at the core of the storm. He shot a quick hopeful glance at Freddy, but the English youth had phones clamped to his ears and was working frantically at the radio. His face was grim and set, but there was a dull, defeated look in his eyes.

Dave turned front, throttled the engines slightly and nosed the flying boat down toward the layer of fleecy cloud. He could see gobs of black cloud underneath, but the stuff was not solid, and hope zoomed high in his breast. There were bound to be holes in the stuff. Holes through which he could look down into the calm area under the center of the storm. There, if any place, would be the raider. Stealing along in the calm center while the real fury of the storm protected her on all sides.

Would she be there? Would she be heading in the right direction? For a brief moment Dave was filled with the crazy desire to pull up out of his dive and ride on through the other side of the storm without so much as taking a single look for the raider. Crazy, insane? Sure! But if he did go on down, and the raider was nowhere to be seen, the bitter defeat might be more than his already singing nerves could take.

"Cut it, you dope!" he grated at himself. "If she isn't there, then she isn't there. What are you, anyway? A low down dirty quitter? No nerve to stick your chin out, and take it? Get down there, Dawson, and get down darn fast!"

The sound of his own voice helped. The crazy desire to quit and run faded away into thin air. His grip on the controls tightened and he held the Catalina in its downward plunge. In the matter of seconds he reached the layer of fleecy cloud. There he pulled out of his dive slightly, kept the nose down just a hair, and started circling about. The altimeter read three thousand feet. It was probably correct, but after what the craft had passed through, every instrument on the panel might be all cockeyed. And there were still black clouds below him. For all he knew they might be sitting right on top of the storm swept water. Death would have the last laugh if he should fly the Catalina right down into the wet stuff. No, the thing to do was to circle slowly and drop down foot by foot, and keep both eyes skinned for the first hole in the black stuff below. And, please God, he would be able to find a hole! If not....

He didn't finish the thought. At that instant something hit him a sharp blow on the right arm, and his own name was screamed in his ears.

"Dave, I've made contact! Positive this time. I got the raider's number signal as clear as a bell. She's close by, I'm positive. She wants a repeat on the convoy's location!"

Freddy Farmer's face was flaming red with excitement, and his eyes seemed to shoot out sparks as he yelled at Dave and continued to thump a fist on his right arm. Dave yanked his arm away and scowled.

"Hey, lay off!" he shouted. "But swell, Freddy! Give her direction X Dash M. That will take her out of this storm. She's moving with it now, that's a cinch. And it'll be tough for the navy boats to find her in that sea. The U-boats could scatter and skip away at will. Give her X Dash M direction signal and get her out into open sea. We'll go on back up for plenty altitude and pick her up when she comes out of the storm. Boy, I guess we're tops, huh?"

Freddy grinned like an imp but he didn't say anything. He was hard at work at his set again, sending out the misleading signals to the marauder of the high seas somewhere down there below the storm. For a couple of minutes longer curiosity, burning curiosity, forced Dave to continue circling downward searching for a hole that would give him a view of the surface of the ocean. However, before he could find a hole the sudden realization that he might spoil everything snapped him out of his trance, and made him pull the nose up, feed full fuel to his engines and start climbing the Catalina up through the center of the storm.

"Spoil things, and how!" he echoed the thought aloud. "If that raider should spot us, ten to one her commander would wonder plenty how-come we were so close. Use your head, Dave, and keep using it!"

"I quite agree, though I don't know what you mean," he heard Freddy shout. "A bad sign, though, when a chap starts talking to himself, you know. That tossing around didn't get you, did it?"

The English youth was grinning broadly and there was the old sparkle in his eyes. Gone was the haggard, worn out look. That they had made contact with the raider in their last desperate try had made a new man of Freddy. Dave grinned back at him and felt ten times better himself. Now they had something they could dig their teeth into. No more stumbling around hoping against hope, and meeting with defeat at every turn. Once they reached high altitude and spotted the raider when she came out beyond the rim of the storm, everything would be all to the merry. True, maybe whirlwind action lay just ahead, but that was okay. It would be action with a purpose, not useless unfinished action.

"I'm okay!" he said to Freddy. "I mean, no more goofy than usual. But I do feel tops, now. As soon as we sight that baby send her a course correction and get her headed once again toward that Fleet unit. And once she's on course get set for anything."

Freddy arched an eyebrow and looked puzzled.

"Meaning exactly what?" he asked.

Dave shrugged and made a little gesture with one hand.

"I feel a million times better," he said, "but I've still got that old hunch the unexpected's going to suddenly pop up with a bang. Gosh, Freddy! Just suppose this ship you've contacted isn't the raider at all!"

The English youth paled but almost immediately he shook his head vigorously.

"Impossible!" he said bluntly. "I got her call signals as clear as anything. Don't worry, she identified herself by code. She's the raider, all right. And at least we've got a full hour."

"Full hour?" Dave echoed and looked blank.

"Certainly," Freddy replied. "From the convoy's position I radioed him the commander knows that he can't get within striking distance at least for an hour. So that gives us a full hour to work her dead away from the convoy's route and into the hands of the Navy. If only the Nazi planes don't show up. That's what worries me. That they'll show up, and things will go wrong, and the murdering blighter and her steel fish will still be able to get at the convoy. I don't want to return to port if that happens, Dave."

The two exchanged looks, and Dave impulsively reached out his hand and pressed Freddy's knee.

"Neither of us will be returning to port if things go all wrong, Freddy," he said in a steady voice. "We're armed, and if the Navy and Fleet Air Arm lads don't show up in time, then you and I'll fight the whole lot of them alone ... and keep on fighting to the end. Now, pull up your socks, my lad, and stop thinking crazy things. In another ten minutes we should be taking our first look at her. Hang on, now. We're going to be tossed around a bit, but not as much as before. I'm going to climb up through to the top instead of barging right through to the outside. We'll miss the bad part, I hope."

With a nod for emphasis, Dave gave the Catalina's engines full throttle and steepened his climb up through the comparatively calm area in the center of the storm. Near the top, at an altitude of some fourteen thousand feet, they ran into some rough air. The flying boat bucked and quivered and threatened to fall off on one wing and plunged down. There was a real pilot at the controls, though. An ace pilot, and he fought the mad actions of the plane tooth and nail. And he won! Engines laboring, due to the excess strain, the flying boat finally prop clawed up through the last of the storm clouds and into a world flooded with golden sunlight.

"That's the nice girl!" Dave cried and affectionately patted the controls with one hand. "Manners and Otis weren't shooting any line when they said you were good. You are, and plenty more!"

"Good grief!" Freddy gasped. "Have we actually been down in that stuff?"

Dave turned his head to see Freddy peering downward out the compartment window. He took a look, himself, and unconsciously gulped and swallowed hard. Below was an angry mass of boiling black cloud. It seemed to extend to the four horizons and completely blot out the waters of the North Atlantic underneath. A whirling black mass that changed to brown, then grey, then an eerie purple streaked with lacy white. And then black to a turbulent, seething black mass again.

"Sweet tripe!" Dave breathed in awe. "And the wings are still on? Freddy, don't put that storm in your report, if you ever write one. Nobody would believe you. And you couldn't blame them. Well, we're out of it and above, anyway. So three cheers for us.... I mean, this Catalina. Now, to get more altitude and start eye hunting for that raider. Boy, if our good luck will only continue to hold out."

"It's got to, and it's going to!" Freddy said firmly. "Just don't give it another thought. Just skin your eyes and I'll skin mine. And I'll bet you five pounds I spot her first."

"A bet!" Dave shouted happily and swung the Catalina around toward the west. "I know I'm going to lose, though. Heck, with those sharp eyes you've got, you could read tomorrow's newspaper from here! And I don't mean maybe!"

After that the two youths lapsed into silence, and each bent forward and eagerly fixed his gaze on the western rim of the savage storm and the rain blurred stretches of the Atlantic they could see far beyond. Their spirits were high, and their hearts were light. The job was still to be done. The task was still to be accomplished, yet somehow they felt they had reached the home stretch, and that their goal was almost in sight.

It was a wonderful feeling that filled their fighting hearts and tingled their blood, but somewhere up on high the gods of war shrilled in high glee, for they knew something that neither Dave Dawson or Freddy Farmer or so much as even dreamed. The war gods knew that death was close to those two R.A.F. aces. Close, real close. The matter of only a few feet. And even as they strained their eyes for their very first glimpse of the Atlantic raider, death moved one step closer, and another, and another....