The dark of night had come again to war besieged England, and from the northern most tip of Scotland clear south to the Isle of Wight British eyes and ears were on the alert for any and all surprise moves by Hitler's devilish hordes on the other side of the English Channel and the North Sea. Men stood waiting at their searchlight batteries. Others stood ready at their anti-aircraft guns. And the night flying pilots of the Royal Air Force stood within jumping distance of their swift, deadly fighter planes. A whole nation of some forty five millions of people ready and waiting for the next trick Adolf "Death" would pull out of his bag.

At Lands End Base, however, there were two who were not waiting for "Satan," with his trick mustache and ever drooping lock of greasy hair, to make the next move. On the contrary they were waiting for the right time to make a move themselves. They were blended in with the darkness within a hand's touch of a light small tender tied up at the southwest side of the flying boat basin. They had been there for a good half hour virtually holding their breath every instant of the time, straining their ears for the slightest sound close by, and raking the darkness with their eyes.

"What say, shall we go?" Freddy Farmer presently breathed in Dave Dawson's ear. "There's nobody within a quarter of a mile, and that wind that's freshening may swing the Cat on her mooring line so's we'll have the devil's own job heading out toward open water."

"Okay it is," Dave breathed back and gripped Freddy's arm. "Down on your belly, pal, and into the tender. I've got her free. I'll feather paddle her out Indian style. Right! Here we go!"

Cautiously the two youths wormed inch by inch down over the lip of the basin wall toward the small tender. And then suddenly there came a sound that froze them stiff and turned the blood in their veins to ice. It was the muffled crack of a rifle shot. The muffled bark from a rifle obviously fitted with a silencer. And ages before the echo was gone an angry metal hornet buzzed squarely between them and buried itself in the wall.

In an infinitesimal period of time a million heart shredding thoughts leaped and raced through Dave's brain. The basin guard! They had not fooled the ever watchful guard at all! They had been spotted and a warning shot had been fired right between them. The next shot would find warm human flesh. What to do? Go on and be shot at like a helpless clay pigeon? Go on in the tender and suddenly have every searchlight in the place played squarely on them, and be riddled with British bullets before they could so much as fling up their hands in surrender? Or should they give up, now? Give up and reveal their true identities? Should...?

"No! No, we can't. We've got to carry on. There's everything at stake. We've got to carry on. We promised. We vowed to Manners, to England, and to God. We can't give up now. We can't!"

Dave did not speak the words aloud, but they boomed through his brain with all the roaring thunder of heavy cannon fire. Hardly realizing he was doing so he reached out and touched Freddy's arm.

"Never mind the tender!" he breathed. "We've got to get to that plane by swimming for it. Slide down into the water and swim under water as long as you can. Keep heading straight for the Cat-boat."

"Right!" came the hushed reply. "It's only sixty yards, anyway. But watch the slash going in."

Faint movement told Dave that Freddy was already on his way. He waited a few brief seconds until the English youth slid into the water without causing a ripple and disappeared. Then Dave slid down in with all the silence and swiftness of an eel. Yet a split second before the chilly water closed over him he once more heard the muffled bark of a silencer fitted gun, and a tiny twinge of pain rippled across the instep of his left foot. It was so brief and short in duration that he hardly felt it. Then he was underwater, air locked tightly in his lungs, and swimming straight out from the wall with every ounce of his strength.

With every stroke he took a hundred more maddening thoughts came to torture his brain. Was he heading for the Cat-boat? Where was Freddy? Was he all right? Was Freddy keeping true direction? Would they lose each other, lose the Cat-boat, and flounder about in the dark until they were spotted from shore and shot? Thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts. And each one like the white hot blade of a knife cutting away a part of his brain.

Seconds dragged by, hours, weeks, and years. Finally, his burning lungs were on the point of bursting right out through his ribs. Blinding light danced before his closed eyes, and in his whirling head was the mighty roar of a world coming to an end. With a final desperate effort he pushed his way up toward the surface and got his head above water. For a few precious seconds he was forced to rest there slowly treading water until the blinding light passed away, and the roaring thunder faded down into silence.

Finally, his bulging eyes were back in their sockets and he could see. Dead ahead was nothing but water, and beyond the horizon marked by a few faint glimmering stars. He looked to the right and saw a huge darker shadow looming up. Then suddenly his straining eyes picked out a small object that seemed to be floating motionless on the surface of the basin. It was not five feet away and it was all he could do to refrain from letting out a wild yell. He curbed the urge and faintly breathed the name.

"Freddy?"

The small object on the water moved slightly and a whisper came stealing back to him.

"Right-o! What took you so long? This is it!"

Dave didn't answer. Instead he glided through the water until he was at Freddy Farmer's side. The English youth raised a hand and pointed above and ahead.

"Hull door, it's open," he whispered. "Manners must have slipped out and done that to make it easier for us."

"Well, thanks to whoever did it, anyway," Dave breathed back. "And I guess we've fooled those guards. Boy, does it give you a chill to be popped at by your own kind. Gosh, I...!"

"Tell me later!" Freddy hissed. "This water is what's giving me a chill. Come on, in we go. For goodness' sake, don't lose your hold and fall back into the water. It'll rouse the whole Station!"

"Okay!" Dave growled and pushed Freddy toward the flying boat's hull. "Don't you be greasy fingers either!"

Perhaps it was a minute, or perhaps it was two before the two youths were inside the Catalina flying boat, had the hull door shut and were up forward. Dave slid into the pilot's seat and reached for the engine switches, and starter buttons. He was about to snap and press them when a terrible thought crashed through his brain.

"Man, oh, man, are we starting off fine!" he choked out. "The mooring line, Freddy! Hop down and cast us free!"

"Well, can you beat that?" Freddy gasped and instantly ducked down out of sight and went forward to the gunner's nook in the nose of the hull.

A couple of moments later Dave felt the flying boat ride free. And an instant after that Freddy was back in the seat at his side. He reached for the switches and starter buttons again.

"If you've led a good life, pray hard, Freddy!" he said. "If you haven't, pray hard, anyway!"

No sooner had the last slipped off his lips than Dave whipped up the switches and jabbed the starter buttons. There was an eternity of silence. Then the silence was shattered by the whining grind of the starter gears. Then the port engine roared into life, and a split second later the starboard engine thundered into action. Fingers flying about in the dark, Dave adjusted fuel pressure, oil, propeller pitch and engine synchronization. And at the same time he applied the sea rudder and swung the huge craft a quarter turn and headed out toward open sea beyond the basin breakwater.

All that took but a matter of split seconds, yet to Dave and Freddy a thousand years seemed to drag by. It seemed to them as though the Catalina was not moving an inch seaward; as though invisible hands were holding it back. And all the time the thunder of the powerful engines was enough to wake up the dead in China.

"She's not moving, Dave!" Freddy shouted. "There must be another mooring line we didn't see! There.... Oh, thank the Lord, we are moving!"

It was true. The huge flying boat had picked up speed and was now kicking frothy spray back up over the compartment window as the snub nose of the hull plowed through mounting rollers. And then, suddenly, as the big craft came up onto the "step," a beam of brilliant white left cut out at them from the right rear and filled the compartment with an eerie shimmering light.

"Now or never!" Dave shouted. "We've got to get off and shake that beam, or we're in for another swim. Work those fuel adjustments, Freddy! The port engine's lagging bad, and we need plenty of take-off speed!"

As Freddy got to work on the adjustments, Dave held the Cat-boat on a course dead ahead. Though the presence of the searchlight was proof positive their escape was now known to the entire base, it helped in guiding the craft by lighting up the waters ahead. A moment later the port engine started doing its full share and the flying boat thundered forward at increased speed. But at the same time a second searchlight beam, this one to the left rear, caught them, and they went roaring out toward open sea pinned perfectly in the crossed beams of light.

Dave waited until the craft had touched maximum take-off speed, then he virtually lifted the Catalina into the air and curved up and around to the east. The two searchlights followed him like two lighted fingers of glue. But a couple of moments later, when he had gained sufficient altitude, he suddenly shoved the flying boat down in a steep dive. No sooner had he dropped out of the searchlight beams than he pulled out of his dive, curved around toward the west and hauled the hull's nose up toward the star dusted sky high overhead. It was a near maneuver, and it was also successful. As soon as his eyes became accustomed to the change from brilliant light to inky darkness, Dave turned his head and looked down back. There were three searchlights, now, and they were frantically probing about just off the surface of the open sea.

"Right-o, very neat, my man!" came Freddy's voice. "But stop patting yourself on the back. Get us away from here, not high above it! They're bound to send off land planes, you know."

"Sure as shooting," Dave replied in a tone of apology. "What we do need is distance, and not altitude. Okay, my fine feathered friend. What'll it be, South Africa or South America, huh?"

"Further than that will make me feel much better!" Freddy replied. "Jeepers, it gives you the creeps knowing that your own comrades are after you, doesn't it?"

"It sure doesn't make a fellow feel happy," Dave said soberly and took a quick look at the searchlight beams that were fast falling far astern of the flying boat. "Fact is, if you want the truth from me, I don't feel so happy about any of this business."

"What's that, Dave?" Freddy cried sharply and turned his head to stare hard in the darkness. "You mean you don't honestly think there's a chance in the world for us to do the job?"

"No," Dave said. "Not that. We'll do it, or else. What bothers me is that it seems too easy. I mean, it's all cut and dried. We do this and we do that, and such and such happens. Just think back, pal. Did any of the jobs we've tackled ever go off like clockwork according to plan?"

The English youth didn't answer for a moment. He sat peering out the forward window at the star dust far ahead on the horizon.

"Okay, sleep, if you don't feel like talking," Dave growled after the silence had stretched out to over a minute.

"I was just trying to recall, that's all," Freddy said. "No, I can't think of single job that didn't run into a snag before we had it all tucked away."

"Well, that's what I mean," Dave said and automatically trimmed ship a bit finer. "On paper it doesn't look so very tough. True, we may run into a flock of Nazi planes, but we've met Nazis before. And we may hit some weather, or maybe get a plastering from the raider's anti-aircraft guns once she gets wise to us. Then, too, we may stub our toes come dawn, and run smack dab into a mess of British planes out hunting for us. And, boy, I wouldn't like that at all. However, it's not those kind of possibilities that bother me."

"What other possibility is there?" Freddy asked. "Heaven knows you've named enough to bother me, I fancy!"

"The unsuspected possibility," Dave said and banked slightly more out toward the broad bosom of the North Atlantic. "I mean, something that neither of us, or Manners, dreamed would happen, I can't name it. I've just got a hunch, that's all. You know, the old feeling?"

"I say, cut it!" Freddy groaned. "You and your blasted hunches!"

"Well, they've tinkled the bell in the past a few times," Dave said with feeling.

"Exactly why I say, cut it!" Freddy moaned. "Your blessed hunches always turn out to be fact; cold fact, with bullets for trimming! Let's talk about the weather and let the future bring what it will. I...."

"It's brought something already!" Dave shouted and pointed off to the right. "See those twin moving lights way over there? Those lights belong to an airplane, my little man. And between you, me, and the gatepost that plane belongs to the Royal Air Force. And the lad ain't out joyriding, nohow! Hold your hat, I'm going down low just so's he can't spot our moving shadow against the stars. Yes, sir, Manners sure called the turn when he said they'd come a-running and fast!"

"Do I know what a wild duck in hunting season must feel like!" Freddy breathed as Dave throttled the engines to reduce the exhaust plumes to nil, and sent the Catalina sliding down toward the waters of the North Atlantic.

"Pal, you ain't even begun to feel things, yet!" Dave cried. "Know something? If we come through this session alive we'll probably be retired from the Air Force on a pension."

"Not likely!" Freddy said scornfully. "There's loads and loads of chaps who risk their necks just as much as we do. Stop fishing for another medal and a visit to Buckingham Palace!"

"Medal, my eye!" Dave snorted. "I don't mean we'll be retired as a reward for our glorious deeds. Nuts! We'll be retired on account of old age! Don't know about you, but I've already aged twenty years since we dived into the mooring basin. Get what I mean?"

"Oh quite," Freddy said with a chuckle. "And you're lucky. I've added thirty years, I swear! I.... Watch it, Dave! There's some kind of a surface craft right below us. Maybe one of our Channel patrol boats. Better pull out!"

Dave, however, had already seen the moving shadow of something down below them, and even before Freddy had finished shouting he had the Catalina leveled out of its glide and was climbing up and off toward the south. Luck or fast action saved them some tight moments, because a moment later a surface ship broke out its searchlight and started raking the heavens. Dave zig-zagged, however, and kept out of the beam and finally passed on beyond its range.

An hour later they were far at sea and high in the air and just under some patches of clouds. Dave switched on the automatic pilot device, and then took the copies of the Nazi codes and the data of the British Fleet units locations from his pocket. He smoothed them out and trained a single compartment light on them.

"Close to midnight, Freddy," he said. "And we've got some home work to do before we get going in earnest. So dust your brains out and get all this stuff down pat. After all, you've got to work the radio, you know. Besides, your German is twice as good as mine."

"Liar!" Freddy growled. Then with a sigh, "Oh well, just as you say, then. It's happened before. You get all the fun flying, and I get all the dirty work!"

"Brain work, chum!" Dave corrected with a laugh. "Me, I'm dumb. That's why I always have to take you along on these jaunts, see?"

"Next time don't feel you have to!" Freddy sighed and started digging into the mess of Nazi code signals.