Freddy Farmer heaved a long sigh, and shifted, around a little so that he could glance out the bomb compartment window. But what he saw was exactly the same picture he had seen ten minutes before. In fact, it was the same picture he had been looking at for the last two hours or more. Nothing but mass upon mass of dirty grey clouds through which the Wellington bomber prop-clawed, as though it could go on forever, and still there'd be clouds.

"Great grief!" the English youth suddenly groaned. "I've seen enough clouds to last me for the whole war. And two or three other wars, for that matter."

"You and me both!" Dave Dawson grunted, and squinted out the little window on his side. "Talk about your blind flying! This sure isn't any fun for Squadron Leader Freehill, and Navigator Parsons, up front. I'm glad I'm a passenger on this trip."

"Not me!" Freddy said with a shake of his head. "I'd much rather be doing something, instead of just looking at this stuff. However, I suppose we shouldn't complain. With this soup all around, any Jerry planes on the prowl are bound to miss us."

"Unless they should happen to plow into us head on!" retorted Dawson with a grin. "I guess Freehill isn't very happy. He probably figures, by now, that we're bad luck. He was counting on a brush or two with Jerry planes. If this stuff holds all the way to Moscow, he'll have all he can do to find the field and get us down okay. He—What's on your mind, pal?"

Dawson checked himself, and then spoke the last because Freddy Farmer had suddenly stiffened, and pressed his nose against the glass of the compartment window. For a full thirty seconds the English-born air ace acted as though he hadn't heard. Then he turned from the window and made a face.

"Just my imagination going a little haywire from it all, I fancy," he said. "Thought for a moment there I'd spotted Messerschmitt wings through a break in the stuff. But it must have been shadows. It wasn't there the second look I took. Well, I wonder just where we are, and how far from Moscow?"

Dawson glanced at his wrist watch and shrugged.

"Another hour at least, I guess," he said. "Longer, if we've run into head winds. Let's go forward and find out from Freehill."

"You go," Freddy Farmer suggested with a yawn. "I'm quite comfortable, thanks, though terribly bored. Find out all the details, my good fellow, and then report back to me. There's a good chap."

"And who was your valet last year?" Dawson growled, and got up onto his feet. "Nuts, I'll report back to you! You can just stay sprawled out there, and wonder."

"Sorry, old thing," Freddy Farmer grinned after him, "but I can't be bothered doing even that. Let me know, anyway, when we arrive at Moscow. I wonder if Stalin will be there at the airport to meet me?"

"He won't!" Dawson snapped, and started forward. "Stalin has sense!"

Leaving Freddy to mull that one over, Dawson made his way along the catwalk to the navigator's compartment. Flight Lieutenant Parsons was bent scowling over his chart table, so Dave didn't pause to ask questions. He continued on by and finally slipped into the co-pilot's seat. Squadron Leader Freehill glanced over at him and grinned sadly.

"Looks like a bit of a washout for our hopes, what?" the pilot murmured, and let go of the controls long enough to wave a hand at the walls of cloud that pressed in from all sides. "Don't mind, do you, if we finally sit down in Iceland, or some place like that? Old Parsons is about ready to cut his throat. Mostly instrument and dead reckoning now. We don't dare open the radio and ask for a bearing. The Russians probably wouldn't give it to us, anyway. It would reveal their station locations, too. Well, we've got plenty of gas, anyway."

"Now I'm all cheered up," Dawson replied with a grin. "I had thought that maybe you had no idea where you were."

"Oh, perish the thought!" the other said with a chuckle, and pointed a finger downward. "Always know where I am. The ground is that way, straight down eighteen thousand! But don't ask me who owns that particular bit of it. Blast this stuff, though! When in the world are we coming out of it?"

Dawson only half heard the last. What he took to be slight movement off to his left had suddenly caught and held his attention. He stared hard at the spot, but for all of his effort he could see nothing but dirty grey clouds. True, they were a bit lighter in spots: an indication that the sun was doing its best to burn a path through. But the stuff was still too thick for the sun's efforts to make more than a faint glow here and there. However, just as Dave was about to turn his head and look at Squadron Leader Freehill, he caught a glimpse of movement again. And this time he saw something that brought him up straight in the seat, and started his heart to hammering against his ribs.

Just off the right wing, and no more than a hundred feet below, half of a German Messerschmitt wing had cut out into clear air, and instantly cut back in out of sight again. But he had seen the square-tipped wing, clearly. And he had also seen the black cross outlined in white. So Freddy Farmer's imagination hadn't been going haywire! There was a Jerry ship up there in the air with them! But for what reason? Was the Jerry lost, and milling around trying to find his way home? Or was he playing cat and mouse with the Wellington, and keeping tabs on its flight almost due eastward?

Dave asked himself the question, but he didn't bother guessing around at the answer. Instead, he kept his eyes on the spot where he had seen the Messerschmitt wing, and reached out with his near hand to rap Freehill on the arm.

"We've got company, sir!" he called out. "Just saw a hunk of Messerschmitt One-Ten wing cut up into clear air off to starboard and down a hundred feet."

"Really?" came the excited answer. "Do you think he spotted us? Could be one, you know. Parsons figures that we're about over the middle of Occupied Latvia. Just one, eh?"

"Just one, I saw," Dawson replied, and continued to bore the dirty grey clouds with his eyes. "Maybe he's some lost Nazi tramp, or maybe he's up here on purpose looking for us. How about buzzing Sergeant Dilling to spin his wave length dial? Maybe he'll pick up that bird talking to ground stations—or some of his pals in the air with him."

"Splendid idea!" Squadron Leader Freehill said instantly. "I'll do that. Stand by, half a moment, and keep your eyes skinned."

Dawson heard Freehill mumbling words over the inter-com to the Wellington's radioman, but he didn't bother straining his ears to catch each word. He kept his head turned to the right, and his eyes roaming about the masses of dirty grey clouds. Perhaps four minutes dragged by, and then suddenly he felt Squadron Leader Freehill's hand on his left shoulder.

"Top-hole idea, that!" the British bomber pilot shouted. "Just got a reply buzz from Dilling. He picked up a little something. Seems the beggar is up here tailing us, and keeping the ground informed. That means there must be clear air soon, and the beggars will be there to meet us. Splendid, I say! They'll wish they hadn't, I fancy!"

Dawson grinned, stiff-lipped, but didn't say anything for a moment, or two. It wasn't that he didn't welcome a scrap with Nazi planes. Well, not exactly. The point was that Freddy and he didn't have time right now to mill around the sky with Nazi pilots. This wasn't a patrol with a chip on his shoulder. This was an emergency flight to Moscow, and the sooner they got there the better it would be. No, a mess of Nazi Messerschmitts suddenly blocking the way wouldn't be a diversion that he would exactly welcome now. Freddy and he had a mission to carry out, and to get shot down, and be forced to bail out over enemy-occupied territory, would of course knock the whole carefully worked out plan high, wide and handsome. No! To be truthful, he wanted very much not to meet any German planes this trip. For once he had no desire to give battle to Hitler's black-winged vultures. He wanted only to arrive safely in Moscow, and as quickly as this Wellington bomber could get him there. However, if—

He had automatically slipped on the co-pilot's inter-com head phones, so at that moment he heard Freddy Farmer's sharp, clear voice.

"A Jerry One-Ten dead astern of us, Squadron Leader!" Freddy reported. "I'm at the tail gun now. The blighter knows we're here. Shall I open fire?"

Freehill glanced over at Dawson and caught the Yank's quick nod and grin.

"Blast the beggar, of course!" he called back. "Shoot the Iron Cross right off his tunic, old thing. And—"

And that was all Squadron Leader Freehill said for the moment. He cut himself off short, and for a very good reason. The wall of dirty grey cloud suddenly ended as clean as a whistle. The Wellington went zooming out into a world of brilliant sunshine—and considerably more than that. To Dave, snapping his eyes forward, it seemed as though half the German Luftwaffe were milling around in the air directly ahead. He took one swift glance at the aerial picture, and then jerked off his inter-com phones, tore out of the co-pilot's seat, and went charging back to the blister gun turret amidships.

By the time he had reached the blister and was swinging his twin guns into position, the air all around was alive with German planes, and the entire heavens shook and vibrated with the savage snarl and yammer of aerial machine guns, plus the louder, deeper note of aerial cannon fire.

As though Lady Luck had simply been waiting for Dawson to swing into action, the square-cut wings of a One-Ten came smack into his sights. Instantly he jabbed the electric trigger button, and the One-Ten just as promptly acted as though it had suddenly flown right into a brick wall. Both its wings came off as though sliced by a knife. The fuselage rolled over twice, and like a crazy rocket went zooming upward to smash square into a second One-Ten banking off to the side. A burst of flame followed the mid air crash, and the whole blazing mass went slithering down out of sight, leaving behind a long trail of oily black smoke.

The instant the mid-air crash took place, Dawson whipped his eyes off it and swung his guns to bear on a third One-Ten. Before he could press the trigger, though, he heard Freddy Farmer's guns in the tail start snarling. And the Messerschmitt simply wasn't there any more. It was just a shower of pieces falling downward through the golden sunshine.

No cheer of joy broke from Dawson's throat, though. There were three One-Tens down, and maybe a couple of others that Freehill and Sergeant Dilling and Flight Lieutenant Parsons had nailed. But there were still ten times that number of German planes still twisting and boring in, and raking the Wellington from spinning props to rudder post with their furious fire. Dawson wasn't sure, but he thought he could feel the bomber shake and tremble as each new burst of bullets tore into it.

He didn't bother to look around, though, for any signs of damage. He was too busy holding up his end of the terribly uneven fight, smacking and slapping away at anything winged that came into his sights, and silently damning the invention known as the aircraft detector. The aircraft detector, of course, explained the presence of all those German planes. The Nazis, if Air Vice-Marshal Leman's wire was to be believed, knew that the Wellington would be heading for Moscow. Maybe they hadn't known the route to be flown in advance. But they didn't have to know it. Aircraft detectors all up and down the German-occupied coast of Europe would have been constantly on the alert. Any aircraft heard that could not be identified as Nazi would have been investigated instantly, of course.

That explained that lone Messerschmitt flirting about with the Wellington in the clouds. Its pilot had spotted them, judged their course, and communicated with ground stations. And—and there were the aerial butchers waiting for the Wellington the instant it came prop-clawing out into clear air.

"So if you want it this way, then okay!" Dawson roared impulsively, and let fly at a brace of One-Tens cutting around to catch the bomber in a cold meat cross-fire.

Perhaps, if they had been given a few seconds more, the Nazis would have succeeded in their goal. But Dawson's deadly fire put an end to the attempt, and a very speedy end, too. A two second burst caught the One-Ten on the left square in the cockpit. The pilot died instantly, and so he couldn't control the One-Ten from veering off drunkenly to the other side. Too late the other Messerschmitt pilot saw what was headed his way. True, he made a very good try, but it wasn't any better than no try at all. The One-Ten with a dead pilot at the controls whanged up into his belly, and speared him like a fish. Seconds later there was just a great big ball of seething flame flip-flopping down into oblivion.

"Seems to be the day for Nazis ramming into each other!" Dave gasped out, and swung his guns for a new target. "Well, that's—Hey! Well, what do you know? Hey, everybody! See what we've got to help us. Boy, oh boy!"

Dawson wildly shouted other things, but in his great joy he didn't even know what he said. All he was conscious of was the very delightful fact that there were other besides German wings in the air about the Wellington. There were planes with the Red Star of the Soviet Air Force on the wings and fuselage. They were the swift and deadly Russian "Rata" One-Sixteen B pursuit aircraft, powered by special 1,000 hp. M-Sixty-Three engines of Wright "Cyclone" design. Out of the sun they had come like so many crazed hornets on the rampage. And even as Dave saw them, four German Messerschmitts simply broke apart in the air and fell away out of sight.

It was one of the most perfectly executed aerial attacks Dawson had ever witnessed. Each Russian pilot seemed to know just which Messerschmitt he was to handle. And he went right smack at his victim and did the job with the least amount of bullets possible. In fact, the arrival of those Soviet Ratas was almost as though invisible hands had swept an invisible broom across the skies, and taken three fourths of the German Messerschmitts along with it. The other fourth that was missed by the invisible broom didn't hang around for a second sweeping. Every Luftwaffe pilot dropped the nose of his plane, and got out of there as fast as his screaming engine could take him. A flight or so of the Ratas gave chase, just to keep the Messerschmitts on their way, while the other Rata pilots took up close escort position on all four sides of the Wellington, and above it.

A little over half an hour later Squadron Leader Freehill sat the bullet-riddled Wellington down at the Moscow airport as lightly as a feather floating on a strip of velvet. A few of the Ratas landed alongside, and the aerial cavalcade taxied over to the huge camouflaged hangars. Both Dawson and Freddy Farmer were up front with Freehill by then, and they all saw the small group of high Soviet military officials who were waiting for the Wellington to taxi in.

"Either of you chaps the President of the U.S. in disguise?" the Squadron Leader asked with a chuckle. "Quite a reception committee here to greet you. That tall, dark chap on the left is none other than Colonel General Vladimir, in case you don't know."

"I didn't," Dave grunted.

"Nor did I," Freddy Farmer echoed.

"Well, as the Yanks would put it," the Squadron Leader said, "Stalin and Vladimir are the two chaps who really make the Soviet tick. Vladimir has more titles, and is in charge of more things, than you could shake a stick at. That he is here to meet you two chaps must mean that you are very important lads in this war business."

"That lets me out," Dawson grinned. "Of course, maybe the Russians have suddenly decided to learn to drink tea, and that's why Farmer is making this trip. I wouldn't know. My job is simply to trail him around and see that he doesn't get into trouble. You know, international complications?"

"Rot!" Freddy snorted. "Why not tell the Squadron Leader the truth? Tell him that the Russians are simply anxious to see a crazy, balmy Yank who somehow manages to keep on missing Nazi bullets. And that I'm along to prevent the Russians from putting you in a museum!"

"Well, I was wondering about your secret," Freehill laughed. "Now I know, definitely. Anyway, I fancy we'll be parting company soon. But all kind of luck, chaps. And if you happen to be going back by this way, I wish you'd let me know. I'll put in the request to pilot the return trip. Didn't get half the Jerries we could have, if the Russian chaps hadn't shown up, you know. Maybe we can do better next time, what?"

"Well, we can try," Dawson said absently, and stared at the group of Russian officials who were now walking out toward the taxiing bomber.

"Yes, quite!" Freddy Farmer also murmured absently. "A very nice bomber team we make. Quite!"