Steel claws slammed down on Dawson's shoulder, and spun him around. Close-set pig-like eyes blazed into his, and thick lips twisted back in a snarl.

"What are you trying to do?" the owner's voice roared in his ears. "What kind of a trick is this? You think you can still escape, eh?"

Dawson stared steadily at the huge man, who wore a seaman's jacket over civilian clothes. He stared steadily, then grinned, tight-lipped, and shrugged a little.

"You'd never guess, Nazi," he said evenly. "And even if you did, you wouldn't understand. Only white men would!"

The German bunched one huge fist, and it looked as though he were going to smash it straight to the Yank's face. As a matter of fact, Dawson expected just that, but he did not regret his words. He was too filled with boiling rage to care what he said to these Naziland-born butchers. However, the German seemed to think better of his first intentions. His face remained puffed and red with rage, but he relaxed slightly and was content to stab Dawson with his pig-like eyes.

"We will see about that tongue of yours later, Captain Dawson!" he rasped out in a voice that shook and trembled. "Yes, later, we will see about many things. Now, go aft with these other swine. And if you wish a bullet in your swine skull, then just try another trick on me! So! Move along, you dogs!"

With their hearts and hopes down in their boots, but with their heads high and their jaws squared, the little group from the doomed Lockheed permitted themselves to be herded to the conning tower and down into the bowels of the U-boat. And from the central control room they were shoved and cuffed forward to an empty torpedo storing chamber. The air was thick and foul, and it was difficult to breathe. However, not one of them so much as made a face. They were ordered to sit down on a steel bench, and they did so without a word of comment, and with a look of calm defiance on every man's face.

When they were seated, the man in civilian clothes and the commander of the U-boat stood in front of them and swept them with leering, triumphant eyes. Then the commander spoke to the other in German.

"My congratulations, Herr Miller," he said. "It was as simple as you promised it would be. Too bad we were forced to cast all that clever superstructure camouflage adrift. We might have been able to use it again before we return to the St. Nazaire base."

"Yes, it was very simple," the one addressed as Herr Miller grunted back, and toyed with a small but deadly Luger he held in his big hands. "But it is perfect planning, and thoroughly knowing your swine enemies, that makes things so simple. Do not forget that, Herr Kommandant. But I think we had better submerge at once. There are many British patrols in these waters. I can do what I came to do under water as easily as on the surface. But send one of your men in here to assist me in keeping an eye on these dogs. Two of them have the reputation of being reckless, stupid fools. And I do not wish to deal with them until another little matter is settled. So send one of your men in here, at once."

"Ja, ja!" the U-boat commander replied, parrot-like, and turned and ducked out through the compartment door.

Hardly had he disappeared when his place in the compartment was taken by a hefty Nazi sailor wearing the familiar look of meek obedience and Teutonic dumbness from the neck up. At a word from Herr Miller, he took up a position where the Luger in his hands could be trained dead on any man in the bat of an eyelash. Herr Miller glanced over at him, nodded his approval, then let his leering gaze slide back over the row of prisoners. He gave a jerk of his head, and a jerk of his Luger.

"Empty your pockets, at once!" he rasped out, and let his leering gaze rest for a full second on Dawson's face. "Empty your pockets and toss everything on the deck here at my feet. The swine who does not empty out everything will be shot instantly!"

For a couple of seconds not one of the prisoners moved. Then Dawson chuckled softly and began tossing his personal belongings down onto the compartment's steel deck.

"Might as well give him his selection, fellows," he grinned at the others. "He's holding the gun, he and his brother rat."

"Silence, swine!" the German thundered, and practically waved the barrel of his Luger in the Yank's face. "And let me remind you, you American dog, if you do not empty out everything, I will shoot you on the spot!"

Dawson looked up at the man, and although he kept a thin grin on his lips, there was nothing but a chip of ice in his chest.

"Okay, Herr Miller," he replied in the man's own tongue. "I'm tossing out everything I've got. And you can strip me, and search my clothes if you want to. But I just want to ask one question. It's important to both of us, Herr Miller!"

The Nazi narrowed his eyes, and gave Dawson a hard, searching stare. Then he grunted and nodded.

"And what is the question?" he demanded in German.

"Has the Lockheed gone under yet?" Dawson asked with forced calmness.

The Nazi blinked, and looked just a trifle startled.

"But of course!" he finally rasped out. "It was sinking when you fools came aboard. By now it is halfway to the bottom."

"Yeah?" Dawson echoed softly. Then with a head shake of mock pity, "That's tough—for you, Herr Miller. You should have made the Lockheed empty its pockets—if you get what I mean?"

The Nazi started to speak, but checked himself and slid his narrow-eyed stare along to Freddy Farmer's face. The English youth was taking a bunch of keys from his tunic pocket. He stopped the motion for a moment, stared innocently back at the Nazi, then flipped out his hand.

"Here, catch, old bean!" he grunted. "The key to the situation, you know, what?"

The German's brain was much too slow for his reflexes. He automatically caught the bunch of keys as they came sailing through the air, and stared down stupidly at them. Then he bellowed out an oath and flung them down onto the steel deck.

"So!" he bellowed. "You swine dogs dare me to shoot, eh?"

"Why not?" Dawson cut right back at him in a flash. "It might as well be now as later. But you're still out of luck, Herr Miller. We haven't got it! I left it aboard, and you'll have to do some diving, what I mean."

As Dawson clipped out the words, he held his breath, and kept his gaze riveted on the German's face. But it wasn't more than a split second or two before he knew beyond all doubt that the fantastic, and the utterly incredible was indeed the truth. A Nazi U-boat, cleverly camouflaged as a British submarine in distress, had shot down an R.A.F. Lockheed Hudson for just one purpose: to capture its crew alive and secure a sealed envelope that this Herr Miller knew was carried by someone aboard. Moreover, he knew that that someone was either Freddy Farmer or himself.

The conglomeration of inner emotions that swept across the Nazi's face told Dawson the truth. And if he needed any further confirmation, he received it right after he spoke again.

"That's right, Herr Miller," he said evenly. "There's our stuff on the floor. Strip us and search our clothes, if it will make you feel any better. But you won't find a certain sealed envelope. No, not unless you do some fancy diving and reach that bomber. You see, stupid, we had our orders, too. And you can guess what they were!"

Wild, angry dismay flooded the Nazi's face. Not yet accustomed to dumbfounding defeat, he was unable to maintain rigid control over his emotions. His eyes popped out, and then popped back in again. His jaw sagged, and his lips moved, though he didn't utter a sound. His hands shook, and the beet red came surging up into his flat, moon-shaped face. Dawson knew that the danger point was close, very close. The German had been flung far off balance, and in the next second or so the animal training in him would get the upper hand. Cold, common sense would go flying out the window, and all that would be left would be the savage lust to butcher and slaughter.

And so Dawson half stood up, and tore off his tunic.

"It's the truth, Herr Miller!" he shouted, and started to rip open the seams. "Take a look, stupid! You see anything hidden in the lining? Take a look and weep, you fathead. See any sealed envelope? See anything that interests you? I told you that I left it aboard. Okay! See for yourself. Here! Take a darned good look!"

As Dawson spoke the last he held out his ripped tunic with his hands. He practically shoved it right under the Nazi's nose. And then, as the German automatically looked down at it, the Yank air ace practically exploded in a whirlwind of action. He flung the tunic straight into the Nazi's face. He slapped down his right hand, caught the Luger by the barrel and twisted it free. His other fist he smashed to the German's jaw, and one knee he brought up hard into the Nazi's belly. And then, in what was practically a continuation of the original movement, he reversed the Luger in his hand, half turned, and drilled a single shot at the pop-eyed Nazi sailor. The bullet hit the steel plate right behind the sailor's left ear. And that was close enough. His own gun dropped from his fingers, as he flung both hands high in terrified surrender. And the Luger had hardly struck the deck before Freddy Farmer had dived from a sitting position on the metal bench and scooped it up. But Dawson didn't see that fast bit of action. He didn't because he was busy clipping Herr Miller one for good measure on the back of the skull as the man fell down. That done with, he shot a look over at Freddy Farmer and grinned broadly.

"Nice going, pal!" he chuckled. "But I'll give you a kiss later. We've got things to do, right now. Okay, you fellows. Get behind Farmer and me. Maybe that shot of mine was heard, and we haven't got time to lose."

"But, good grief, Dawson!" Squadron Leader Hixon gasped out. "What in the world can you do? There must be thirty Nazis, at least, aboard this thing, man!"

"That's right!" Dawson shot back at him. "And I'll bet not one of them has any hankering to drown! Catch on? Okay. Stick close while Freddy and I rush the central control room. Okay, sailor! Step along ahead of me!"

As Dawson spoke the last he whipped out his free hand and caught the scared stiff sailor by the arm, and yanked him over and shoved him through the compartment door leading to amidships. He and Freddy Farmer kept right at the German's heels. Like blockers running interference for a ball carrier, they went charging into the central control room. Dawson saw the U-boat commander turn from his post at the periscope sight. He saw the anger that flooded the Nazi's face as he recognized the sailor, and right after that the look of dumbfounded fear that glazed the man's eyes as he caught sight of Dawson and Freddy Farmer right behind.

Perhaps it was just a nervous twitch of the U-boat commander's hand. Or perhaps he actually did start to reach up for his holstered Luger. At any rate, Dawson didn't wait to find out which. He squeezed the trigger of the Luger he held in his own hand, and the bullet snipped a button off the German's jacket before it smacked into the radio panel on the far side of the control room.

"Don't move, anybody!" Dawson thundered in German. "Get stupid, any one of you square-heads, and we'll all go to the bottom, to stay for good. I—"

The Yank choked off the rest, half turned, and fired the Luger. A thin-faced, hawk-nosed junior officer had tried to snatch up a gun and shoot across his chest at Dawson. His gun didn't even have a chance to go off. Dawson's bullet caught him in the chest, spun him like a top, and dumped him flat on his face, to stay there motionless.

"Anybody else want to play?" the Yank grated, and swept his eyes over the four or five other Germans in the control room. "Suits me swell, if you want to. So just start something. Go ahead, you Nazi slobs!"

There was a moment of silence, save for the whine of the electric motors driving the U-boat down below the surface. Then its commander made sounds in his throat and licked his lips.

"What do you want?" he choked out. "You are prisoners. Not one of you will live to tell of this madness."

At that moment, and for reasons that Dawson couldn't even understand, a flood of war memories swept across the screen of his brain. He remembered scenes of Nazi-slaughtered men, women, and children. He remembered scenes in which houses, villages, and mighty cities had been laid flat in smoking, stinking ruins by the Nazi hordes. He recalled the floating dead bodies of Yank, British, and other United Nations seamen from ship upon ship sent diving to the bottom by Hitler's ruthless U-boat commanders. A hundred scenes of horror and death that made the rage seem to freeze like lumps of ice within him. Lips tight and eyes hard, he stepped over to the U-boat commander and gun-whipped him with the Luger across each cheek.

"Dry up, rat!" he grated as the Nazi reeled back, moaning with pain. "Just get this steel fish up on the surface, or I'll put one right between your fishy eyes. Come on! Snap out your orders! And don't get the idea I don't understand German. You get us top-side, and pronto, or we'll wreck this tub, and all go down together. Step on it, you. Top-side we go, and in a hurry!"

The German shook and shivered, and tried desperately to summon what little courage he had left. But true to the German type, when he no longer held the whip hand there was nothing but cowardly yellowness to him. And he almost fainted with fright as Dawson suddenly drew a bead on a point square between his eyes.

"Don't! Don't shoot!" he sobbed out. "I will do as you ask. I will give the order to surface the U-boat."

"And tell everybody to stay right where they are at their posts, too!" Dawson barked at him. "The first Jerry to stick his face inside this control room will get you a slug right in your fat face. Get it? Okay! Do your stuff!"

The U-boat commander trembled some more, then picked up the inter-com phone and gave the necessary orders. Dawson watched him like a hawk, and with ears tuned to every German word the man spoke into the inter-com. Then, when the U-boat trembled and started up by the bow, a great sense of joyous relief flooded through him. But he didn't let any of it show for an instant on his face, or in the agate hard eyes he kept fixed on the U-boat commander. He didn't worry about the other Germans in the central control room, because he knew that Freddy Farmer was keeping an eye on them. As a matter of fact, at just about that same moment he felt rather than saw his English pal at his elbow. And then he heard Freddy's quiet voice.

"What a shame you've already received all the medals they give out in this war, Dave," the English youth chuckled. "Certainly deserve one for this little bit. Though, of course, it didn't actually happen, you know. Just a mad dream!"

"You telling me, sweetheart?" Dave shot out of the corner of his mouth. "I won't even ever believe this, myself. But keep your eye on those other birds. They might dive for their—"

"Hardly!" Freddy Farmer interrupted. "I've collected all their guns. I'll show them to you sometime when you're not so busy."

"Do that, pal," Dave chuckled. "And get set to crank open that conning tower hatch just as soon as we hit surface. There might be a plane or two up there cruising around. Or maybe a British destroyer."

"What a cheerful chap!" Freddy groaned. "And do I hope you're all wrong about that!"