Her engines turning over at close to top speed, the Aircraft Carrier Indian sliced her bow through the sky blue waters of the Pacific on a southwesterly course. To port and to starboard her destroyer escort scooted and twisted about like little smoke-belching water bugs having a field day. High in the air and several miles out in front, the advance scouting section winged along with all eyes on the watch for the first sign of possible enemy interference.

For eight days, now, the Indian had been racing across the vast Pacific for her rendezvous with the cruiser squadron and other navy craft that were to make the surprise attack on the Jap-occupied Marshall Islands. For eight days, and eight nights, racing westward and southward toward a well planned blow, and victory. Yet it might not be victory but disaster and death. For eight days and eight nights Freddy Farmer and Dave Dawson had played an active part in the life aboard that mighty ship of eagle's wings. They had made new friends, they had thrilled to the thunder and the power of their Douglas Devastator torpedo bomber as they went ripping off the carrier's flight deck and up into the blue Pacific sky for their daily practice patrol trick. They had felt once again the tingling excitement of the alert alarm, and the hunt for possible enemy craft in adjacent waters.

It had been eight days and nights of new things, a new routine, new orders, new faces, almost a new language in a new world. They were a part of what would be in not so many months to come the mightiest fighting force in all the world's history. It was perfect, it was tops—but it was not enough. Not enough, because with each passing hour, each passing day, their own personal defeat drew closer and closer. Eight days, and eight nights, and they were no nearer to accomplishing their special mission than they had been the very first moment they heard details of it fall from Colonel Welsh's lips way back in Washington, D. C.

"It really is an invisible wall this time, Dave," Freddy Farmer muttered bitterly as he and Dawson sunned themselves in the flight deck crash nets on the starboard side. "We might as well admit it. We haven't the faintest idea who the blighter might be. For all we know, he's already passed on his blasted information to the Japs; tossed it over the side at night, with a delayed flare bomb, for some trailing Jap submarine to sight and pick up. Blast it all! For all we know, the blighter may not be aboard at all."

"You're telling me?" Dave groaned, and rolled over on his stomach. "For all we know he's been watching us every minute, and laughing his darned head off. When I let fly at Colonel Welsh back there in San Diego—and it's a wonder he didn't knock me kicking for my lip—I felt sort of cocky. I had a hunch that we'd be sure to trip over a break. What, I had no idea. But we've gone into things before with our heads down, and nothing else but a prayer. And somehow we managed to barge or stumble into something that paid off. But this? We're just a couple of guys without a prayer. Doggone it, Freddy! I haven't even met a guy aboard this ship I didn't like at once. And that goes for the ratings, as well as the officers. Nuts! I guess I must have expected to see some ugly-faced bird with dark glasses and a fake mustache sneaking around the flight deck at night. It's got me stopped cold."

"Me too!" Freddy said with a heavy sigh. "I heard a story once of something that happened in the last war. It was in a camp in England, an infantry training camp. A spy was sabotaging things, causing gun accidents, and several chaps were hurt. Well, they hunted high and low for the lad, but no go. Then one of the chaps working on the case got an idea. One evening when all the men were in barracks, and lights were out, he went from barracks to barracks, popped open the door, switched on the lights and yelled, 'Attention!' in German. In the third barracks a chap leaped out of his bed and sprang to attention. He was the blighter they wanted. German Army training drilled into him, you know. He reacted to the German command automatically."

"I get it!" Dave snorted. "So we should go all over the ship yelling 'Attention!' in German? Nice, but I've got a better idea. We dress up to look like Hitler and cover the ship. The first bird who gives us the Nazi salute we throw to the deck and nail him down. Then we search his quarters and find the stolen plans. It would be a cinch, but I guess there aren't any Hitler uniforms aboard. Too bad! We'll have to think up something else."

"Well, I certainly didn't offer it as a suggestion!" Freddy Farmer muttered. "Frankly, the best thing we could do would be to throw ourselves overboard. It would at least put an end to our worries."

"Nope, that's out," Dave grunted. "The darn thing would still haunt me wherever I went. And no crack, now, about where I'd go! Nope! We're stuck. Our only hope is a break, some kind of a break—any kind. Heck! I wonder if I'd be able to recognize a break even if it stepped up and kicked me in the face. Oh-oh! Something's going to happen, maybe!"

As Dave spoke the last he sat up and watched the young watch officer come striding across the deck toward him. The youth was about their age, and held an ensign's rank. He grinned as he approached and jerked a thumb aft.

"All pilots wanted in the Ready Room, Lieutenants," he announced. "Executive Flight Officer's orders."

"Something up?" Dave asked eagerly.

"Could be," the Ensign said with a shrug. "But maybe the flying's been sloppy, too. You never can tell when the Exec gets in the mood to crack down. Luck, anyway."

Dave and Freddy thanked him and went scurrying aft and down the steps to 'tween decks and the Ready Room. The place was already half filled, and other pilots came hurrying in after them. There was an air of eager expectancy about the room that seemed to charge it with high voltage electricity. The Executive Flight Officer, and the Senior Section Leader, stood waiting on the little raised platform at the far end of the room. Behind them hung a huge detailed chart of that section of the Pacific west and south of the Hawaiian Islands. Colored pins dotted its surface, and the bright light hung above it made the little pins glitter and sparkle like so many precious stones. Five minutes after Dave and Freddy arrived the room was packed, the doors were closed, and a hushed silence had settled down. The Executive Flight Officer cleared his throat, stepped to the edge of the platform, and grinned faintly.

"Don't get in too much of a sweat," he said. "This doesn't mean that Battle Stations is going to sound in the next hour or so. However, we're getting close to the rendezvous point, and there's some work for us to do. In short, we're steaming into Jap waters now, more or less, and we don't want to be caught with our wings folded. In fact, if we are to run into unexpected action, we want to be ready to throw the first punch, and make it count."

The senior officer paused, walked back to the map and touched a little gold-headed pin.

"That's the Indian," he said. "That's our position right now. We're a day's run from the cruiser squadron we are to meet, but we're plenty near some of the Pacific islands that the Japs may be using for submarine fuel bases. In the air, or on deck, we've got to be on our toes every minute from now on. A torpedo or two in us now, and the whole operation would be in danger of complete collapse. Also, we've got to watch out for any Jap surface ships that may be on the hunt for us. That's where you fellows come in. You've got to find any such ships, and give them the works, before they can get the chance to spot the Indian and her escort. In short, you fellows have got to see to it that nothing gets near the Indian from here on in."

The Executive Flight Officer paused again, and shrugged.

"Of course it's quite possible that we won't run into any trouble at all," he said presently. "Maybe we'll just waste gas and oil maintaining a constant patrol. That's unimportant, though. The point is, we can't run any risks of getting snarled up in any kind of an engagement before we make the rendezvous. So from now on every one of you is on constant twenty-four-hour duty. The section patrols are all plotted. Your own Section Leader will give you your chart copy each time you take the air. Stick to the course plotted for you, and don't worry about what the other fellow is doing. Just tend to your own knitting. Now, here's one thing to remember every second of the time you're away from the carrier."

The Executive Flight Officer stopped talking again, and took time out to rake the room full of pilots with his steel grey eyes.

"Keep your radios silent all the time!" he finally said. "If you are shot down, or forced down on the water, then it'll be just too bad for you. Somebody else will have to pick you up. Neither the Indian nor any of its escorting destroyers are turning back for anybody. So don't expect help if you go down. You won't get it. The chance of meeting enemy ships in these waters, particularly submarines, is too great to warrant risking any rescue work. So keep your radios silent, and—well, keep your wings up out of the wet stuff. That's all, except that Commander Brattle, here, has rearranged the sections, and made up a new flight board. He'll give you all the dope on the patrol schedules. Thumbs up, to all of you!"

Half an hour later Commander Brattle had had his say and the patrol schedules were perfectly clear to all concerned. Dave and Freddy were to fly the Number Two plane in Section Eight. Their first patrol trick was due in three hours. They were to fly a patrol course due north of the steaming carrier, cover an area of several hundred square miles, and be back on the flight deck just before darkness. It was the toughest patrol trick of any, for the simple reason that it was the last one before darkness set in, and flying was washed-out until early dawn. If by any chance they got lost and were forced to spend precious time locating the Indian, they would be out of luck. They wouldn't be able to land after dark. And if by any chance they went down in the water, they would first have to survive many hours of darkness floating about on the water before they could even begin to hope for rescue.

It was a tough patrol trick to fly, but the very fact that it was tough set Dave's heart thumping in eager expectation. Luck alone had placed them in that section, because the section members and patrol schedules had been arranged by drawing lots. In that way every man stood an equal chance to get a tough assignment or an easy one. And all possibility of favoritism went completely out the porthole. Luck, yes, but it made Dave and Freddy feel good just the same to be handed one of the tough patrols.

As they trooped out of the Ready Room along with the others, they winked happily at each other, and for the moment forgot the real reason for their presence aboard the Indian. The Executive Flight Officer had not said much about the possibility of meeting action, but he didn't have to. Every pilot knew that the constant patrol schedule wouldn't have been set up if it weren't pretty certain that enemy sea and air forces were lurking about in the immediate vicinity of the Indian and her destroyers, if not directly in her path ahead. Come nightfall and at least some of Uncle Sam's Navy eagles would have gone into action.

"And I sure hope it means us!" Dave echoed the thought aloud, as he and Freddy walked forward along the flight deck. "And how, I do!"

"Do what?" Freddy asked. "What's buzzing in that brain of yours now?"

"That we see some action," Dave replied, and jerked his thumb toward the north. "You know, Freddy, I've got a hunch. I've got a hunch, sure as shooting."

"You usually have," the English youth sighed. "What is it this time?"

Dave stopped walking, half turned, and faced his pal.

"The break we've been hoping for, praying for," he said in a low voice that was tight and full of excitement. "I have a hunch we're going to get that break. Wait, now! As the Exec said, we're in enemy waters now. From now until tomorrow night when we make the rendezvous, that unknown skunk aboard this Carrier is going to try and make contact with the Japs. I feel dead certain that he hasn't made any effort yet. He's been lying doggo until the Indian got into enemy waters. Beginning with now, though, he's going to try and make that contact."

"Well," Freddy muttered with a scowl, "as you would say, so what? How's he going to make contact? How are we going to know it? How are we going to be able to spot him? We haven't the faintest idea who he is, one of the officers, or one of the men. Maybe he's just an engine wiper buried down deep below decks. Maybe—"

"No, you're wrong there," Dave interrupted. "I've figured it out that he is either one of the pilots, or one of the mechanics. Nobody but pilots and mechanics have access to the flight hangar, you know. And that's where Commander Jackson and Lieutenant Commander Pollard were killed. No, I've figured all along that the man we're after is connected with the actual flying end aboard ship."

"Again, so what?" Freddy grunted. "Even suppose that he's one of the pilots? And I personally have the feeling that he is. What help is that? We're flying in only one section, one patrol trick. He could be in one of the other sections. He could take off, make his contact when out of sight of the Indian, and return on schedule, and neither you nor I be one bit the wiser."

"You're such a help!" Dave growled. "I know. Heck! Maybe I'm talking just to make myself feel good. I don't know. Just the same, I've got a hunch that that break is going to pop for us, and soon. A mighty strong hunch, too."

Freddy Farmer pursed his lips, and then let a little sigh slip between them.

"Well, I'm certainly not pulling against you," he murmured. "You have more hunches than a stray dog has fleas. But if I ever hoped and prayed that one of them would come true, it's certainly this one. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart."

"Then keep praying!" Dave said grimly as an eerie chill suddenly rippled through him. "And meantime, it might be a good idea for us to watch our step. I've got another hunch somebody's been watching us!"