"I'll jolly well be tickled pink, I can tell you."

Dave nodded and shrugged.

"Oh sure, me too," he retorted. "But all these fellows on the Victory are swell. It will be quite a problem to decide whom to take along with me. See what I mean?"

Freddy's jaw dropped in amazement, and a faint hurt look came into his eyes. Then suddenly, as he saw the grin on Dave's lips, the blood rushed into his cheeks, and anger took the place of the hurt look in his eyes.

"You—you!" he fumed, and stumbled. "You wait, my lad. I'll fix you for that one later. Look! Parks is drawing the first slip!"

The two boys snapped their gaze to the front end of the line. So did everybody else, for that matter. A tall, lean-jawed pilot by the name of Parks was on the point of dipping his hand into the service cap. He didn't make it, however. His hand suddenly froze in midair as the inter-ship communication speaker fitted into the Ready Room wall started barking out words.

"All out, Fighter Unit! Enemy aircraft sighted! All out, Fighter Unit. Snappy, now! All out, Fighter Unit!"

For one brief instant not a man in the Ready Room moved a muscle. Then the place was turned into a whirlwind of action. It was a whirlwind of orderly action, however. Those boys of the Victory's fighter unit were well trained. This was not the first air alarm they had received, nor would it be the last. Each pilot knew just what he was supposed to do, when he was to do it, and where. Group Captain Spencer didn't sing out one word of command. He didn't have to. He knew his boys well. He just tossed his cap full of folded slips back on the table and dived out of the room. The pilots dived out at his heels.

In less time than it takes to tell about it the whole group was up on the flight deck and hastening to their planes as they strapped on helmets and Mae West life jackets, and wiggled into parachute harness held out by mechanics. Other mechanics had sprung for the planes at the first word of alarm, and the flight deck shook from the thunder of whirring engines. Group Captain Spencer had received information of the position, types and number of enemy aircraft. He started talking the instant he leaped into his leading ship and plugged in the radio jack of his head-phones.

"Twenty thousand feet over Zone CK!" he shouted into all listening ears. "About thirty of them, advance scout patrol reports. Junkers Ju. Eighty-Eights, and some Heinkel One-Elevens. Take off by sections of three and get up there fast. Right-o, lads!"

Dave's and Freddy's plane was in the fourth section of planes lined up at the stern end of the flight deck. Faces bright with excitement, they sat motionless while Group Captain Spencer led the first section off. As it went ripping along the smooth deck, mechanics guided the second section into place and sent it off. Then the third. Then Dave's plane and the two other ships in the section moved forward into position. The operations officer on the bridge dropped his flag down and away they went.

Holding the ship steady in its take-off run, and keeping well clear of his two companion planes, Dave gave the Blackburn Skua's Bristol Pegasus engine full throttle. The plane seemed fairly to skip along the deck for a very short distance, then it was off and prop climbing toward the clear blue of the Mediterranean sky.

CHAPTER THREE
Action Aloft!

As the deck of the Victory fell away from him Dave cranked up the Skua's wheels to add to its perfect streamline design and thus gain additional climbing speed. Sections One, Two, and Three were well above him and heading westward and slightly to the north. For a second he turned his head and glanced down back at the carrier. Every plane was off and in the air. The escort destroyers were circling the Victory and laying a thick smoke screen into which the carrier could plunge and make herself difficult to see in case the approaching enemy aircraft did break through. As a matter of fact, even as Dave stared downward, the Victory seemed to merge right in with a thick layer of soot black smoke.

"Quick work, eh?" he heard Freddy's shout. "Those destroyer chaps are a little bit of all right, eh?"

"They're tops, what I mean!" Dave shouted back. "How're you doing, Freddy?"

"Right enough!" the English youth said with a grin. "Get some more speed out of her, won't you? Wouldn't like to be left behind, you know."

"You old fire horse!" Dave said with a laugh, and turned front.

The altimeter now showed fifteen thousand feet of air under the wings, and the Skua was still going up like a skyrocket, keeping perfect pace with the two other planes of its section. Dave's blood danced with excitement, and he hoped hard that the leading sections would not meet and drive the enemy aircraft away before he could get there. It had been some time since he and Freddy had tangled with enemy craft. A little practice in gunnery and combat flying wouldn't do either of them any harm.

"Doggone right!" he echoed the thought aloud. "Feel like a bandit taking this last month's pay for doing practically nothing. And I—"

He cut himself off short as he suddenly heard Group Captain Spencer's voice in his earphones.

"Well, jolly well hurry up, Dawson, and earn some of that pay today!"

Dave sat up straight, and gasped. Then as he heard the chuckle in the earphones he blushed to the roots of his hair and grinned sheepishly. For a second he had clean forgotten that every word he spoke into the radio mike went into the earphones of every other Victory pilot in the air, as well as into the earphones of every man at the operations station aboard the carrier.

"Sorry, sir," he mumbled. "Just talking rot to myself, and not thinking."

"Quite all right, Dawson!" came the cheery reply in his phone. "Get six or seven of these beggars and I'll forgive you. I'll—There they are, Crimson pilots! Dead ahead at twenty-one thousand. Well, well! Quite a mess of them. Spread out and let them go down. Right-o, Crimson pilots. Tally-ho!"

Dave gripped the stick tighter and peered hard upward and ahead at the Mediterranean sky. At first he saw nothing but blue streaked by the brassy glare of the sun. Then suddenly he saw the swarm of dots—tiny dots, like a horde of gnats streaking along high up in the heavens. A moment or so later, however, they ceased to be dots that looked like gnats. The leading group nosed down and in almost no time they took on the definite shape and outline of Junker Ju. 88s, the huge long range Luftwaffe bombers powered by twin Daimler-Benz engines, which since tryouts during the winter over England had been changed some so that instead of being confined to level flight bombing they could perform Stuka or dive bombing work as well. Behind them in the second group were Heinkel 111 Ks, medium-sized bombers powered by two Junkers Juno radial engines.

Slipping the safety guard off the trigger button of his guns, Dave studied the enemy planes intently. That the Junkers 88s were heading down while the Heinkels stayed at altitude—in face, were even starting to climb higher—seemed proof enough that a savage Stuka attack was to be made on the Victory while the main body of raiding aircraft swept onward to attack the principal unit of the British fleet a hundred miles or so ahead.

At that moment he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to find Freddy's grinning face close to his.

"Almost like a test, isn't it?" Freddy said, and held a hand over his flap-mike.

"Test?" Dave echoed and looked blank. "What do you mean, test?"

"As if the Fleet Air Arm Command had asked Goering to send some of his lads out from Italy or Sicily to see if we are still in shape," Freddy said. "Those are enemy planes, aren't they? It's been so long, you know."

"I think so." Dave grinned. "Tell you what, though, I'll find out for sure. Just sit tight while I fly across in front of one of them. If they