us down safely."

"For two cents," Dave growled as he adjusted his helmet, "I'd—No, let it go. Okay, my fine feathered friend. Watch, and learn."

The Victory was now just ahead and steaming straight into the wind. Dave roared by on the port side and took a look at the landing officer (or flag officer) standing in a box-like structure that jutted out to the right of the bridge. The officer held a yellow flag in each hand, and as Dave and Freddy thundered by he signaled with the flags that the deck was clear for a landing.

After continuing on a certain distance astern of the carrier, Dave then banked around and headed straight back, one hand on the stick, the other on the throttle, and his eyes fixed steadfastly on the landing officer. Landing on a carrier is not the same as landing on a ground airdrome. When landing on a ground airdrome, the pilot does the whole job. Not so on a carrier, however. There the landing officer tells the incoming pilot exactly what to do. He does this with his signal flags. He signals whether the pilot is too high, or too low; whether he is too much to the left, or to the right; or if his plane is not trimmed correctly. The pilot (if he is a wise pilot) does exactly as the landing officer signals, and does not rely on his own judgment at all. It has been proved time and time again that the incoming pilot who does not obey the landing officer's signals implicitly winds up in a whole lot of trouble, if not in the ship's Sick Bay.

And so Dave kept his eyes fixed on that officer with the yellow flags and brought the Blackburn Skua down closer and closer to the Victory's polished flight deck. Finally he caught the signal to cut his throttle way back. He did so, and the plane sank down onto the deck. Almost before the secret arresting gear had pulled it to a full stop, mechanics were rushing out to take over.

As Dave and Freddy climbed out and stretched their cramped legs, the deck duty officer came over.

"Get out of your duds and get polished up, you two," he said with a grin. "All pilots are to report in the Ready Room in twenty minutes. So hop to it."

The deck duty officer was no more than a couple of years older than Dave and Freddy, and his flying rank was the same. His name was Talbert, and he ate at the same mess table as the boys. Dave gave him a searching look, then spoke in a low voice.

"You wouldn't know, would you, Tal?" he asked. "I mean, what it's all about?"

"Not a blessed thing, Dawson," the other replied with a shake of his head. "Big doings, though, I shouldn't wonder. Group Captain Spencer looks quite hot and bothered. I fancy he isn't collecting us to serve tea. Now off with you. Mustn't clutter up the flight deck, you know."

CHAPTER TWO
Orders from G.H.Q.

Group Captain Spencer was a big man with iron grey hair and a face that made you think of chiseled granite. He had served as a fighting pilot in World War No. 1, and the double row of decoration ribbons under his wings were proof enough that he had served his country well. A bullet scar just over his right eye was a constant reminder of a very close shave with Death. It added to the striking appearance of his broad, square-jawed face. As a matter of fact, Group Captain Spencer had yet to see forty-five years of age, but war had left its stamp on him so that he actually looked well over fifty.

He stood straddle-legged on the small platform at one end of the Ready Room while the Victory's fighter pilots, an even thirty-four of them, filed into the room and found seats. When finally they were all seated and silent, Group Captain Spencer cleared his throat and took a step closer to the edge of the platform.

"No doubt you lads are pretty fed up with patrolling around and not getting much of a chance to do any shooting," he said, and grinned faintly. "Well, that's because the fleet has been trying to smoke out the Italian navy—that is, what's left of it."

The senior officer paused, and a ripple of laughter spread from lip to lip.

"It's now pretty plain that Mussolini's sea chaps don't fancy a fight," Group Captain Spencer continued. "They've bottled themselves up in port, and won't come out. In time we'll have to go after them like we did at the Taranto Naval Base last November Twelfth. That kind of fun will have to wait a bit, though. More important things to do first. In short, Hitler is sticking his finger in the African pie—the Libyan pie, to be exact."

A murmur of suppressed excitement spread about the room. The pilots sat up a bit straighter and waited expectantly. Freddy looked at Dave and winked. Dave winked back and nodded his head.

"I'll give you a picture of what has happened," Group Captain Spencer said abruptly. "Last fall General Wavell, commander in chief of His Majesty's Middle East Armies, had two jobs to tackle, two rather tough nuts to crack. One was the job of pushing Marshal Graziani's Italian forces out of western Egypt and back into Libya. The other was to drive the Italians out of Eritrea and Ethiopia to the south of Egypt. I say they were two tough nuts to crack because General Wavell didn't have the troops, mechanized divisions or the planes he really needed for the jobs. However, as the world knows now, he did what he could with what he had, and did a very fine job, too."

The senior officer paused and made a little gesture with his hand that said the pilots could smoke if they wished. As a matter of fact, he lighted up a cigarette himself.

"On December Ninth, last year," the group captain went on, "General Wavell started a surprise offensive against Graziani's most advanced forces at Matruh, in Egypt. He caught the Italians completely off guard and they started one of the wildest retreats in military history. By February of this year General Wavell's British, Australian, New Zealand, and South African troops were in possession of Bengazi, in Libya, some eight hundred miles from the starting point of the drive. And what was left of the Italian army was fleeing for its life along the desert shoreline to Tripoli, the main Italian base in Libya, and its capital. That offensive by Wavell will go down in war history as one of the most brilliant ever accomplished.

"Now, as soon as the Italians had been thrown back, General Wavell took all the troops, tanks, and planes that he could spare and sent them against the Italians in Eritrea and Ethiopia. In short, he left but a skeleton force occupying the captured Italian positions in Libya. He had to do that because he didn't have enough troops for both jobs. As we know, he did another fine job down to the south. It won't be long now before the whole of Eritrea and Ethiopia will be in British hands. However—"

Group Captain Spencer paused, and his face became grim and set.

"However," he began again, "while General Wavell has been busy down in Eritrea and Ethiopia, Hitler has stepped in to lend a hand to the Italians in Libya. In short, during the last two weeks or so, German transport planes have been transporting German troops across the Mediterranean from Sicily to Tripoli in Libya. Tanks, guns, and supplies have been sneaked across in Italian ships that race for French Tunisia and then hug the coast of that French African colony and get safely to Tripoli. The British Mediterranean Naval Command has known what was going on, at least to a certain degree. Anyway, steps have now been taken to put a stop to it. However, the naval job out here is a big one, and the first job was to knock out the Italian navy."

The senior officer took time out to clear his throat and have a glass of water.

"Well, the Italian navy isn't very much, now," he continued presently, "so the next job is to do something about this business of Hitler helping the