He glanced behind him. Lieutenant Levitt’s teeth showed in a fixed smile below his little moustache. In the lightning flashes the whites of his eyes showed clearly. Sergeant Hale’s big mouth was closed like a steel trap. Only Fred Marmon, the red-headed engineer, seemed to be enjoying himself. Meeting Barry’s eyes he winked, and waggled his fingers in a mocking gesture. At that moment lightning struck the ship. Every light went off. The fuselage might have been the belly of a blasted submarine, pitch dark and battered by ceaseless depth charges. A beam of light touched the instrument panel. Barry Blake felt the cool barrel of a flashlight pressed into his hand. “That will help you keep a check on your instruments!” Fred Marmon’s shout sounded in his ear. Barry was grateful for his first chance to do something, however small, to help Tex. He watched the altimeter register a drop of five hundred feet, a steady climb of eight thousand, then another drop. In this fashion an hour passed. All at once they were out of the storm. Clear moonlight shone through the plastic windows of the cockpit. The crew raised a hoarse cheer. “Take over, Barry,” drawled Tex O’Grady’s voice. “I want to find out if I am still in one piece. When _Rosy_ starts bucking like that she’s tougher than any bronc I ever forked on my daddy’s ranch in Texas!” Unfastening his safety belt, Captain O’Grady heaved his lanky frame out of the seat and went back to talk with the navigator. Barry swept his glance over the instrument board. He tried the controls, to feel out any possible storm damage. Satisfied that there was none, he looked below. A sea of rolling, silvery clouds lay in every direction. It was beautiful, but menacing. The ceiling below that overcast, Barry judged, would be zero. It might hide either land or sea, hills or marshes, for all that anyone knew. The storm had carried the _Rosy O’Grady_ a number of miles off her course. The four big engines’ steady drone of power sounded reassuring, until Barry remembered the last reading of the gas gauge before the lightning had knocked it out. There wasn’t enough left for fooling around, while the _Rosy_ found out where she was. After a few minutes, Captain Tex O’Grady loafed back to the cockpit. “The radio’s out,” he told Barry. “That means we can’t get cross bearings to find our position. Curly Levitt is getting a fix now on some stars. Trouble is, he’s afraid his octant may have been knocked out of kilter when it fell off the navigation table, back there in the storm. Why don’t you go back and cheer him up?” Barry thanked the lanky pilot and unfastened his safety belt. He suspected that O’Grady was just giving him an opportunity to stretch his legs. If a fellow needed cheering up, nobody could do a better job of it than “Old Man” O’Grady himself. Lieutenant Curly Levitt was up in the top turret sighting through his instrument when Barry stepped back.