The medical corporal found difficulty in drawing Barry’s attention back to his hot chow. He succeeded at last, but _Rosy’s_ young co-pilot was still too busy talking to know what he was eating. The six friends would have discussed the raid, the fight, and the return trip for hours, if mess call had not interrupted. After supper, Curly Levitt returned to the dressing station. The others, he said, were needed to help set up the new equipment which had arrived during the past two days. There were electrical generators, searchlights, floodlights, antiaircraft guns, and the first units of a big repair shop. This last would take care of damaged planes landing on the field. It would have crews to bring in ships that had crashed. “When the repair plant is running, it will probably be able to rebuild _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_,” her navigator stated. “I wish we could hope as much for her Old Man,” Barry sighed. “But there’s no repair shop in the world that can put a missing arm back on a pilot.” “It will just about break his heart,” Curly agreed, rising to his feet. “I imagine that Mrs. O’Grady won’t feel too badly about having her husband back, however.... Well, here’s the doctor, come to have a look at you. That’s my signal to take off.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER NINE NIGHT ATTACK When Barry next saw Curly Levitt, the dapper navigator was firing a sub-machine gun at the searchlighted sky. Black parachutes were dropping toward the field, with Jap soldiers dangling beneath them. Every man on the field who could find a gun of any kind was shooting at the rain of enemies. And the Japs were firing back. The party started with a terrific bomb barrage about midnight. The Japs evidently believed that neither aircraft detectors nor antiaircraft equipment were as yet set up. They were wrong about both. Another thing they didn’t know was that most of the living quarters, supplies, and even planes, had been moved into the jungle that fringed the field. A few moments after the bombs started falling, the new antiaircraft batteries went into action. They caught three of the Jap bombers with their shells. In return, bombs wiped out two guns, three searchlights, and their crews. Then came the parachute troops. There weren’t many of them—not more than fifty in all. Apparently the fire was too intense for the Jap transport planes to risk. Why these few suicide squads were dropped remained a mystery until morning. Barry reached the field as the first ’chutists landed. He saw a Garand rifle in the hand of a soldier who had been killed by shrapnel. The weapon, he found, was fully loaded—and unharmed. As he turned to pick a target, the field’s floodlights went on.