Barry turned to the open hatch, but he had no chance to enter. Men were boiling out of it as if the ship were too hot for them. In five seconds they were all around him. Fred Marmon, Cracker Jackson, Tony Romani, Curly Levitt, and Soapy Babbitt, with his broken shoulder still a little stiff, but useable. “Where’s Danny Hale?” Barry asked, the moment they gave him a chance to speak. Silence, as stunning as a blow, answered him. Barry’s face went white. “Tell me, boys,” he muttered through stiff lips. “You—you mean that Danny—that he....” “He got transferred, Barry,” Curly Levitt said quietly. “It was just after the medical-corps men carried you back to the dressing station on Grassy Ridge. A bunch of us were trying to capture a Jap field gun. We ducked into a slit trench and started tossing hand grenades, but the Japs chucked them right back at us before they could explode. One landed in our trench. Danny covered it to protect the rest of us—and just then it went off.” “Thanks, Curly,” Barry said in a choked voice. “Sorry my question brought it all back to you. It—it _is_ easier, somehow, to think of Danny as simply transferred.... Have they sent us a bombardier yet?” “They sent him—such as he is!” replied a strangely familiar voice. Barry jumped as if he had been shot. Through the hatchway dropped a small, bandy-legged man whose short blonde hair bristled like the fuzz of a newly hatched duckling. “Chick Enders!” Barry cried, making a grab for his old friend. “How did you get _here_?” “The same way Hap Newton did,” answered Chick, grinning from ear to ear. “I was the bombardier who bailed out with him from the B-26.” “Boys,” said Barry Blake, turning to face his crew, “I know that in a few seconds I’m going to wake up and find myself back in my little hospital bed. The sawbones will be looking solemn and saying: ‘That chunk of shrapnel went deeper than we thought. It’s affected his brain!’” He cuffed back his hat and laughed. “It’s too good to be true, finding you all here—and _Sweet Rosy O’Grady_ too! I’m going to say hello to her before she vanishes in a pink fog, or something!” Understanding chuckles followed him as he dived into _Rosy’s_ open hatchway. “We’ll leave him alone with her for a few minutes,” Curly Levitt suggested. “Mess call is about due. Lieutenant Enders can wait here to show the Old Man to his quarters.” It was past midnight before _Rosy’s_ crew talked themselves out and fell asleep. In the morning, Barry reported for orders. He learned that his new battlefront base was to be another jungle airport, farther west along the New Guinea coast. They would fly the shortest route across the island’s central mountain range, and carry a full load of bombs. “Not much excitement on the way,” Fred Marmon commented; as the crew headed toward their waiting ship. “There’s nothing in the interior but mountains and jungles and wild men. Even the Japs steer clear of it, they tell me!”