_Rosy O’Grady’s_ crew, all except Tony and Cracker Jackson, were overjoyed at their new assignment. They lay awake talking it over until Barry curtly ordered them to “drive it into the hangar and get some sleep.” “_Rosy_ will be laid up for a couple of weeks’ repairs anyway,” Chick added in a loud whisper, “and so will Tony and Cracker. We’ll probably be back by that time. Nobody’s got any kick coming, so far as I can see—unless it’s the Japs!” Out on the runway at five o’clock Barry’s crew found their new ship waiting, complete with tail gunner. The latter was a little bulldog of a man with the map of Ireland jutting fiercely out of his helmet. He was Sergeant Mickey Rourke from South Boston. He greeted each of his new crew mates with an undershot smile and a brief “Pleased to meet yiz!” Later _Rosy’s_ crew found out that Mickey was the lone survivor of a B-26 that had been sliced in two by a diving Zero fighter. Mickey had bailed out of his severed tail section unharmed and had swum ashore. After two weeks in the New Guinea bush he had walked into the Mau River base and calmly reported for duty. The four Martin bombers took off by moonlight and promptly headed southwest. Barry found _The Colonel’s Lady_ as Hap had named their new craft, strangely quick and light on the controls, compared with her big sister _Rosy_. Flying in formation with the other three Marauders soon cured his tendency to over-control, however. As the sun rose, tinting the peaks of New Guinea’s high backbone ahead of them, he turned over the controls to Hap Newton. “Easy on the stick, Mister,” he warned his big co-pilot. “Those crowbar wrists of yours work swell at the wheel of a Fortress, but this little lady won’t stand for rough handling.” “Finger-tip control!” chuckled Hap as he took over. “I may be rough, but I can be oh, so gentle, too, Skipper! Just watch me take her upstairs.” The bomber formation was climbing steadily, to top the 16,000-foot range ahead. A bitter chill seeped into the plane. The crew found themselves breathing faster to get enough air. Automatically they reached for their oxygen masks. Those things were lifesavers when you got up above 20,000. Even at somewhat lower altitudes they helped keep your head clear and your stomach in place. At 18,000 the air was bumpy. The flight leader, Captain Bartlett, took his bombers up to 20,000, where it was colder but smoother. Beneath them the great range was spread out like a relief map, with patches of white cloud here and there showing local rains. An hour later the immense blue bowl of the Arafura Sea rose up to enclose them with its rim of endless horizon. “We’re like four tiny flies buzzing across a giant’s washbowl,” Barry thought. “And yet this Arafura Sea is just a little spot on God’s Footstool. Most high school students never knew where it was before the war. A flier certainly comes to feel his smallness in time and space!”