The seven airmen fell to work with a will and a weight of muscle that sent the thirty-foot boat lightly over the swells. At midnight, when the sky cleared, they were well out of sight of land. Now for the first time the bomber team had a chance to see their companions’ faces. In the moonlight neither of the white girls looked more than eighteen or twenty years old. Claire Barrows had her father’s wide mouth and turned-up nose, and a smile that was decidedly attractive. Dora smiled less often, and her features were more finely chiseled. She wore her long hair in braids wound about her head. Her calm, efficient, thoughtful personality could be read at a glance. Somehow she made Barry’s pulse beat faster than any girl had done before. The two native couples were quite young, in their ’teens or early twenties. As they sat relaxed, balancing with the boat’s dip and sway, their shapely black bodies would have thrilled any sculptor. Barry could imagine what capture by the Japs would mean to these children of nature—slavery, degradation, living death! The thought made him fiercely determined to outwit the enemy, to bring all these people through the gantlet of Jap boats, planes, and shore patrols. Thirteen persons now depended largely on him as their skipper. He must find some means of covering those three hundred miles to Australia in a shorter time. “I have it!” he exclaimed aloud. “We’ll use the paddles in place of a centerboard. Is there any rope handy, Dora?” “Plenty,” replied the girl. “But what do you mean by using paddles for a centerboard, Lieutenant?” “I’ll show you,” the young skipper smiled, looking straight into her eyes. “But please leave off the handle and call me Barry, won’t you?” “All right,” Dora Wilcox answered, with a twinkle in her eyes. “It’s easier to say.... Oh, Nanu! Hand me that coil of rope you’re sitting on.” With the help of his crew, Barry tied four of the native paddles at intervals between the catamaran’s twin floats. The broad wooden blades, thrust deep in the water, acted like a keel. Now the wind pushing on the sail would not drift the craft sidewise. Already equipped with a steering oar, the awkward-looking boat was now as manageable as a catboat. As the single, lanteen-type sail went up, water boiled white under the double bow. The catamaran was gathering speed. “Splendid!” cried Claire Barrows. “All we need now is a chart and a compass to set the course. Which way is Port Darwin, anyway, Lieutenant Newton?” “I’ll be just plain ‘Hap’ to you, if you want me to live up to my nickname,” the big co-pilot retorted. “When it comes to finding directions, Curly Levitt is the lad to consult. He carries a compass in his head, I think!”