"Six nice juicy Zeros!" Captain Banks said with tears in his voice. "_Six_ of them! And what happens? You birds nail four of them between you. It ain't right. There should be a law against birds like you cheating us war-starved ferry crews out of a look at the war. Kidding aside, though, fellows, thanks, and how! Those Zero rats don't waste much time giving you the works, do they? And my heart was choking me when I thought that one of them was going to ram us. Wonder I didn't put this old baby in a power spin. I--Hey! What happened to your wings, Dawson? You been teething on them?" "They dropped off, and Farmer stepped on them before I could pick them up," Dawson grinned. "Look at his big feet, if you don't believe me. But, speaking of other things, Skipper, how long before we get in?" The Fortress commander glanced at his wrist watch, and pursed his lips. "Twenty minutes," he said. "Unless we run into more Zeros. And I hope we do. But hey! Those jobs were pretty far out to sea, now that I come to think of it." "Too far," Dave told him quietly. "My guess is that they were carrier-based. This is your usual ferry course from India to Australia, isn't it?" "Check, and I get your thought," the pilot nodded as his face became grave. "You think maybe the Japs have sent out a carrier force to cut a hole in our air supply route, huh?" "Could be," Dawson shrugged. "I wouldn't want to bet against it, anyway. And--well, skip it." "No," the other said. "Go on and say the rest of it." "Well, if I were flying this job," Dawson replied with a half grin, "I think that right now I'd give those four Wright Cyclones you've got a chance to show what they can do. But, after all, I'm strictly a safety first guy, Skipper." "That makes two of us," Banks said quickly. "Anyway, my job is to get these babies to Australia for other guys to use, so I'll just stick to my knitting, I reckon. Okay, fellows, hang onto your hats. I'm going to cut that twenty minutes to fifteen, at least. And again, thanks for that job on those Zeros." The Flying Fortress commander not only called the turn, but made good. Just ten minutes later the west coast of Australia was sighted. And five minutes after that the big four-engined job, being ferried out to the South Pacific to play its part in the war, was tooled down to an expert landing on the Air Forces constructed field on the outskirts of the city of Broome. Dave and Freddy gathered up their small and compact kit bags and climbed out with the rest of the crew onto the ground. There they intended to bid goodbye to the others, but before either one of them could open his mouth a jeep streaked out from the hangar line and a staff major popped out of it like a pea out of a split pod. "Captains Dawson and Farmer?" he barked, and looked hard at Dave. "I'm Dawson, sir," Dave replied with a nod. "And this is Captain Farmer."