Already the air was filled with the roar of motors warming up. Fighters would soon be taking off for a look at the skies close at hand and for practice runs. Scout planes would cut the sky into a great four-hundred-mile-wide pie and each would take its own sector of air and sea for a close search. Lucky the scout-ship pilot who could announce, “Enemy task force a hundred miles north by east.” Even the discoverer of a Jap snooper, a huge four-motored flying boat, would receive his reward, and besides, with luck, might send the air giant flaming into the sea. Little wonder then that Jack’s fingers trembled as he gripped the controls and waited for the flight officer’s signal for the take-off. Slowly at first, then more swiftly, their wheels rolled across the deck until they glided out over the dark, gray waters into the approaching dawn. They climbed a thousand, two, three, five thousand feet. Jack examined and tested his instruments. Stew swung his machine guns back and forth. Then pressing the button, he sent a burst of fire into the limitless blue-gray of the sky. “This is our day!” Jack exulted. “I feel it in my bones.” “Hope you’re right,” Stew grumbled. “We’re due for some luck. Three months in the Pacific and we haven’t sighted a single snooper or sneaking Jap ship. It’s rotten luck!” “Cheer up, there’ll come a time,” Jack sang. He was in fine spirits. The feel of violin strings under his fingers had done things to him. And besides, there was much more involved in that simple ceremony of swapping a cheap radio for a priceless violin than the onlookers realized. He and the fighter Ted Armour had a secret all their own. The two boys in their scout plane flew straight away for some time. Fighter planes would guard the air close to their task force. At last they began crisscrossing the sky. Each time, as they went farther out to sea and their sectors widened, their crisscrosses increased in length. “We’re heading into a mess of black clouds,” Stew grumbled. “Won’t be able to see a thing.” “Not so thick, at that,” Jack called back cheerfully. “Wait until the sun is up and you’ll see.” Soon dark clouds turned purple, faded into dark red, then pink, to take on at last the fluffy white of full day. “What a day for duck hunting!” Stew exclaimed. “I’ll say!” Jack agreed. “But give me Japs, not ducks! The things they did to our prisoners in the Philippines make my blood boil!” “Mine too. I’m aching to get a crack at them. We—” “Look!” Jack exclaimed. “Off there to the east!” “Ships!” Stew exploded. “Yep! And we’ve got no task force out there!” “Duck into that long white cloud, quick!” Stew suggested. Jack’s head was in a whirl as he gripped the controls, banked his plane, then vanished from sight into the cloud. “Contact,” he whispered hoarsely. “Contact at last! And there’ll be a fight!” CHAPTER III FRIENDLY ENEMIES