So it was that Turk flew off in the dark morning hours, while Scoot Bailey stayed behind envying those lucky men whose names had been opposite the odd numbers on the list instead of the even. As plane after plane rolled across the heaving deck of the flat-top and roared off into the overcast sky, Scoot muttered under his breath, wishing that each one might have been his. Dawn came and there was no word. Scoot went up with half a dozen other fighters to keep eyes on the sea, to attack any Japanese craft that came through to get them. But for hours there was no sign of a plane—either of the enemy or of their own. Then Scoot, just after he had landed again, heard them far away—the roar of many powerful engines. And in a moment he saw the tiny specks that raced so fast they soon became planes circling in mighty sweeps around the carrier. The first one came in as the signalman waved his paddles for a landing. Deck men and the fighter pilots who were not up in the air lined the edge of the deck, and officers crowded the bridge. As the first pilot scrambled from his plane, the deck crew grabbed it, folded its wings, and raced it back to the elevator so the next plane could land. In a moment the pilot was talking—and in a few minutes he was joined by another, then another and another. “We caught ’em with their pants down!” the first yelled. “Flatfooted. We caught ’em right on the airfields! They couldn’t get off.” “And when the bombers came in,” cried the next, “they had a clear field. How those boys dove! Oil tanks blew up! Ships strewn all over the place, clogging up the harbor!” One after another the pilots told their stories while mechanics checked their engines, filled the tanks with gas, the guns with ammunition. They all told of how the Japs had been taken by surprise, how plane after plane had been wrecked on the field, how torpedo planes and scout-dive bombers came in with little more than scattered antiaircraft fire to get in their way. “We’ve hardly lost a plane so far!” one said. “And have we got planes around there! I haven’t seen so many planes since I was at Corpus Christi—but these are not trainers. Fighters, torpedo planes, bombers—coming in like flocks of wild geese. Why, I was just as worried trying not to bump into some of our own craft as by any opposition the Japs put up. The Old Man must be mighty happy. Has he got full reports?” “He’s gettin’ ’em first-hand right this minute!” the executive officer of the carrier replied. “He’s up there himself in a scout, looking over the whole business. And you can bet your bottom dollar he’s the happiest man on earth!”