He led the dripping Scoot to the ladder leading up to the bridge. As he climbed over the edge, Scoot saw a familiar face—and almost fell over backward to the deck again! “March!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Scoot Bailey!” March cried, rushing forward. He threw his arms around the shivering and wet flier and pounded him on the back. “Scoot, my boy! It’s really you! How on earth—” But Scoot was shouting and talking, too, laughing and dazed by the many things that had happened to him in the last few hours. McFee and the enlisted men looked on in amazement at the scene, but Larry Gray was smiling. He remembered the name of Scoot Bailey from the many things March had told him about his closest friend. And he had seen enough strange things happen in the war not to be too startled at anything that happened out in the middle of the ocean. In a few minutes they had gone below and Scoot was wrapped in a blanket while two men put out in a collapsible boat to bring his clothes from the island. Scoot sat with the others in the tiny ready-room and drank a cup of hot coffee, while they talked and asked questions and answered them. [Illustration: _March Pounded Scoot on the Back_] Soon everyone was brought up to date on the most important things that had been happening. McFee and Stan, who had joined them, knew who Scoot was and how he came to be there. Outside, word went scurrying around among the men that they’d picked up a Navy flier, that it had turned out to be the exec’s oldest and best friend. Everybody felt happy. “With a stroke of luck like that,” Pete Kalinsky said, “maybe we can find that Jap convoy now.” March told Scoot about their search for the convoy, their encounter with the Jap patrol plane that very afternoon, and how the American plane had chased him away. Scoot was serious right away. “Two-motored Aichi flying boat?” he asked. “Yes, why?” March asked. “I took care of him for you,” Scoot said with a smile. “He _will_ try to depth-charge my friend, will he? Well, he won’t do _that_ any more.” Scoot told them about his leaky oil line, his encounter with the Jap plane, shooting it down, and then making the tiny island in a glide. “And then I came along and picked you up,” March laughed, “with only a few hours’ wait.” “Remember—a long time ago,” Scoot said, “you told me you’d probably have to come along in your sub and save me from a bunch of Japs?” “Sure I remember!” March cried. “Didn’t know I was such a good prophet.” “You didn’t save me from any Japs,” Scoot snorted. “Just from boredom spending the rest of the war on that island. But let me tell you another thing—you don’t know how close you came to getting killed.” “What do you mean?” Larry asked. “I mean you ought to pin a medal on whoever it is in your crew that sings ‘Carry me Back to old Virginny,’” Scoot said. “Up to that time I had decided you were Japs and I was getting a machine gun out of my plane.”