Even above the roar of the barrage, Craig heard the tearing sound. Somehow it reminded him of somebody tearing a piece of cloth. Only, to make a sound as loud as this, it would have to be a huge piece of cloth and the person tearing it would have to be a giant. The blue light became more intense. It flared to a brilliance that was intolerable. At the same time, the sun jumped! "I'm going nuts!" the fleeting thought was in Craig's mind. He wondered if a bomb had struck the ship. Was this the nightmare that comes with death? Had he died in the split fraction of a second and was his disintegrating mind reporting the startling fact of death by telling him that the sun was jumping? The sun couldn't jump. It _had_ jumped. It had been almost directly overhead. Now it was two hours down the western sky. Tons of water were cascading over the bow of the ship. Waves were leaping over the deck. The Idaho seemed to have sunk several feet. Now her buoyancy was asserting itself and she was trying to rise out of the sea. She was fighting her way upward, rising against the weight of the water. A wind was blowing. There had been almost no wind but now a gale of hurricane proportions was howling through the superstructure of the ship. A heavy sea was running. The sea had been glassy smooth. Now it was covered with white caps. The bombs had exploded, a blue light had flamed, a giant had ripped the sky apart, a gale had leaped into existence, the sea had covered itself with white capped waves, and the sun had jumped. Craig looked at the sky, seeking the second flight of bombers. The air was filled with scudding clouds. There were no bombers in sight. The anti-aircraft batteries, with no target, suddenly stopped firing. Except for the howl of the wind through the superstructure, the ship was silent. The silence was so heavy it hurt the ears. The officers on the bridge stood without moving, frozen statues. They seemed paralyzed. The ship was running herself. "W--what--what the hell became of those Jappos?" Craig heard a dazed officer say. "Yeah, what happened to those bombers?" "Where did this wind come from?" "There wasn't any wind a minute ago." "Look at the sea. It's covered with white caps!" "Something happened to the sun. I--I'm almost positive I saw it move." Dazed, bewildered voices. "What the devil became of the carrier?" That was the voice of Captain Higgins. "And the rest of the force, the cruisers and destroyers--what became of them?" Craig looked toward the spot where he had last seen the carrier. She had been launching planes. He did not believe his eyes. The carrier was gone. The cruisers and destroyers that had been cutting foaming circles around the carrier and the battleship--were gone. The surface of the sea was empty. There weren't even any puffs of exploding shells in the sky. * * * * *