etting close to Hay's record! You'll be the top-notcher
of the service soon!"

The young man laughed briefly. "No danger of that. When do we take
off, sir?"

Douglas consulted his watch. "Seven-fifteen. Come and get the dope
from these maps. Hill 333's rather difficult to find."

"Anything been happening at the front, sir?"

The colonel passed both fine-fingered hands over his lined face. He
said quietly: "Yes. The Slavs took twenty-five miles from us down in
the lower sector. Just wiped our boys out. Those damnable
flame-throwers and bullet-proof tanks, supported by God knows how many
hundreds of planes. It's hell, Lance! Headquarters thinks they're
going to unleash a general attack all along the line in the next few
days. And our resources--well, our back's against the wall. We're
coming to death grips, man."

* * * * *

Seven-fifteen....

Lance pressed the starting button. His four motors choked, sputtered,
then burst into a sweet, full-throated roar. He glanced over at
Praed's plane, spun the small helicopter props over and pushed down
the accelerator. The plane quivered, stuck its snout up and leaped
like an arrow into the clean, darkening air. Lance gunned it to ten
thousand feet, Praed following him neatly. Praed was a good pilot, no
doubt about that. The two fighting machines hung for a second side by
side; Lance eased off his helicopters and streaked away into the gloom
at a breath-taking five hundred.

"I hope," muttered Colonel Douglas as the two tiny scouts sped from
sight, "that everything goes smoothly. They're the men to do it,
anyway. No better pilots in the whole service."

"Wot abaht that there Captain Hay, sir?" put in Wells, the mechanic,
standing nearby. Colonel Douglas smiled.

"Oh, of course!" he amended. "I'd forgotten Hay!"

Once more they were anticipated! Lance, at thirty thousand feet--the
Rahl-Diesels, with their perfected superchargers, were easily capable
of a ceiling of sixty--had hovered above the position of Hill 333,
pulled on his gas-mask and said through the microphone to Praed:

"Power dive to three thousand feet. Release your flares and take in
all you can before they send up planes. We'll take 'em by surprise,
but there's bound to be a fight. Got it?"

The steady reply came back: "Okay."

Whereat Lance set his teeth in his customary fighting grin, jockied up
his ammunition belts, glanced at the flare-parachutes folded alongside
the