With a nod for emphasis, Dave gave the Catalina's engines full throttle and steepened his climb up through the comparatively calm area in the center of the storm. Near the top, at an altitude of some fourteen thousand feet, they ran into some rough air. The flying boat bucked and quivered and threatened to fall off on one wing and plunged down. There was a real pilot at the controls, though. An ace pilot, and he fought the mad actions of the plane tooth and nail. And he won! Engines laboring, due to the excess strain, the flying boat finally prop clawed up through the last of the storm clouds and into a world flooded with golden sunlight.
"That's the nice girl!" Dave cried and affectionately patted the controls with one hand. "Manners and Otis weren't shooting any line when they said you were good. You are, and plenty more!"
"Good grief!" Freddy gasped. "Have we actually been down in that stuff?"
Dave turned his head to see Freddy peering downward out the compartment window. He took a look, himself, and unconsciously gulped and swallowed hard. Below was an angry mass of boiling black cloud. It seemed to extend to the four horizons and completely blot out the waters of the North Atlantic underneath. A whirling black mass that changed to brown, then grey, then an eerie purple streaked with lacy white. And then black to a turbulent, seething black mass again.
"Sweet tripe!" Dave breathed in awe. "And the wings are still on? Freddy, don't put that storm in your report, if you ever write one. Nobody would believe you. And you couldn't blame them. Well, we're out of it and above, anyway. So three cheers for us.... I mean, this Catalina. Now, to get more altitude and start eye hunting for that raider. Boy, if our good luck will only continue to hold out."
"It's got to, and it's going to!" Freddy said firmly. "Just don't give it another thought. Just skin your eyes and I'll skin mine. And I'll bet you five pounds I spot her first."
"A bet!" Dave shouted happily and swung the Catalina around toward the west. "I know I'm going to lose, though. Heck, with those sharp eyes you've got, you could read tomorrow's newspaper from here! And I don't mean maybe!"
After that the two youths lapsed into silence, and each bent forward and eagerly fixed his gaze on the western rim of the savage storm and the rain blurred stretches of the Atlantic they could see far beyond. Their spirits were high, and their hearts were light. The job was still to be done. The task was still to be accomplished, yet somehow they felt they had reached the home stretch, and that their goal was almost in sight.
It was a wonderful feeling that filled their fighting hearts and tingled their blood, but somewhere up on high the gods of war shrilled in high glee, for they knew something that neither Dave Dawson or Freddy Farmer or so much as even dreamed. The war gods knew that death was close to those two R.A.F. aces. Close, real close. The matter of only a few feet. And even as they strained their eyes for their very first glimpse of the Atlantic raider, death moved one step closer, and another, and another....