“Never doubt it!” In deathly fear lest his ship had suffered from the attackers’ bullets he set his motor thundering her best as he set himself to beat the Zero to a cloud a mile or so away.
They gained. They halved the distance between them. They quartered it. The plane seemed a thing alive.
“Get him, Scottie! Get him!” she cried hoarsely.
It was a long chance but just as the enemy touched the edge of the cloud, Scottie let go. A burst of fire, another, then another.
The Zero had completely disappeared, when the last burst roared from his guns.
Ten seconds passed, twenty, thirty, then, down from the cloud, as if the cloud itself were falling apart, came broken bits of something that once had been a Zero fighter.
“Just blasted him apart!” Scottie muttered. “Can you beat that?”
“That picture of Uncle Sam on his plane’s nose—”
“That, Mary? That picture!” Scottie laughed hoarsely. “That’s blasted into bits. His engine must have blown up or his gas tank or both!”
A half hour later, as they circled for a landing over the field where Sparky awaited them, Scottie said: