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pins.
    â€œEvans,” said Lucky, “you sure you got all these things in right? If one was missing this crate would fly apart in a dive.”
    â€œSure I got them in,” growled Evans. “Check them if you don’t believe it.”
    Lucky checked and found every bolt in place. Relieved, deciding the one he held had been the result of a miscount, he forgot about it.
    He was far more interested in the conversation he had the next day with Commander Lawson.
    â€œHold everything,” said Lucky. “We’ve finished the new dive bomber.”
    â€œMartin, I told you—” began Lawson.
    â€œYou will at least watch the test, won’t you?”
    The officer muttered about it for a while, finishing with, “To be frank with you, Martin, I don’t believe you can make the cruise you said you could with it, even if it doesn’t fly apart in the air. I’m not interested in seeing you killed, old man.”
    â€œThen supposing I put it this way,” said Lucky. “I’ll make a cross-country trip first. Then if, under full load of guns and bombs, I fall down on you, we’ll forget about it.”
    â€œAs long as you’ve built it, name your date.”
    â€œThree weeks from today, weather permitting.”
    â€œAll right,” said Lawson. “It will at least prevent you from killing yourself. Three weeks from today.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    A First Test—
and Bullets
    T HIS is easy,” said Lucky Martin when he landed at the Naval Air Station.
    â€œProve it,” said Lawson. “I’ve talked myself hoarse to the powers and they’ve finally consented to give you an official trial. It’s eight o’clock. An observer is ready at Charleston, South Carolina, which is, I believe, the required midway point.”
    â€œRight. I take off for Charleston at nine. At twelve-thirty sharp I will be back here in Washington. Three and a half hours, and no refueling in between.”
    â€œThat’s a big brag,” smiled Lawson.
    â€œWhere’s the armament, the bombs and whatever? Load, my jolly tars !”
    Flynn, who had been a half-winger in the long-forgotten days along the Western Front , when Lucky Martin had been building models, proudly took his position in the gunner’s cockpit and lorded over the mounting of the weapons.
    Evans, who had come down from the factory with a truck, disappeared for a few minutes, but Lucky did not give it a second thought.
    â€œAll set?” said Lawson.
    â€œOn the line. See you at twelve-thirty.”
    â€œI hope so.”
    Lucky gunned the sleek, gleaming ship into the wind. A sailor clicked a stopwatch and dropped his hand. The dive bomber leaped, quivering, down the field like mercury squirted from a tube.
    Lucky gave himself over to the joy of speed and flight. Skimming the treetops, with the mighty engine thundering, he shot along the bank of the Anacostia River , down the Potomac, so low that his slipstream rippled the blurred water below.
    He came up a little. White and green Mount Vernon , beaten by the engine’s roar, was briefly under the stubby wings. Land again, flat plains, rickety houses.
    The quicksilver javelin, fast as light, rolled back the screen of earth, devouring miles, throwing creeks and fields contemptuously behind.
    Lucky knew what this plane would do. He knew what he could do. At twelve-thirty he would again be in Washington, DC.
    The chronometer on the panel said ten-thirty when Charleston, white, lazy and blue, slid up over the curve of the world and fanned out under the streaking wings.
    Flashing down the Battery , banking over Fort Sumter , he sliced a wide circle of blue, flirted his flippers at palms, bridges and mud flats, settled his black, spinning compass and roared north again.
    A few miles north of Raleigh, North Carolina, just as they brushed the Roanoke River by, as one sweeps away a silver strand of spider web, Flynn’s voice rang in the