Squadron Leader Markham, O.C. of the famous Eighty-Fourth Squadron of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command, leaned back in his office chair, dug knuckles into his tired eyes, and heaved a long sigh of relief.

"I say, but am I fed up to the teeth with the blasted paper work that goes with this kind of a job!" he groaned. "Not at all like in the last mess we had with Jerry. A chap could fly every day, then, regardless of rank. That is, up until the last nine months or so. Then C.O.s were grounded, as being too valuable to lose. But still there was no paper work. Not a bit of it."

"True, it is a bit of a task and a bore," Adjutant Phipps agreed from his desk in the corner. "Seems Adastral House must know everything from what the lads have for breakfast to whether or not they wear their socks on the wrong feet. All for a good reason, I suppose. But it does give a chap the writer's cramp. What do you make of this latest memo that came through, sir? Number Six-Four-Two-Nine."

The Squadron Leader pulled his hands down from his face and blinked.

"Eh?" he grunted. "Don't believe I saw that one. Must have passed it over. What's it about, Phipps? Does it make sense or is it like the usual stuff that comes through?"

The Adjutant fished an official looking sheet of yellow paper from a pile on his desk, got up from his chair and crossed the office.

"There it is," he said placing it in front of the Officer Commanding. "Frankly, I haven't the faintest idea, sir. Looks to me like some bloke at Air Ministry wasn't quite recovered from a terrific binge, or something. All a lot of Greek, as they say."

Markham blinked his eyes a couple of more times, leaned forward a bit and squinted at the yellow sheet of paper. The top half was filled with all the routine junk ... code letters, numbers, and file reference marks ... that always accompany official communications. So he gave that part just a sweeping glance. It was the communication itself that attracted and held his attention.

It read:

    Reconnaissance pictures considered obsolete as of Twenty-Fifth. Zone K-24 believed to be evacuated. It is essential that confirmation of this be obtained at the earliest possible moment, regardless of cost. Plan X-4-B depends upon complete knowledge of the situation. You are advised to communicate at once with Squadrons assigned to this task, and to make your arrangements as speedily as possible. You are also advised to carry out the assignment on a voluntary basis. Please acknowledge this.

    Group Captain Ball

    Air Ministry

Squadron Leader Markham read the thing through three times, then pushed back from his desk and cocked a stern eye at Phipps.

"I'm surprised, Phipps!" he said.

The Adjutant gulped a little and blinked.

"I beg your pardon, sir?" he said.

Markham tapped the paper with his finger.

"About this," he said. "Do you mean to tell me that you don't understand? You don't comprehend?"

Phipps licked his lips, fumbled with a loose button on his tunic, and wondered if he should have enlisted in the artillery instead of the R.A.F. So many blasted mysteries in the Air Force.

"Well, sir," he began. "That is ... I mean.... Well, frankly, sir, I don't think I do understand."

"Don't think?" Markham barked at him. "Well, that's the difference between us!"

"Yes, sir," the Adjutant said weakly.

"Exactly the difference!" the Officer Commanding said with a curt nod of his head. Then grinning broadly, "You don't think you know, Phipps, but I blessed well know I don't know. It's the craziest memo I've ever received. I'd almost say that Group Captain Ball was stone spiffed, but I know him personally, and he never touches a drop. Get him on the wire for me, will you, Phipps? I believe I have half an idea as to what's up."

"You have, sir?" the Adjutant echoed with interest.

"I read lots of detective books," the Officer Commanding said with a wave of his hand. "Fine for taking a chap's mind off this blasted war. Yes, I fancy the postman stopped at the wrong house this morning."

"Eh, sir?" Phipps mumbled with a frown.

"Obvious, I think, Phipps," Markham said and tapped the paper again. "This was supposed to be delivered to some other bloke, not to me. Now, get Ball on the wire like a good chap, eh?"

"Yes, sir," Phipps said and spun back to his own desk. "Oh, quite, sir."

As the Adjutant reached his desk he stopped short and turned toward the window. So did Squadron Leader Markham for that matter. Outside the air had suddenly become filled with the roar of powerful aircraft engines. Markham leaped over to the window and looked out and up at the five plane formation playing tag at some three or four thousand feet over the field. They were Supermarine Spitfires, the new Mark 5 type; the latest and fastest fighter plane off the British aircraft factory assembly lines.

They looked exactly like the old Spitfires, and in many ways they were just the same. But there were also many changes, and improvements. There was more horsepower in the Rolls-Royce engine in the nose. There was more fire power due to the addition of four 20-mm. aircraft cannon to the already standard equipment of eight death chopping machine guns that could blast out bullets at the rate of nine thousand odd per minute. And there were a few very hush-hush gadgets on the new Mark 5 that the Nazi Luftwaffe would sell its soul to have on their planes. But that is the difference between the Royal Air Force and Hitler's Luftwaffe. The Royal Air Force will always be better tomorrow than it is today, but the Luftwaffe gets just so good, and there it stops. There just isn't that something in the Nazi aeronautical make-up that drives a man on to improve upon his best efforts!

"Those Mark Fives!" Markham breathed as his face lighted up with honest pride. "What a plane! And, do I wish I was just a Pilot Officer again, instead of a Squadron Leader. See those two flying Number Two and Three on the right, Phipps?"

"Yes, sir," the Adjutant nodded with a smile. "Flying Officers Dawson and Farmer, aren't they, sir?"

"That's right," the O.C. replied. "And it was a lucky day for Eighty-Four when those two were assigned to us. Just kids, both of them, but worth their weight in gold. They're going far, I fancy. Fact is, if this blasted war lasts long enough, I'll probably one day be giving them the salute, and calling them, sir! Just look at that!"

Phipps was already looking at the five plane formation wheeling around into the wind to come in to land. Number Two and Three planes on the right slid down through the air as though they were wired together. There wasn't an inch change of air space between the two planes as they wheeled around and down. It was precision flying, plus! And Squadron Leader Markham was breathing hard when he finally turned away from the window.

"Born in an airplane, those two!" he grunted. "I swear they must have been. I ... I say there, Phipps, old thing! Did you get Ball on the wire? After all, this crazy paper may be very important, and all that sort of thing. Hop to it, my lad!"

Adjutant Phipps hopped to it, and in less than a minute he had the Air Ministry official on the wire. Markham took the call, and talked with his superior for some ten minutes. Phipps listened to the snatches of conversation he could hear, but it all made very little sense to him.

Eventually the Squadron Leader hung up. That is to say, he banged the receiver back in its cradle, and sat glaring at the instrument as though he would like to hurl it against the wall. Phipps waited a minute or so, and then couldn't stand the suspense any longer.

"Bad news, sir?" he ventured.

Markham snorted and reached for a cigarette.

"You've been in Service long enough to know that every time you talk with Adastral House it means bad news!" he growled. "Blast it! Why did you show me that confounded thing in the first place, anyway? Why didn't you tear it up and throw it away, and say nothing?"

"But, sir!" Phipps protested. "That wouldn't be quite right, you know, sir!"

"There are times when a wrong is perfectly right!" Squadron Leader Markham grunted between puffs on his cigarette. Then with a faint gesture of his hand, "But don't go and shoot your brains out, old thing. Not your fault, of course. Some nit-wit, balmy bloke at Air Ministry who put it in the wrong dispatch pouch. Fact is, I was wrong to have called Ball. Now we're in for it, I fancy."

"A special assignment, sir?" Phipps asked.

"Something like that," the Squadron Leader nodded. "Don't know the details, but I'm quite sure that it'll turn out something very messy. That blasted paper should have gone to Hundred and Seven Squadron, not us. When I told Ball we had received it he was over-joyed, blast his hide. Said he realized that we should have been selected in the first place. And having received the thing by mistake, he is going to assign us to it, anyway."

"To what, sir?" Adjutant Phipps persisted.

Markham sighed and shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "Ball wouldn't give details over the phone, of course. Said he was flying down here, himself. Be here sometime this afternoon. But you can be sure that it'll be something like capturing two whole Nazi Staffels complete with equipment, or kidnapping Hitler, Goering, and Himmler, and bringing them back here to England to keep Rudolph Hess company. And chances are, it'll be something even more difficult. You know, Group Captain Ball has been given a standing order at Air Ministry."

"A standing order, sir?" Phipps echoed with a blank look.

Squadron Leader Markham crushed out his cigarette and stood up.

"I suspect it, anyway!" he mumbled and stared fixedly at the huge pin-pointed map of Europe on the opposite wall. "I believe he has orders to think up the strangest, the riskiest, and the craziest patrol assignments. And then pass them out to poor blasted beggars like us. Well, I suppose a lot of chaps have got to take-off and get themselves killed before this confounded war is won. But it's a rum business, Phipps. Always bear that in mind."

"Yes sir, I will," the Adjutant said and shook his head sadly from side to side as Markham walked out of the office.

When the door slammed shut Adjutant Phipps sighed heavily, leaned back in his chair and stroked his greying hair.

"Yes, I should have joined the artillery," he murmured. "I'm too old to understand these brave young lads who wear wings. They're chaps from another world, I fancy."