Clear for Action

THE DESTROYER SLID easily through a sea as flat as a river, the only indication of movement the white flash of her wake against the shadow of the quiet night that lay upon the sea. Two-miles astern, invisible to the naked eye, steamed the Allied battle-fleet. If the Jap came with torpedo-bombers—and Petty Officer Thompson fully expec­ted he would—soon after dark was his favourite time. Now.Suddenly there was a crash. The sound came pulsing through the steel of the ship's side, a dull mutter of thunder. It was irregular and continuous, not the timed crash of controlled broadsides. That meant barrage firing, with the director-layer's electric trigger pressed all the time and the guns firing as soon as they were loaded. And it meant torpedo-bombers …