The Dive Bomber by L. Ron Hubbard Page A

freighter had shipped a peculiarly lethal sea.
    An officer, thrusting his way through the paralyzed seamen, confronted everybody in general. “Which is Martin?”
    â€œI’m Martin.”
    The officer sang out, “All right, Skipper. This is the ship!”
    Bullard’s courage went out of him like hot air out of a balloon. He began to drool excuses and whimper and whine until even the Coast Guard was disgusted.
    A big flying boat came down out of the darkness to look the situation over and then vanished into the west.
    The Coast Guard lieutenant and his men rounded up all hands with speed and dispatch. They pried into the hold and found what the crates contained. They took a set of lines from the patrol ship and prepared to ride the night.
    L ater, in the steamer’s cabin, with all quiet and under control, Dixie and Lucky faced each other across the table. Because the lieutenant was there, drinking a cup of coffee, and because, after all, it’s against the rules for anyone connected with flying to show emotion of any kind, the two said their sentences with their eyes.
    â€œGood job you did,” remarked the lieutenant breezily.
    â€œYou didn’t see it, did you?” said Lucky in surprise.
    â€œMe? Oh, not me—I was in the radio room listening to Jenson. He’s the pilot of that flying boat that went over. When you started your dive, he picked you out by the sun on your wings. It was pretty low, you know. And he built altitude pretty fast and saw what you did, and he told us about it. We sent him out first thing, but he isn’t as fast as your plane. He spotted us to this place, staying a long way off while he did it, because he could hardly attack with a .45, you know.”
    â€œDo you think,” said Dixie, “that Jenson might tell the Navy about it?”
    â€œOh, sure.”
    â€œThen,” said Dixie, “then Lawson will know it did stay together.”
    â€œYou bet he will,” said Lucky.
    â€œThat was a swell scrap you had with that other ship,” said the lieutenant.
    â€œThere’s the evidence,” said Dixie.
    â€œAnd we’ve got a hundred planes in the hold,” said Lucky, “all ready to peddle to the place where they belong. Dixie—”
    â€œWhat?”
    There was something of a silence, and then the lieutenant casually set his cup on the table and wandered away, just as though he had thought of something important which had to be done.

 
    Story Preview
    N OW that you’ve just ventured
through one of the captivating tales in the Stories from the Golden Age collection
by L. Ron Hubbard, turn the page and enjoy a preview of The
Lieutenant Takes the Sky. Join American pilot Mike
Malloy, who enlisted in the French Foreign Legion only to get himself thrown
into a Moroccan military jail for trying to swab a deck with a general’s aide.
To get out of prison and clear his name, Malloy undertakes a suicide mission: to
fly deep into enemy territory and find an alchemist’s book missing for 800
years, a discovery that may determine the destiny of a nation.

 
    The Lieutenant
Takes the Sky
    C APTAIN M IKE M ALLOY was conducted to the general’s office with great speed. Before the door, the files grounded their Lebels with a loud crash and the corporal threw the portal wide.
    The people in the office turned. General LeRoi gave a start and scowled.
    He had not expected his order to be so promptly carried out, and he had never imagined for an instant that Captain Mike Malloy of the French Air Service could be anything but neat. Just now, Mike was not at all polished. A week in jail had taken away all gloss. His beard was dark; his tunic was ripped from shoulder to waist, and the flapping cloth almost obscured his pilot’s wings; the bill of his dusty kepi was broken and, all in all, his condition yelled, “Dungeons!”
    But for all that Mike was cool enough. He pushed his kepi to the back of