His wing machine gun roared. Tracers tore into the Jap. The enemy plane went up like a torch and plunged toward the Pacific. The pilot didn’t have a prayer of getting out. Maybe he was dead from the burst of fire, anyway.

“Nailed the bastard!” Joe yelled exultantly. He swung the fighter back toward the carrier. Navigating over the trackless ocean wasn’t easy, but he managed. There was the welcoming flight deck, dead ahead. He brought the Wildcat down toward the carrier’s stern. This was the tricky part… Down! The plane’s tailhook caught an arrester wire, and the machine jerked to a stop. He was down, and he was safe!

A voice spoke in his earphones: “Well, Mr. Crosetti, that wasn’t too bad.”

Reality returned with a bump harder than the one with which he’d landed. His Wildcat turned into a pumpkin, like Cinderella’s carriage: actually, into a humble Texan advanced trainer. The flight deck became a yellow rectangle outlined on concrete. The arrester wires stretched across it were the McCoy, though. This was only the second time he’d landed using them.

His flying instructor, a lieutenant, junior grade, named Wiley Foster, went on, “I liked your attack run on the target. You got a four-oh on that one.”

“Thank you, sir,” Joe said.

“Don’t thank me yet-I wasn’t finished,” Foster answered. “Your landing was okay, but nothing to write home about. You’re not supposed to set down as hard as you would on a real flight deck, not yet. You need to convince me you can make smooth landings before you do rough ones.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Joe wanted to claim he’d come down that way on purpose, but he hadn’t-and the flying instructor wouldn’t have cared it he had.

“As for your navigation…” Lieutenant Foster paused significantly.

“Sorry, sir,” Joe repeated, sounding as miserable as he felt.