«Just one little question, Squadron Leader. You don't fancy going back there again?»

«Too bloody right, I don't!» Torrance growled.

«Because?»

«Because I don't believe in suicide. Because I don't believe in sacrificing good blokes for nothing. Because I'm not God and I can't do the impossible.» There was a flat finality in Torrance's voice that carried conviction, that brooked no argument.

«It is impossible, you say?» Jensen persisted. «This is terribly important.»

«So's my life. So are the lives of all these jokers.» Torrance jerked a big thumb over his shoulder. «It's impossible, sir. At least, it's impossible for us.» He drew a weary hand down his face. «Maybe a Dornier flyingboat with one of these new-fangled radio-controlled glider-bombs might do it and get off with it. I don't know. But I do know that nothing we've got has a snowball's chance in hell. Not,» he added bitterly, «unless you cram a Mosquito full of T.N.T. and order one of us to crash-dive it at four hundred into the mouth of the gun cave. That way there's always a chance.»

«Thank you, Squadron Leader — and all of you.» Jensen was on his feet. «I know you've done your very best, no one could have done more. And I'm sorry. Commodore?»

«Right with you, gentlemen.» He nodded to the bespectacled Intelligence officer who had been sitting behind them to take his place, led the way out through a side door and into his own quarters.

«Well, that is that, I suppose.» He broke the seal of a bottle of Talisker, brought out some glasses. «You'll have to accept it as final, Jensen. Bill Torrance's is the senior, most experienced squadron left in Africa to-day. Used to pound the Ploesti oil wells and think it a helluva skylark. If anyone could have done to-night's job it was Bill Torrance, and if he says it's impossible, believe me, Captain Jensen, it can't be done.»