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He shivered in his clothes, turned da drops bunched in clusters on theuntil his ears lost the roar of the Sterlings, waiting until his hearing picked up the engines of the hydroplane He didn't have to wait long He soon tuned in the steady beat of the hydroplane as the explosions through its exhaust manifolds increased in volume

Everything had to go perfect the first time There could be no second chance The radar operator on the hydroplane was probably at this instant reacting to the fact that the blip on his scope had lost headway and had stopped dead in the water By the time he notified his commander and a decision was reached, it would be too late for a course change The hydroplane's superior speed would have put its bow almost on top of The Grimsi

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Pitt re-checked the containers lying in a neat row beside him for perhaps the tenth time It had to be the poorest excuse for an arsenal ever concocted, he mused

One of the containers was a gallon glass jar Tidi had scrounged froas cans in various sizes that Pitt had found in a locker aft of the engine roo froh the top of the cans, the four vessels had little in common

The hydroplane was close now-very close Pitt turned to the wheelhouse and shouted, "Now!" Then he lit the wick of the glass jar with his lighter and braced hie of acceleration he prayed would come

Sandecker pushed the starter button The 420-lip Sterlings coughed once, twice, then burst into rp the wheel over to starboard hard and jammed the throttles forward The Grimsi took off over the water like a racehorse with an arrow i the wheel and expecting to collide with the hydroplane bow on Then suddenly as a spoke flew off the wheel and clattered against the co the wheelhouse He could still see nothing, but he knew the crew of the hydroplane were firing blindly through the fog, guided only by the commands of the radar operator

To Pitt the tension was unbearable His gaze alternated fro in front of the bow to the jar in his hand The flaerously close to the tapered neck and the gasoline sloshing behind the glass Five seconds, no more, then he would have to heave the jar over the side He began counting

Five came and went Six, seven He cocked his arm

Eight Then the hydroplane leaped fro noPitt hurled the jar

The next instant stayed etched in Pitts e of a tall, yellow-haired , watching in shocked fascination that deathly thing sailing through the damp air toward him

Then the jar burst on the bulkhead beside hiht flame Pitt saw no more The two boats had raced past each other and the hydroplane was gone

Pitt had no tias cans as Sandecker swept The Gri into the hydroplane's wake The wor yellowish-red glow could be easily seen through the graystraight as a raht have been shooting at The Gri deck in the hope of drilling an old scow full of holes Nor was there now any possibility of the hydroplane raain," he yelled to Pitt through the shattered for of the wheelhouse "Give the bastards a taste of their own medicine"

Pitt didn't answer He barely had ti can before Sandecker spun the wheel and turned-across the hydroplane's bow for a third running attack Twice , and twicedestruction until his makeshift arsenal was used up

And then it hit The Grimsi, a thunderous shock wave that knocked Pitt to the deck and blew out what glass was left in the s around Sandecker The hydroplane had erupted in a volcanic roar of fire and fla inferno from end to end