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Show INSTALLMENT FIFTEEN and Bravot, two enemy officers, but his warnings had gone unheeded. Foreign forces had by Van Hassek pushed re-lenUessly re-lenUessly forward. His troops were vastly vast-ly superior In numbers and equipment to the American forces which opposed him. Returning to New York, Benning that set the earth shaking under them. "In spite of hell and high waterl" he concluded as the room cleared ol vibrations. "It'll take me days to straighten out this tangle and it'll only take Van Hassek a few hours to run up here with his motorized and mechanized outfits!" "General Hague probably has told you, sir," Flagwill said, "that we've got to hold on this line. The country coun-try is in an uproar and everyone in Washington., sir, feels we've got to have a victory." "Sure we've got to hold!" Lannes raged. "But don't forget that fifty thousand men are fifty thousand soldiers sol-diers only when they're shaken down, organized, supplied, and ready to fight." The Army commander stalked to a wall map and pointed to his dispositions dispo-sitions and immediate plan of action. ac-tion. "Mole is taking an artillery lacing lac-ing at this minute, which means attack at-tack on him at daybreak. With the reinforcements I've sent up, he must hold on the Colorado as long as possible. Then he's got to fight delaying de-laying actions and make another desperate stand behind the Brazos. Somehow Mole must delay Van Hassek Has-sek at least three days, maybe for a week, until I can get in shape to take the enemy on here in front of Dallas. It's going to cost us a lot THE STORY SO FAR: More than 200,000 foreign troops which had been lecretly transported to Mexico suddenly invaded the United States. Intelligence Officer Benning had discovered their plans while a spy in Mexico City where he had gained the confidence of Fincke ft "Ar CHAPTER XV Continued The boat bobbed across the harbor; har-bor; Benning decided that Bravot must be headed back for some secret se-cret rendezvous in New York, a part of some crafty maneuver to cover his littered trail. In that event Benning Ben-ning decided to strike in the darkness dark-ness the instant the launch reached shore. A few minutes later the launch swerved sharply out of its course and slowed down. Benning saw the massive shadow of a ship looming over his head. A voice called down from above. Bravot got to his feet, edged his way to the bow. A boatman made the launch fast to the ship's ladder. One by one the passengers swung onto the ladder and were swallowed up by the night. "Go ahead, Bromlitz!" a voice commanded when Benning hesitated. hesitat-ed. Fincke caught Benning's arm, gently forced him forward. Benning made a swift estimate as he stood in indecision. Quickly he saw that but one course lay ahead. In the bobbing bob-bing little boat he knew he would stand no chance if he put up a fight for possession of the craft. As for swimming ashore, even the strongest swimmer could not expect success in that feat tonight. Benning swung to the ladder and mounted to the deck. Close behind him came Fincke. On the deck there was a glow of light from an incandescent. Inside the Austrian tossed oft his coat and stretched himself. His face now was exuberant. "Himmel, but what a comfort, Bromlitz!" he exclaimed with a vast sigh of relief. "Now a fellow can take a free breath." Fincke paused to give Benning a knowing wink. "What does it matter if we're sitting sit-ting over a cargo of high explosives, eh, Bromlitz? It'll not blow up until we give the command and that'll play the biggest card in the whole Van Hassek deck! Cheer up, Bromlitz, Brom-litz, in ten days from now you'll be back with your girl in Mexico City!" Now it was all to clear to Benning. Ben-ning. Fincke at last had vitalized the meaning of this cruise, the reason rea-son for. his own restless misapprehensions. misappre-hensions. This ship, with its cargo of explosives, clearing New York with papers for San Francisco, was part of an intricately laid plot to destroy the Panama Canal and strip the Atlantic seaboard of the protection protec-tion of the United States fleet. CHAPTER XVI General Hague nervously paced the floor of his office despite the long days of driving toil and anxiety anxi-ety that had drained his energies to the point of exhaustion. The last troop trains had moved south with the force of fifty thousand men that was to stop Van Hassek on the Fort Worth-Dallas line. But reports from the south shook him with new misgivings mis-givings and he had sent for Colonel Flagwill. Young Benning got away this morning for Mexico City, didn't he?" Flagwill's face dropped. "Sorry, General. Benning has vanished in thin air. Not a word from him all day." "Benning missing?" General Hague scowled incredulity. "That doesn't sound like Benning." "I authorized him to follow a Van Hassek agent aboard a Norwegian Norwe-gian tramp freighter, thinking we'd get a haul of spies. A destroyer overhauled the boat last night after it sailed, only to find Benning was not aboard as planned. The ship's captain claimed not to have seen anyone resembling Benning." "Nothing should have prevented Benning's flight to Mexico City, Flagwill," Hague complained. "All right, let's hope he 'urns up soon." Flagwill drove at once to Boiling Field where a fast new 0-47 observation obser-vation plane put him in the air shortly short-ly before dusk. Seven hours later, as the plane approached Dallas, a radio warning told the pilot to avoid the Dallas airport and put down at an emergency landing-field south ol the city. The savage vinjvs ul detonation bombs caught Flagwill's eye as his plane drove past the city. No sooner soon-er had his plane roared to a stop in the emergency field than his ears rang with the bedlam of air bombardment bom-bardment over Dallas. A staff officer offi-cer from Army headquarters was waiting for him. "Dallas and Fort Worth are taking tak-ing an awful beating tonight," the staff officer reported. "We're forced to detrain troops and impedimenta north of the city. An hour ago a bomber registered on one of our troop trains three hundred men killed. Things are in a pretty bad jam here, sir." "I'll be frank with you, Flagwill!" General Lannes said in a peppery, overwrought voice "If Van Hassek Has-sek sizes up this mess and hits us promptly, he'll roll up my Third Army in spite " Lannes' voice was drowned by the mighty crash of a heavy bomb unearthed a vast spy ring. Benning continued con-tinued to pose as a friend when he unexpectedly met Fincke in Washington, and accompanied him on a mysterious mission which took them aboard a small boat In the New York harbor. Now conUnue with the story. the field telephone. "I can't hold another minute! I hope you have strong reinforcements for me at the Brazos." "All right, Mole, use your own judgment," Lannes retorted. "But no matter what it costs, we've got to delay Van Hassek until I can get my Third Army ready to stop him!" CHAPTER XVII Benning woke from a brief fretful fret-ful sleep and went to a porthole. There was a bright sun rising across a smooth sea. He calculated from the speed of the freighter that the craft must be well down the coast of Virginia, perhaps off North Carolina Caro-lina and not far from Cape Hat-teras. Hat-teras. For a time last night he had flirted with the desperation of ) jumping overboard on the chance of making shore. Now he had given up hopes of being rescued by the Navy. He was mulling at the porthole when a figure passed along the boat deck close to his eyes. The fellow wore a black mustache, dark hornrimmed horn-rimmed glasses; his clothes were seedy and his shoulders sagged. But the profile was not to be mistaken. "You knew Bravot was aboard?" Benning said to Fincke. The Austrian hotly admonished, "Don't talk so much, Bromlitz! How many times have I got to tell you not to mention names?" "I thought we were clear of all that trouble," Benning retorted. "Not with a brand-new crew on the boat. We still got to watch our tongues." "You think these sailors aren't Bravot's men?" "Just use your bean, Bromlitz. bailors wouldn't hardly sign up to get blown to hell, if they knew the score." "I presume," Benning sneered, "the captain and crew don't even know what their cargo is?" "The skipper knows, and a few of his good men. For two years Schmolz has been laying his plans for just this cruise." The door of their cabin banged suddenly open. A chunky man with a squarish, rough-hewn, leering face swaggered in. The fellow wore a dirty cotton suit and an officer's cap, and bristled with authority and short temper. "Who are you two?" he demand-I demand-I ed, searching first Fincke's face, then Benning's. The Van Hassek spy leaped to his feet and gave the identification formula. for-mula. Benning was more leisurely in rising to identify himself. He guessed that the intruder was Schmolz, skipper of the ship. "I don't like your looks!" the fellow fel-low blurted, fixing Benning with glinting green eyes. "Don't worry about him, Captain," Cap-tain," Fincke promptly intervened. "He's a major the two of us been working together in the United States." Schmolz rubbed a cauliflowered ear ruminatiyely and gave Benning a parting glare in which there was mingled distrust and dislike. "Major or no major, there's something some-thing about your looks I don't like," he grumbled. Their noon meal was brought in by an American deckhand, Grimes. After luncheon, Fincke went out on deck for exercise. With the complication compli-cation of Bravot's presence on the ship, Benning knew he must keep to cover during daylight. Also that he must strike against the Van Hassek Has-sek spymaster without delay if he expected to survive this cruise for many days. Benning sweltered in the torrid little lit-tle cabin through an insufferable day. With full darkness he examined the mechanism of his automatic pistol pis-tol and went out on deck. As he suspected, sus-pected, Bravot was living in the captain's cap-tain's quarters. Looking in the porthole port-hole he saw Bravot sitting alone on his berth, his face cold and imperturbable im-perturbable as he listened to the news from the Texas front. Blare of the radio blotted out other oth-er sounds on the deck and Benning was not conscious of the figure driving driv-ing down on him along the dimly lighted deck until stout fingers closed on the lapel of his coat. He turned to see Schmolz glaring at him out of eyes that seethed with rage. "See here, Schmolz!" Benning shot back hotly, "I'm not one of your deckhands. Take your hands off my coat! If you object to my listening to the war news over your radio, why don't you post an order to that effect?" "Listen all you want to," Schmolz mumbled, cooling perceptibly at the rebuff and releasing Benning's collar. col-lar. "But keep away from in front of my stateroom after this. I don't allow nobody to do that." As Schmolz swaggered into his room with a muttered imprecation, Benning returned to his cabin. For some time Benning waited In tense readiness for eventuality. He knew that if Schmolz communicated his suspicions to Bravot. prompt and disastrous invost:sa1ion was sure to ft. How du Hh. :o'iiHJ S "Take your hands off my coat." of men, Flagwill, a lot of men! But I want you to go out and see the situation for yourself and tell Hague why I'm forced into these desperate delaying actions out in front!" An hour of patient driving put Flagwill down the Army's projected front. Whole regiments stood about in the dawn, still waiting for orders and supplies. The men were tired and hungry. Shortage of ammunition was general, even in the infantry. Ammunition was reported available at the railhead, but the railhead was swamped with demands and there were insufficient truck trains at present for all purposes. As the sun shot over the horizon, Flagwill turned back to the Lannes command post. Squadrons of American Amer-ican combat planes had combed the air of Van Hassek's night hawks and the day had quieted down to a rumble of artillery columns and hum of friendly planes. Given a day or two, Flagwill concluded, con-cluded, the hastily assembled Third Army would shake itself down. American ingenuity somehow would overcome the shortages of supplies, motor vehicles, the obsolescent organization or-ganization tables, the unco-ordinat-ed staffs, outmoded weapons, the lack of training in team-play of higher high-er units. At least the officers had sound academic training in the science sci-ence of war. General Lannes, his face flushed and harried, his eyes distended, sat feverishly nt the end of a field telephone tele-phone as Flagwill re-entered the command post. After a staccato, fretted exchange he hung up the receiver re-ceiver nd got to his feet. "Van Hassek is driving at Mole with everything he's got this morning!" morn-ing!" Lannes roared. "Only the regiments reg-iments I sent up to him last night kept Mole from being cracked up early this morning. Says he'll be lucky to hold on till nine. My God. Flagwill, this mess is going to cost us five thousand men, maybe ten!" By eight o'clock. Mole saw he could hold no longer. Ghastly losses were multiplying, his flanks were threatened. Now the American air service held the supremacy of the air immediately over the heads of Mole's troops, which made possible the dangerous operation of daylight withdrawal. "I'm pulling out of here now. Lannes!" he shouted fiercely over NEXT WEEK |