The White Tower [antikvár]

Chapter 1 N ow they were there again. . . . They were in the seventh and last flight, and the city, as they came over it, was no longer a city but a lake of orange fire. There were the bright beams of the searchlights and the tracers rising in a flowing dome against the darkness. There were the swift, scudding shapes of the other planes. In the sudden glare that filled the cockpit Martin Ordway could see the face of his co-pilot, Riggs, bent tensely over the instrument panel. He saw the yellow down on the cheekbones, the blue boy's eyes, the tiny pulse throbbing in the tight line of the jaw. The orange lake rushed up at them, reached out for them. Then it tilted suddenly away and streamed past below. The chimneys of a factory appeared ahead, rising through the flame like the fingers of a charred hand. The next moment came Bixler's voice: "Bombs away!" . . . and now it was over again. Ordway pulled toward him. His body thrust hard against the back of his seat as the plane climbed and banked. The ravaged city wheeled away beneath them, throwing up flames and beams and tracers in a fountain of bright fire. Around them the flak exploded, hung suspended for an instant in dark, wreathing puffs against the white shafts of the searchlights, and disappeared. In 7