voice was loud in his ears and Dirk cut the gain down to check the volume.
"Like swarms of black buzzards waiting to swoop, the planes are poised, waiting their wireless orders to plunge downward and unload their lethal loads on the thousands of ships and barges in this two mile circle of death.
"And now their noses are dipping downward and thousands of the radio-controlled planes are screeching for their targets, a mile below them. In about another twenty seconds you will hear the first thunderous reverberations as tons of high explosives smash into the armor of the ships of the navies of the world."
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The planes screeched down toward the targets
Dirk cut the volume down quickly, but when the terrific explosion burst in his eardrum it was like thunder magnified a thousand, a million times. He could feel, it seemed seconds later, the boat swaying as gigantic man-made waves rocked against it.
Their captain had backed at least ten miles from the circle of ships in the last half hour, but still the force of the explosion, as felt through the water, was terrifying.
Larry's voice came in again through the booming, echoing sound:
"That was the first dive. The planes are pulling out and zooming up for another attack. The smoke and flame make it impossible to describe this scene with accuracy, but I think I can see a number of great ships listing from the impact of bombs. Others are in flames. . . ."
At the control board, Dirk listened carefully as Larry described the epic scene of machine destruction. He heard, subconsciously, the motors of their launch thrum into life and then realized that they probably were moving still farther from the danger area.
A few seconds later the captain opened the control cabin and confirmed his guess.
"We're proceeding under full steam," he announced. "It's too dangerous to remain in this vicinity any longer. In a few minutes those planes are going to finish their job and then they just aren't going to pull out of their next dive. I can't take the responsibility of staying here any longer."
"Okay," Dirk said. "You're the boss."
He turned to his volume rheostat and rode it up a bit. Larry's voice seemed to be fading out. Strange . . .
Then—so suddenly that Dirk could hardly believe it—Larry's voice stopped abruptly and cold empty silence replaced it.
CHAPTER II
A Mysterious Attack
DIRK'S first frantic thought was that his apparatus had broken down, but a hasty check-up convinced him that the trouble was of some other nature. What, he didn't know.
For ten seconds he tried desperately to connect again with New York but it
