Treacherous mud clutched at the wheels and the Wellington up-ended. End of mission. The great bomber had been giving the crew trouble since leaving Italy. Finally over occupied France, it settles like a weary, wounded edge on what seemed to Franklin a hard, smooth field. The five members of the crew, already closely bound together that even conversation was seldom necessary, were welded by the crash into a single whole, one tiny forged weapon in the vast territory of the enemy—weak and ineffectual yet confident as only men can be whose minds are free.