The formation carried on peacefully after the fighters broke off. In fact, there was barely anything to suggest a fight had ever taken place. Even the once massive trail of black smoke from Nelson's number 1 was now gone, its fuel supply cut and its massive propeller feathered. He was slowly being left behind, which would certainly mean serious trouble for him if the fighters came back.

Even our plane felt the same as it did before. Despite the large number of bullet holes, cabin pressure seemed to remain almost the same and even the heating system was still working (though not at 100% capacity, of course). Charlie said something about the plane being able to handle it unless a window blew out or a massive shell exploded, and that the air should still be perfectly breathable. Nevertheless, you'd be hard-pressed to find any of us willing to take off our masks and test out his theory.

As for me, I kept my eyes on the gauges. Our airspeed was good and nothing seemed wrong as far as I could tell. Bucky called out a few ETAs over the radio over the next few minutes or so, and Marty and Charlie seemed to have a brief argument about what counted as a kill, but overall things were pretty calm.

Which is why I almost jumped off my seat when the flak started up. After the initial shock though, I found that it didn't really get to me as much as last time. I still remember being completely terrified not 3 days ago, and while nowhere near calm now, it didn't quite have the same impact on me. Funny that. Mikey seemed pretty worried all of a sudden and spoke up:

"Uh, sir? I think we've got a problem"

"What is it?"

"It's the-"

Mikey couldn't finish his sentence as a huge burst of flak made the plane lurch as violently as if it had jumped. That can't be good.

"...fuel indicator, sir." Mikey continued. "Right inboard tank, sir, take a look."

The plane had 5 different fuel indicators, one for the inboard tanks, one for the outboard ones and 3 for the extra tanks that could be installed in the bomb bays. Each had two different needles, pointing at the levels for the right and left tanks. Didn't take long to see what was wrong: the right inboard tanks were empty. I tried tapping the gauge a few times, to see if it responded.

"Shit. Bad calibration or…?"

"Could be nothing." Mikey responded. "Or it could be a fuel leak."

"I hope it's a fuel leak!" Eddie said over the intercom. "Maybe then we'll turn back. Go to the Hare, get a drink…"

A good pilot would be able to tell if the plane feels lighter than it should. If it did, then there was a leak. If it didn't, then it's just a bad gauge. The plane would also want to roll into whatever side was heavier, but this plane almost always seems to pull to one side or the other and that's throwing me off. There's one way to check though:

"Pilot to lower gunner, over. Charlie?"

"Lower gunner to pilot, I read you loud and clear."

"Listen, Charlie, would you do me a favor and look out the right window? See if there's some sort of trail or something."

As Charlie checked, I realized that even if he didn't see a fuel trail that wouldn't really mean much. If the gauge was correct, then there was nothing to leak anymore: all the fuel from those tanks would already be gone.

"Uh… I don't see anything, sir. There are a lot of holes on the top of the right wing though. Would be more surprised if there weren't a leak."

"Oh thank god… Thank you, you wonderful leaking piece of shit we call a 'self-sealing' fuel tank, for ending our mission so much earlier!" Eddie started on the intercom, laughing nervously. "I'd say our job here's done. Bucky, give Jim a heading back to base, will ya?"

"I can't really do that unless he requests it, buddy." Bucky replied. "Navigator to pilot, do you wanna head back or…?"

"I don't know. Mikey, what do you figure?"

"If, and that's if the gauge is right, then we're missing around 28 gallons of fuel. We can keep going, but that's gonna put us right at the edge of our range, we'll only have around... let's see." He grabbed the small pilot's diary and began scribbling numbers onto it, all the time thinking aloud. "161 and a quarter divided by 4… times 3… add 12.1, take out 129… That can't be right…" He said, a look of disbelief on his face.

"What? How much fuel would it leave us with?"

He showed me the sheet he was scribbling on, all the calculations leading to a big '4' circled multiple times.

"4 gallons, it leaves us with 4 gallons. With the plane's average fuel burn, that's about 5 minutes of fuel in the reserve. It's cutting it pretty close, but it can be done. Of course, that's assuming we are even missing fuel in the first place and it's not a faulty gauge."

"Jimmy? Please tell me we're turning back…" Eddie seemed to all but beg.

5 minutes. You can do a lot in 5 minutes, and if the wind's good, we might not even need them. Besides, it could just be a badly calibrated fuel gauge. But what if it isn't? What if the weather deteriorates? What if that damn engine fails again? That would mean kissing our chance of making it back goodbye, and all because I was too stupid to turn back. I can't risk that.

"Andy, notify squadron lead of our situation: that we are damaged, have a possible fuel leak and are aborting mission."

"Yes, sir." Andy replied.

I signaled Mikey for full throttle as I started the turn. Here's hoping this wasn't all for nothing.

"Yes! Jimmy, you son of a bitch, I love you!" Eddie shouted over the intercom. "Say, when we get back, who's up for a night on the town? We still haven't done a proper pub crawl, after all!"