Captain Lessing’s force encounters Lampard’s patrol and is virtually wiped out in a nighttime ambush. Leaving a detachment at a base camp, Lampard takes the rest of his men deeper into enemy territory with plans to attack the Luftwaffe base at Beda Fomm but just as they arrive, Barton and his last remaining pilot, American Hick Hooper, make a dive-bombing attack which puts the defences on full alert. Angered, the SAS patrol heads for an alternative target, the airfield at Barce where Major Schramm is based. Despite the Germans now being aware of their presence, Lampard recklessly presses on to reach the airfield and they wipe out two squadrons of Bf 109s. But it is now nearly dawn and the Germans are in hot pursuit. Confrontations with Italian CR-42 fighters and a convoy of German infantry sees the patrol lose nine men and all their vehicles, leaving only Lampard and two others alive. They manage to reach their base camp and rejoin the detachment that had been left there.