Brood of the Eagle

The three Seafires were diving and zooming, banking and diving again at the gun-positions. But the big Barracudas, coming in on a set line, made easy targets. A stream of tracer bit into the body of the left-hand bomber of the third flight and Haining felt his guts tighten as its nose dipped.
He did not see the third lot of torpedoes strike and as he came around again he could see the dam clearly enough, and he saw it was still intact. It was then the first doubts slid into his brain and charged him with failure. He had assumed twelve torpedoes would smash that concrete into a water-pouring cleavage. He had assumed ... now it looked as if he could be hellishly wrong ...