It was a perfect day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and from horizon to horizon the rolling blue Pacific was flooded with gold from the sun hanging on high. In addition to it being a perfect day the mighty Yank carrier force steaming westward was a sight to catch the throat of even the most self-centered landlubber. In perfect battle array, with cruisers out on both sides, and the destroyers darting about like water bugs, the mighty armada traced a pattern of creamy white wakes on the gold-tinted blue that looked like a painting from another world.
It was indeed something to see and remember always, but Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer hardly noticed. Slumped down in one of the crash nets aboard the Carrier Trenton, they stared out at the rest of the force with gloomy eyes and furrowed brows. They were depressed, unhappy, and licked. Only sheer doggedness would not let them admit the latter truth. But it seemed true just the same. For three days, now, they had been with Vice-Admiral Macon's force, and for all the good they were doing themselves, or anybody else, they might just as well have been back at San Diego teaching Navy fledglings to fly.
"Well, what now, little man?" Dawson suddenly broke the long brooding silence between them. "Shall we start all over again for the umptieth time? I mean, check on the fighter pilots once more?"
Young Farmer didn't reply for a moment. He rubbed a hand down the side of his face, shook his head, and sighed heavily.
"What's the blasted use?" he groaned. "That Nazi rat we're looking for can either make himself invisible, or else he just isn't with this force. And that last is what makes me feel like such a fool. What a beautiful trick of fate if that lad is actually thousands and thousands of miles from where we are right now. You know, Dave, we've seen a lot, and we've done our full share of things, but this business is the queerest ever. The trailing destroyers haven't even reported sighting a single water flare. Maybewejust dreamed everything!"
"You're telling me?" Dawson growled. "For two cents I could dive right over the side and do the world and the war a big favor. What saps we've been, and still are! Things are certainly screwy in life. Just imagine, a little suggestion and, bingo, all this is the result. It's enough to drive a man nuts, permanently."
"It is, and it has, as far as I'm concerned," Freddy Farmer muttered. "But what did you mean by a little suggestion?"
"The one I made," Dawson said. Then with a shake of his head, he continued, "And just how many centuries ago was it, anyway? Oh well, it was back in San Diego. It was raining, remember, and I suggested that we take a little walk? That's what I mean. If I'd only stuck to reading my book, and not listened to you crab about the California weather, we wouldn't be here."
"Oh, so it's all my fault, is it?" young Farmer flared up. "Well, let me jolly well tell you that I...!"
"Easy, Freddy, easy," Dawson cut him off and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I don't mean that at all, pal. We both started this business together, and we both stubbed our toes. Let's not go flying at each other's throats, huh? That would make us a pair of fine guys, I don't think. I'm sorry if you got me wrong, kid. But let's not blow our tops, huh?"
Freddy Farmer smiled, and there was far more than apology in it.
"Of course, Dave," he said. "I forgot myself, and I ask you to forgive me for being such a blasted fool. I certainly don't deserve your friendship when I act like that. And I guess you know, Dave, that your friendship means more to me than anything else in the world. That's the truth, old thing."
"I know it is, Freddy," Dave told him quickly, "And it is the way I feel about you. So ... well, that's that, kid. And now we're back where we started. What do you think we should do now? Start making the rounds of the carriers again, with a prayer? Or should we go to Vice-Admiral Macon, and tell him we're a couple of flops, and ask him to assign us to active flight duty with these boys, and maybe earn our board and keep a little?"
"Whatever you say suits me," Freddy Farmer replied with a shrug. "The vice-admiral has been awfully decent giving us the run of the entire force as he has. Frankly, though, I think that everybody else is not only getting fed up with us popping in and off their flight decks, and snooping around, but they are also becoming very suspicious. Much more of this and we'll upset the morale of the force. After all, they're going into battle soon. And chaps about to go into battle don't want a couple of mysterious nobodies flitting about them. But if you think we should pay another visit to the other carriers, then I'm with you, no matter what anybody thinks. Well, what do you say?"
"Well, I guess ...," Dawson began and then stopped.
He stopped because he caught sight of the vice-admiral's aide hurrying toward them across the flight deck.
"Oh," he said out of the corner of his mouth. "I guess what we do next has already been decided for us. Here comes Lieutenant Commander Clarke, and he's not just out getting the sunshine. You and I, Freddy, are about to go see the Old Man of this carrier force."
And the truth of that statement was proved a couple of moments later when the lieutenant commander reached them.
"The vice-admiral sends his compliments to you two gentlemen, and requests that you come to his quarters at once," the Naval officer said. "Follow me, please."
A few minutes later the two air aces were alone with Vice-Admiral Macon, a short, thick-set man with a face that could look hard as nails one minute, and all custard pie and sunshine the next. Right now his expression was sort of in between. He nodded politely as Dawson and Farmer presented themselves, and with a friendly wave of his hand indicated that they were to be seated. Then after searching their faces for a moment, he spoke.
"No luck yet?" he said.
"No, sir, I'm sorry to report," Dave replied for both of them. "And frankly, sir, I cannot understand it. We have visited every carrier several times, as you know, of course. And we have seen every fighter pilot at one time or another, yet I will swear that the man we want was not one of them. There's just one thing that occurs to me now, sir. Is every fighter pilot who was with the force in San Diego still with it? I mean by that, sir, because of the mission now being carried out, have any fighter pilots been transferred to torpedo or scout-bomber or dive-bomber squadrons, since the force put to sea?"
The force commander thought a moment, and then shook his head.
"No," he said bluntly. "Every man is serving just as he did when the force was at San Diego. The only changes have been the fighter pilots that were taken aboard at Pearl Harbor. I'm afraid that you're wasting your time, gentlemen. And I do know that you are causing a considerable mystery among the flying officers of the force. I do not like that, and something must be done about it. That is one of the reasons why I sent for you."
The vice-admiral paused as though to take time out to select his next words.
"Another reason," he went on a moment later, "is that by sundown tonight we will be within eight hundred miles of Truk. Unless you find your man by then ... if such a mandoesexist in my force ... you will be assigned to one of the squadrons for active duty, and are to forget all about this other business. We will be going into action tomorrow, and ... well, nobody in my command is taking this cruise just for the ride. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir," Dawson replied instantly. "As a matter of fact, sir, just before your aide summoned us to your quarters, we had decided to request permission to see you so that we could ask to be put on active flying status. We admit it, sir. We just have been along for the ride. And we appreciate more than we can say the freedom of movement that you have permitted us. So if we still haven't accomplished anything by sundown, sir, we both will be willing and eager to serve in any capacity you deem fit."
The vice-admiral nodded, and then glanced questioningly at Freddy Farmer.
"Captain Dawson speaks for both of us, sir," the English-born air ace said at once. "I am not only willing and eager to serve in any way you wish, but I will consider it a great honor, sir."
For the first time since their entrance the vice-admiral gave them a smile. It was warm, sympathetic, and full of understanding. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said. "The entire force will be glad to have you flying with us. Your past records are not exactly secrets, you know. Very well, then, you can carry on as you have been until sundown. After that you are flying and fighting for the Navy. That is all, and thank you again."
The two youths took their leave of the force commander and returned thoughtfully to the Trenton's flight deck.
"Until sundown," Dawson murmured, and squinted at the sun sliding down the western sky. "I'd say two hours, or maybe two and a half. Well, back to the old question. What do we do about it now, Freddy? A swell suggestion hasn't suddenly hit you, has it, by any chance?"
"What suggestion?" young Farmer sighed. "All I'm thinking about right now is that I hope tomorrow I get a crack at a hundred of the Jap beggars when we hit Truk."
"Well, it will take more than a hundred cracks at them, and successful cracks too, for me to feel even one degree better," Dave said. Then, as though talking to himself, he murmured, "We'll be eight hundred miles from Truk in a couple of hours or so? That means we must be about eight hundred and eighty miles from there right now."
"You're probably correct," Freddy Farmer said. "But why all the sudden figuring? What of it?"
"Only this," Dawson said, and gazed along the deck at the planes of the sundown patrol being made ready for flight. "It means that this carrier force is plenty close enough right now for our Nazi spy to get there in his Grumman Hell Cat, if he's flying one of those babies."
"And close enough, too, even if he's in a Grumman Wild Cat squadron," Freddy Farmer echoed. "But you're leading up to something, Dave."
"In a way, yes," Dawson replied slowly, and made a gesture with his hand that included all three carriers. "A last hope, you might call it. I mean, the sundown patrols for all three flat-tops are getting set to go aloft. There isn't time, and it would be foolish of us to try and pay a visit to all three carriers for a look at the pilots taking off. With preparations getting under way to launch planes we'd probably be refused permission to land on the other two flat-tops, anyway. But here's an idea, Freddy. Let's you and I take our Hell Cats up and sort of cruise around."
"Why?" young Farmer demanded. Then as his face suddenly lighted up, "Oh, you mean...?"
"Exactly that!" Dawson cut in on him. "These sundown patrols are simply top-cover protection in case there is a surprise raid by planes from some Jap carrier that maybe has sneaked in close during the day. In other words, the sundown patrols don't go wandering off. We can keep our eyes on all the ships in the air. So if our Nazi friend is flying one of them, and suddenly breaks away from his section and goes sailing off on his own, then we'll see him at once and do something about it. See what I mean?"
"Perfectly!" Freddy Farmer said excitedly. "And it's a swell idea, Dave. At any rate, it's much better than standing here on this blasted flight deck eating our hearts out. Right-o, then. Let's go get our flying gear and get into the air. I ..."
The English-born air ace suddenly stopped short, licked his lips and swallowed hard.
"What's up, pal?" Dawson demanded.
"Nothing," Freddy told him. "I just think I have a sudden feeling. You know, one of your crazy hunches. Oh, blast it, I mean that I have a queer feeling that things are going to happen before this day is done."
"Praise Allah they'll begoodthings!" Dawson breathed fervently, and headed toward the companion ladder leading below decks. "Let's go, kid!"
With considerable of their sense of usefulness and futility replaced by new-born hope and renewed determination, the two air aces hurried below to the quarters that had been assigned them aboard the Trenton, and collected their flying gear. From there they went to the Ready Room where all the up-to-the-minute flight data was posted on the huge black-board. They quickly copied it down on their flight navigation boards, and then went out of the Ready Room and along the companionway leading to the hangar deck, and the short way topside.
They were skirting the planes that were grouped on the hangar deck when suddenly Freddy Farmer gasped aloud and grabbed hold of Dawson's arm.
"Dave!" he whispered hoarsely. "Look! That chap walking past that dive bomber over there. The one just under the light. Good gosh, Dave! It can't be. I ... But it is! It is! That's the beggar, I swear. It's ..."
Young Farmer didn't finish the rest. He let go of Dawson's arm and started racing across the hangar deck at top speed. By then Dave had taken a look at the man Freddy had pointed out, and his heart was striving to explode right out between his ribs. The man was garbed in flying gear, but he carried his helmet and goggles in his hand so that his head was bare. And he was across Dawson's line of vision so that only the side of his face was presented. But that was enough. It was more than enough. In an infinitesimal part of a split second Dave Dawson's memory raced backward, and once again he was peering through a narrow crack in the side of a weather-beaten shack at a Navy ensign with straw-colored hair, eyes that must be blue, and a neck that was slightly thicker than the average neck of a man of that height. And once again, now, he could see no outstanding feature.
"Our man!" he heard his own voice choke out. "The Nazi rat. On this flat-top all the time? Right under our noses, and we haven't spotted him until now? Good grief, how did that happen? How...?"
He cut off the rest because by then he was sprinting after Freddy Farmer, and he needed all of his wind for that. Freddy was halfway across the hangar deck, and the Nazi spy was walking casually toward the companionway on the other side. Suddenly, though, perhaps because he heard Freddy's running footsteps, or perhaps because Freddy called out, he turned his head. For the bat of an eyelash he pulled up short and stared, and then he broke into a mad run.
"That man!" Freddy Farmer's voice seemed to fill the entire hangar deck. "Stop him! Stop that man!"
Young Farmer's cry was directed at an aviation machinist's mate just coming out of the companionway on the other side. The Naval rating stopped, blinked, and stared at the man running toward him.
"A Nazi spy!" Farmer shouted. "Stop him!"
But Freddy's cries were just a waste of breath. The aviation machinist's mate started to put out a hand to signal the Nazi spy that somebody wanted him, but that's as far as he got. The running spy slugged him a terrific blow on the jaw and the Naval rating went down as though the deck had dropped out from beneath him. And in the next instant the spy had dived into the companionway and disappeared. Freddy Farmer was a good fifteen yards from the companionway opening, and Dawson was another twenty yards or so behind his pal.
In an effort to cut down the distance Dawson ducked under the wing of a plane, but he didn't duck low enough. The tip of the wing caught his shoulder, threw him off balance, and sent him sprawling onto the deck. He wasn't even dazed, though, and he was up on his feet almost instantly, but by then Freddy Farmer had disappeared into the companionway, too.
Choking and gasping for breath, Dawson plunged forward and went over the prostrate aviation machinist's mate in a leap and tore into the companionway. The sudden change of light blinded him for a split second, but he knew that the companionway turned sharp right at the end of twenty yards, and that at the end of the right turn there was the companionway ladder that led directly topside to the flight deck.
By the time he reached the turn he was used to the fairly dim light. But even at that he didn't see the figure sprawled on the deck until too late. The figure of Freddy Farmer. Dawson heard his own voice cry out his pal's name as he strived desperately to swerve off to the side. But his efforts were not enough. His left foot struck one of Freddy's legs and he went flying over young Farmer, and down in a heap.
All the colored lights in the world flashed in his brain. There was so much fire in his lungs that he couldn't breathe. He could only lay motionless, his face pressed against the companionway deck as the vibrations of the carrier's engines went through his whole body. The vibrations of the ship's motions plus the dry sobs of rage and fury that shook him.
After what seemed like a million years spent in a world of torturing paralysis, the power to move and to act came back to Dave Dawson. And even as he pushed himself up on his hands and knees he heard bitter words spill from Freddy Farmer's lips as the English born air ace began to pick himself up off the deck.
"Fool that I am! The dirty beggar! Waited for me and copped me on the topper as I came around the corner. I ... Good grief! You, Dave? I say...!"
"Save it!" Dawson gasped as he got all the way onto his feet. "I haven't time, Freddy. He's topside, now. You stay here and rest that head. I'll get him for us. I'll get him, or it'll be the last thing I ever do!"
And no sooner had the last word burst from Dawson's lips than there came a mighty sound from the flight deck above to mock his words. The roaring thunder of planes taking off.
"Wait here, nothing!" Freddy Farmer cried, "We'll both get the blighter!"
Perhaps young Farmer said more. If so Dawson didn't hear it, for he was streaking toward the companionway ladder. He reached it and probably set a new ship's record for reaching the flight deck in jig time. As he leaped out on deck a hundred and one things met his gaze, but only two of them registered on his whirling brain. One was that Grumman Hell Cats were tearing off like a string of beads. And the other that weather, that practically unpredictable feature of the Southwest Pacific, was closing down. The sun was a blood red ball balanced perfectly on the lip of the world. Dark, ugly clouds were sweeping up dead on to the Trenton, which was now turning up maximum knots.
That some five or six Hell Cats had already gone off was like a mule's kick in the stomach to Dawson. Maybe the pilot of one of them was the Nazi spy. If so, in the matter of a couple of minutes he could lose himself in that weather and probably never be seen again. Maybe. And then again, maybe not. Dawson didn't pause to moan or groan over the situation. Instead he sprinted down the side of the deck to where his own Hell Cat was standing with its prop ticking over, and waiting to be run into the take-off line, in case it was needed aloft.
Dave reached his plane in the matter of split seconds, but just before he reached it Lady Luck smiled upon him for the first time in centuries and centuries. In other words, as the last plane of the sundown patrol swept by him he caught a flash look at its pilot. The pilot had his helmet on, and his goggles and oxygen cup were in place, but Dawson knew in a flash that it was his man. As a matter of fact, as the Hell Cat streaked by the pilot turned his head as though to look at Dawson, and Dave was sure he saw the eyes light up with a glare of triumphant hate.
Perhaps that last was simply a trick of his imagination. He didn't know. All he knew was that the pilot of the last Grumman to take off was the straw-colored haired man he had seen through the wall crack of that shack back in San Diego. That was certain, it was absolutely definite, and it put wings on his feet for the last few yards to his plane.
Members of the deck crew saw him coming, and naturally assuming that he was to take part in the patrol just as he had on other occasions, they sprang forward to aid him. That was another lucky break. It saved many precious minutes of explaining and making ready for flight. And so it seemed that he had hardly settled himself in the Hell Cat's pit before the signalman was motioning him to gun his engine and taxi into the take-off line. He did that and as soon as he got into position he received the signal to go ahead.
He gunned his powerful Pratt & Whitney full, and the Hell Cat seemed fairly to leap out from under him. Out the corner of his eye he caught a flash glimpse of Freddy Farmer racing toward his plane, but he didn't take time out for a good look. Not once all this time had he really taken his eyes off the plane flown by the Nazi spy. Its identification letter and number were burned in his brain. F Dash Fourteen. That was it. F Dash Fourteen. The mark of a perfect fighter plane flown by one of Hitler's killers.
"But you won't be flying it for long, you dirty rat!" Dave grated as his wheels cleared and the Trenton's deck swept away out of sight beneath him. "It's been a long, long time patching up with you. But that's all ended now. This is the pay-off! And how it is the pay-off!"
As he spoke the last he took his eyes off the other plane for the first time to snap a quick glance back down over his shoulder. He saw another Hell Cat streaking off the Trenton's deck, and he knew at once that Freddy Farmer was at the controls. A tight grin stretched his lips as he turned forward.
"Good old Freddy, always right there with me," he grunted. "Of course it'll be two to one, you Nazi rat, when usually the odds are the other way around. However ..."
And that was as far as he got with that. The Nazi's plane, that had been climbing up to get into formation with the rest of the sundown patrol, suddenly cut off to the left and started down in a long power dive. The maneuver brought Dawson straight up in the seat. Had something happened? Had the Nazi gone mad? Why was he losing precious altitude by slicing downward? To do that simply made less sky for Dawson to cover to catch up with him, or at least to get into gun range.
A brief instant later, though, all those questions were answered. As Dave glanced down to the left he saw the thin but thick enough blanket of fog that was already sliding in over the outer ships of the carrier force. Just one look and he knew all the answers, and once again heard the mocking laughter of defeat in his ears.
Yes, that sea level fog layer, was thin, but it was thick enough for a plane to lose itself in very nicely. Perhaps it even grew thicker farther to the south. Dawson couldn't tell as he glanced that way. But he could see that farther south there were banked storm clouds.
"No, no, not now!" he groaned as he kicked his Hell Cat around and down toward that layer of fog. "Not at this late date, please, Lady Luck!"
But if Lady Luck answered it was simply the mocking laughter that he still imagined to be ringing in his ears. And then a moment or two later the Nazi's Grumman was in the fog layer and no more than a faint shadow ripping forward. A shadow that grew fainter and fainter as precious seconds slipped by. In the frantic hope that he could keep track of the speeding plane by not plunging down into the fog layer, Dawson pulled out a few hundred feet above it and held his course to the south. But presently there was no more moving shadow to be seen. The fog had thickened, and the Nazi was gone! As a matter of fact, when Dave took an impulsive glance back over his shoulder he discovered that he was in an aerial world all his own. There was no longer any sign of the carrier force, nor was there any sign of carrier planes in the air. There seemed to be fog and clouds all about him, yet curiously enough the light from the setting sun seemed to cut through and lend a pinkish glow to everything in that part of the world.
"Freddy, Freddy Farmer!" Dawson suddenly gasped, as he suddenly remembered his pal taking off. "Didn't Freddy see this bird and me go down? Didn't ... You dope! Find out!"
He snapped the last at himself when it occurred to him there was such a thing as a radio. He had neglected to hook it up during the excitement of his take-off. He did so now, but before he could call out over the air to Freddy he heard the flight officer aboard the Trenton recalling the planes. The planes that had taken off from the other two carriers were being recalled, too. In code, of course, so that no listening Jap ears anywhere on the broad expanse of the Pacific would understand what it was all about.
As Dawson heard the orders he was tempted to break in and tell what had happened and request that all available planes be sent out in an effort to block off the Nazi. But he checked himself even as the desire was born. The recall was being sent out for a very, very obvious reason. Weather was closing down fast and it would soon be impossible for any of the carriers to take their aircraft aboard. They would have to circle about waiting for the weather to clear, or find a large enough hole to get down through. Failing either, they would finally run out of fuel and be forced down into the sea, perhaps to be lost forever. And a mighty aircraft carrier task force about to go into battle could ill afford to lose any great number of its fighter aircraft protection.
"Skip it!" Dawson grunted with an unconscious shake of his head. "They wouldn't be any help, anyway, in this weather. You just can't ask Vice-Admiral Macon to run the risk of losing so many planes, and not even find the rat. No, it's up to you. You, and Freddy Farmer, wherever he is. But call him and ..."
He stopped himself with another and more vigorous shake of his head. And for several moments he droned forward at full throttle, striving to stab the fog layer that stretched out endlessly beneath him. With reaches of cloud scud a couple of thousand feet above him, it was like flying down a long, long, pink-tinted corridor in a world of beautiful make believe. But it was not beautiful or make believe to Dawson. He hated that sun-tinted fog layer with his entire being. And it was cruel, ugly, heartless reality, and not make believe.
"No, don't call Freddy on your radio!" he said to himself. "He may not be even close. Keep radio silence. You've got to. That Nazi rat has ears, and he certainly understands English. At least don't let him know that you're trying to hunt him out. He'll ..."
And it was at that instant that the light dawned on Dawson. It was at that moment that his stupid thinking left him, and he got a little horse sense to take its place. What he should really do was so simple, so obvious, and so clear that his cheeks went oven hot from a blush of shame.
"You ten-cent, cockeyed, bat-brained dope!" he ranted at himself. "Of course, of course! That rat is trying to make Truk, isn't he? That'shisobjective, isn't it? Certainly! Then why flub-dub around in this stuff hoping that he'll break up through to let you see where he is? You sap, get this air wagon hitting on everything it's got, and high tail for Truk yourself. Don't try to smoke this ratout! Get to the Truk area first, and smoke himdown!"
With a savage nod of his head to emphasize his words, he quickly made a check of the course and speed he had flown since taking off from the Trenton's flight deck, and then plotted a course thatshouldtake him to that little cluster of pin point islands, surrounded by a coral reef, thirty-five to forty miles in diameter, known as Truk. Yes, it should take him there, and he hoped and prayed so with all his heart and soul. Just the same a cold lump of lead formed in his chest and came up to lodge fast in his throat no matter how much he swallowed to get it back down.
"If only Freddy were with me!" he sighed as he swung his Hell Cat on course, and gave the Pratt & Whitney in the nose every ounce of high octane it would take. "Blindfolded, that guy can find any spot in the world just so long as you give him wind direction, or something. Yeah, if he were only here, but he isn't. This is strictly up to you, Captain Dumb Dawson. And I do mean dumb, too. You took so long to get this one logical idea that maybe that Nazi rat is miles and miles on his way there now. And when you show up you'll get a sky full of Jap Zeros thrown in your face for your efforts. Oh well ... Aw, skip it!"
As though to silence the little taunting, ribbing voice, he banged his free fist against the side of the cockpit. That done, he hunched forward a little bit in the seat and concentrated every bit of his attention on his flying. Eight hundred miles to Truk? Well, a Hell Cat can do four hundred miles an hour plus. So in a little under two hours he would be there, and ... it would be yes, or no. Success or failure. And if it was failure, it would be complete failure for him. There would be no turning back to the carrier force with his tail between his legs. There just wasn't enough gas in his tanks for that. If he didn't find the Nazi rat in time, and if he didn't get shot down by Zeros that certainly must be patrolling the Truk area, he would run out of gas and be forced into enemy waters.
"And that will be the same as being shot down, and maybe worse!" he said with a slight shudder as the thought forced its way into his brain. "Wouldn't those Jap butchers love to find a Yank pilot floating around in his rubber life raft! Wouldn't they just lovethat! A nice little pleasant session of target practice, and then ... Cut it, Dawson! Cut it, fellow, or you'll be driving yourself bats, do you hear?"
He laughed a dry laugh at his ranting words, and then sobered instantly. He happened to glance impulsively off to his left and for the fleeting part of a second he thought he saw the shadowy silhouette of another plane sliding along through the pinkness that fused and engulfed everything. But when he took a second and longer look there was nothing but a limitless expanse of cloud and fog.
At the end of a half-hour or so the fog beneath him thinned out considerably. He could see faint patches of the Pacific. And then after ten minutes of that the fog disappeared entirely. Rather it rose up to merge with the clouds and leave an area of clear air some five hundred feet high, and the horizon-to-horizon reaches of the mighty Southwest Pacific at the bottom.
Holding the Hell Cat to its course Dawson scanned the surface of the water in all directions, but he did not see a single sign of a ship. Nor did he see any planes when he searched the area of clear air all about him. He was still alone in a world of his own, and for a couple of minutes he toyed with the idea of climbing above the clouds, just in case the fleeing Nazi had done that, and he might be able to spot him. He finally killed off that idea, though, for the principal reason that it would slow down his speed, and he did not have to have anybody tell him that speed right now was the most precious thing in his life.
Speed and time. The two things that can change the whole course of the world. And which have many times, as history will prove. Right now, they hung in the balance again. At least for him. The speed of his roaring Hell Cat. And the time it would take him to get to the Truk area so that he might cut that Nazi rat down into the depths of the Pacific to stay there for all eternity. And so that the information he was taking to one Admiral Shimoda might be food for the fishes, too.
"And there won't be any little item of him getting me, instead," Dawson grated softly, as a little inner voice seemed to mention that possibility. "I've never scrapped him in the air, but he's one guy IknowI can nail. I know it, because I know I'vegotto! So that's how it stands, Lady Luck. Just give me the break of being able to catch up with him, and then leave the rest to me. Swell-headed and cocky? Okay, so I am! But let me at him and I'll get him, just the same!"
Those and other tidbits of thought rambled through his brain and came off his lips as he guided his Hell Cat forward under the low-hanging overcast. This was the flight of flights for him. It was, because even if he won he would still lose as far as his own life was concerned. Even if he shot the Nazi spy down into the Pacific he himself would soon follow the rat down there. Not because he had been hit, or wanted to. Because he would have no choice. There would not be any gas left in his plane. And all the guts and courage in the world; all the fighting spirit and will-to-win determination that ever existed, cannot make an airplane stay in the air when the last drop of gas has been sucked into the engine. The age-old law of gravity comes into full force then, and down you go whether you like it or not.
"Okay, I go down, so what?" he argued with his other self. "What does it matter, if I've already sent that rat down where he belongs? A fellow can't live forever, can he? All right, so why cry over it when your time comes? Didn't some great man once say that the most beautiful experience in life is death? Didn't...?"
He cut off the rest with a slow shake of his head, pushed up his goggles, and drew his free hand across his eyes.
"When a guy starts talking to himself this way, he must be going nuts," he grunted. "Boy! Do I wish old Freddy were here with me to steady me a little, like he's done so many times. Good old Freddy! I wonder where he is, now? Did he go back to the Trenton when the recall went out? Or is he...?"
He stopped and swallowed hard. Sure, why not? Freddy had brains. Twice as many brains as he had about lots of things. It wouldn't be any miracle for Freddy Farmer to figure the situation out the same way he had, and to be doing the very same thing that he was doing right now. And as that thought built itself up stronger and stronger in his brain he searched the clear air about him again. But he saw nothing. If Freddy Farmer, too, was winging all out toward the Truk area, then he was somewhere up in those clouds.
No sooner had he figured that one out than two brand-new thoughts rushed into his swirling brain to taunt him, and cause little beads of nervous sweat to form on his face. Supposing Freddy Farmer by some miracle had stumbled across that fleeing Nazi and slammed him down, just as a marksman such as Freddy could do? If so, thenhewas simply flying to his death by drowning, or ultimate capture by the Japs, for no earthly good reason.
That wasn't a pleasant thought, and it sent a clammy shiver rippling throughout his body. And the other new thought made him shiver all the more. Supposing—just supposing this cursed cloud weather carried all the way to Truk? Supposing the Nazi spy stayed up in it until he was well within the protective ring of Truk's Zeros? If that turned out to be the case, he wouldn't get a crack at that rat in a hundred years. Ten to one that Nazi knew some secret radio signal he could send out to tell the Japs who was approaching and not to attack simply because it was a Yank plane. Supposing ...
And right then and there Dave Dawson stopped his supposing about things. In fact, he stopped thinking of all crazy things. The clouds above him suddenly ceased abruptly. The Pacific ahead suddenly became as though on fire from the dying rays of the setting sun. It was like flying out from under a huge pink roof. He came out like a shot from a gun, and almost in the same instant he saw a flash of red ... a flash of sparkling crimson caused by the sun rays dancing off the wings of a plane way off to his right and perhaps two or three thousand feet above him.
The Nazi rat, or Freddy Farmer? That question burned in letters of fire a foot high in his brain, as he banked his Hell Cat to the right, and sent it nosing upward.
Never before had Dave Dawson been so eager, so all on fire, to establish the identity of a sighted plane as he was now. Every nerve and muscle in his entire body became tensed, and actually ached from the strain. Time and time again, as the prop clawed his Hell Cat upward and to the right, he shoved up his goggles and dashed his free hand across his tired eyes as though by so doing he would improve his vision.
Truth to tell, under any other conditions he would have been able to get a clear view of the plane even before he started to climb toward it. But the position of the dying sun, the glossy red surface of the Southwest Pacific below him, and the tiny patches of cloud that still hung in the sky were all against him. They all worked to distort the distant plane into all kinds of shapes and outlines. It was something like trying to study a fly through red-colored glasses as the fly circled about a brilliant white light. One instant he would almost see it clearly, and the next it would seem to fade from view altogether, and send his pounding heart racing up into his throat.
"That Nazi rat, or you, Freddy?" he muttered aloud. "And forgive me, Freddy, but I hope that it isn't you. Because if it is you, fellow, then we have lost. He'd have to be out in the open now. So if that ship is yours, Freddy, it can't mean anything else but that he is way out in front of us, and too close to Truk for us ever to hope to get him. You see ..."
But Dawson didn't finish the rest of that sentence. It was as though a thin curtain had been pulled across the face of the setting sun. A mighty shadow pushed eastward across the face of the world, and there was considerably less blinding crimson light. The plane, now little more than half a mile away, and less than a thousand feet above Dawson's aircraft, stood out sharp and clear. And the plane was a U.S. Navy Hell Cat.
"The markings, the markings!" Dawson breathed, and strained his eyes hard to see something besides the sharp, clear silhouette of the other plane. "Is it F Dash Fourteen? Or Freddy's number F Dash Twenty? Please make it Fourteen, Lady Luck! If you never give me another good break, please give me just this one. Make it Fourteen, please!"
Five, ten, fifteen seconds ticked by. They seemed as years in length to Dawson. Cannons boomed in his brain, and he felt pins and needles in his veins, not blood. He wanted to shout and yell at the top of his voice. He wanted to do anything that would make it possible for him to see the identification markings on that other plane. The urge was great to let fly a few blasts from his fifty-caliber guns to attract the attention of the other pilot, but with an effort he fought down that urge.
If the Nazi was flying that other Hell Cat, it would be the worst thing in the world for Dawson to fire his guns. At least at this early moment. It would be bad because the other Hell Cat was still some distance away and slightly in front of Dawson's plane. In other words, there was still time for the pilot of that other plane, if he was the Nazi, to keep a safe distance from Dawson and outrun him to the protection of Zeros from Truk.
No, this was a cat-and-mouse play. If that was Freddy Farmer then this stealing up unnoticed was a waste of time. But if it was the Nazi then this maneuver was the best bet in Dawson's bag of air fighting tricks. Right! Get in close, and make sure. Make sure, and then tear in for the kill. And a kill it would be, if that pilot was the Nazi.
"Steady, guy, steady!" Dawson murmured as his nerves began to twang like harp strings. "No matter who it is you'll find out soon. So don't overplay it, fellow. If it's him, then this will be your last chance. No more chances after this one. No. This is the pay-off, the old make or break. The ..."
Perhaps Lady Luck smiled upon Dave Dawson at that moment, but most likely it was the result of action by the other pilot. At any rate, the other Hell Cat veered slightly toward the south and the rays of the dying sun played full upon the side of the fuselage. And like magic the plane's markings stood out in bold relief. The markings, F Dash Fourteen!
"You, itisyou!" Dawson panted, and slid his thumb up to the stick button that controlled the electric firing of his gun. "It is you, and I've got you cold. Cold as a chunk of Arctic ice!"
The gods of war in their high places thought differently at that instant. Even as Dawson's thumb started to press down on the trigger button the other Hell Cat swerved sharply and cut right out of the Yank air ace's sights. True, the maneuver brought the Nazi even closer. In fact, that one maneuver sort of put the two aircraft on even terms. That is to say, the Nazi no longer had any safety lead over Dawson's plane. Neither could outfly the other on the flat, now, unless one of the engines went bad.
"Okay by me, chump!" Dawson grated as he relaxed thumb pressure on the gun button. "Make the turn and ..."
And right then and there the Nazi proved that his maneuver had a purpose. It proved that he had, for some time at least, been aware of the fact that Dawson was sneaking up on him. In other words, the Nazi's swerve was not to change course toward the Truk area. On the contrary it was a deliberate air battle tactic. A swerve to the left, and then suddenly the Nazi came spinning around and down like a flame-spitting demon from Satan's domain.
A far less experienced pilot than Dawson would have died then and there. He would have died, hardly realizing what had hit him.
Too many, many times, though, had Dawson scrapped with the best that the Nazis or the Japs had to offer not to be able to react instinctively to approaching danger. Thus it was, and almost before the thing had become a thought in his brain, he pulled up straight for the sky in the nick of time. The Nazi's withering fire missed him.
At the speed the diving Nazi was traveling it was impossible for him to haul up his nose and get a new bead on Dawson's zooming ship. As a result he undershot his target and went cutting down across the sky.
"Which makes me top man now!" Dawson yelled, and kicked his Hell Cat over and down. "And I kind of like that. Now, wiggle and squirm, you rat. Let me see you twist away from these little things."
Thundering down almost at the vertical, he lined up the other Hell Cat and let go with all of his guns. That is, almost all of his guns. Something was wrong with two of them, and they did not fire. The others, however, did their stuff. And with grim satisfaction Dawson saw his tracers chew into the tail of the Nazi's plane. It wasn't enough, though. The Hell Cat is a very, very tough ship. It can absorb all kinds of punishment, and the Nazi's Hell Cat was no exception to the rule. Dave Dawson saw it stagger a little in the air, but before he could correct his aim the Nazi was prop clawing upward and around to the left.
"Not enough, huh?" Dawson gritted, and hauled out of his own dive to follow through the Nazi's maneuver. "Well, I'm just the guy who can give you more. Likethis!"
He was not in position for a tail shot then. The Nazi had pulled out too fast, and his Hell Cat was not letting him down. As a matter of fact, though, it was the kind of a shot that Dawson liked best of all. A rear quarter shot that would permit him to rake the other plane from prop to tail before its pilot could do anything to get out of the way.
The Nazi pilot seemed to sense that truth, and there was no reason he shouldn't sense it in view of the fact that he had been flying as a dirty Nazi spy in Uncle Sam's Navy. Anyway, he belted his plane hard over on wing and tried to whip it down to the vertical. But Dawson followed right through and pressed his trigger button. And it was then that it happened!
Rather, it was then that itdidn'thappen!
With the Nazi cold meat in his sights, not a one of Dawson's guns fired a shot. Maybe it was that a stray bullet from the Nazi's opening burst had hit something that threw the firing mechanism out of whack. Maybe it was for any one of a hundred different reasons. The cold hard fact was that not one of his guns spoke its piece. And in the next split second the Nazi was out of his sights and in the clear.
During that brief split second Dawson's brain seemed to freeze solid in unbelievable horror. Yet instinct was at work again. Instinct that made him try every way he knew to get his guns working. But it was all in vain. The joke was on him, and the war gods up in their high places were screaming with insane glee.
"No! Oh, no!"
From countless miles away Dawson's own sobbing words echoed back to him. His heart was lead in his stomach, and his head was filled with the flames of an all-consuming rage. Yet with all that he did not give up the ghost and just let his Hell Cat roar down across the sky. The Nazi did not know that his guns had gone out on him. Ten to one the Nazi simply thought that he had kicked his own plane out of the line of fire, and so Dawson had saved his bullets for another try.
At any rate Dawson did not give up. He was made of better stuff than that. Gunless though he was, he still had the advantage of position. He had the Nazi on the defensive, and as long ashecould keep the offensive he had not truly lost.
"And after all, I've still got one trick left!" he said hoarsely. "One trick that will stop you from reaching Truk, so help me!"
As though the Nazi pilot had actually heard the words, the other Hell Cat zoomed for altitude in a pilot's trick to cut the corner and drop down from above. Dawson was not to be tricked by that one, however. He zoomed himself, and prevented the Nazi from cutting in behind. The Nazi tried it again in the opposite direction, but Dawson stayed right with him, and even improved his position in relation to the Nazi's plane.
But it couldn't last, and no one knew it better than Dave Dawson. A half dozen times he got the Nazi in a cold meat position, and was helpless to do anything about it. And by then the Nazi knew, or could make a pretty good guess as to what was what. As a matter of fact, in the very next moment the movements of the Nazi's plane proved what was going through the pilot's head. The Nazi started to zoom up off to the left, and then deliberately cut off the zoom and flew right smack across Dawson's sights. Hot tears of rage almost blinded Dave as he saw the Nazi's Hell Cat sail by looking as big as a battleship. The greenest pilot ever to fire an aerial machine gun could not have missed that target completely.
It was then that the Nazi pilot knew for certain, and as his helmeted head was turned Dawson's way for an instant Dave thought he saw the other's face flame up in a look of mad triumph. Dave thought he saw that look, but it might have been his imagination. To tell the truth, his whole attention was on something else. The time to lose or win had arrived. He had fooled the Nazi as long as he could. By his flying he had made the Nazi wonder a little, and then wonder more and more until the Hitlerite took a chance to find out for sure. He did find out, and he probably thought that victory was his now. He could swing away and go on to Truk without danger. Or he could first stick around and polish off this gunless American who had intercepted him.
Yes, perhaps the Nazi thought all those things as he sailed by the front of Dawson's nose and received not a single bullet. But what he probably did not realize was that his instant of mad triumph was Dawson's moment for a last desperate gamble. A gamble in which one and perhaps both could lose.
"Make the most of it, rat! Here I come!"
Words? Had he spoken them? Or had they simply been the echo of a thought racing through his whirling spinning brain? Dawson didn't know, and he didn't care. He wasn't thinking of anything, now. That time had passed. The time had passed for everything save for mad, furious, smashing action that would stop this Nazi from reaching the Truk area, and rob Admiral Shimoda forever of what he was now probably waiting for with gleaming eyes and drooling mouth.
In the next split second a hundred and one things loomed up large in Dawson's brain. He saw the Nazi's marking F Dash Fourteen stretched up tall as a house. He saw the color of the fuselage with the last rays of the sun dancing off its smooth surface. He saw the Nazi's Hell Cat start to swerve violently. He saw its nose drop down and its tail kick up. He saw the Nazi turn his head and saw him impulsively fling up one arm. He really saw this time the look of wild terror that flooded the Nazi's face.
"Nope! You still lose!"
Like a soothing, comforting whisper those words filtered back to Dave Dawson. And then he slammed his Hell Cat over on left wing, and kicked top rudder with every ounce of his strength. For the infinitesimal part of a split second his plane and the Nazi's plane seemed to hang motionless in mid-air. And then his lower wing sliced against the Nazi's fuselage and cockpit hatch.
He knew that, because he saw it in the fraction of time allowed. And then all the furies of land, sea, and air exploded all about him. All the colors of the rainbow surged into his brain in brilliant balls that blew up in a terrific crescendo of sound. Ten thousand spears of fire pierced every square inch of his body. And demons with red hot sledge hammers pounded their way down into his brain.
Then for an instant, and as though by magic, all sound faded away, and his vision was as clear as crystal. Directly in front of him, so close that he could almost reach out his hand and touch it, was the smoking wreckage of two Grumman Hell Cats entwined about each other. He clearly saw the markings F Dash Fourteen on one of them. But he could not see the cockpit as a section of wing covered it like a steel band. He thought he saw something start to fall slowly away from the hovering mess of wreckage, but a red film slid across his eyes and the falling object was blotted out.
Yet even as the red blurred his vision his whirling brain functioned at lightning speed. He knew that he had been thrown clear of his Hell Cat, and that he had seen the two crashed ships as his body went tumbling seaward in a free fall. Fall? He was falling? Then he had to yank the rip cord ring of his parachute. Where was it? He couldn't find it. Or was that because he couldn't move his right arm? Couldn't, because there was no right arm there now? Had he lost his right arm?
But what did it matter? Why bother to pull his rip cord ring anyway? The opportunity to float down to his death, rather than hurtle down and get it over with quickly? Death was death, no matter how it came to you. Certainly it was. You only died once. And this was it, for him. Well, weren't a lot of others doing the same thing in this war? Sure! Thousands of them. Millions of them. Wonder what Freddy Farmer will say? Wonder where Freddy is, now? Good old Freddy Farmer. No fellow ever had a pal like Freddy. God created only one Freddy Farmer. Good old Freddy....
What was that noise? It would be nice to see once more. Blind as a bat, now, though. Everything red, and growing redder. A deep, deep red. A funny noise, that. Like a plane. The planes of other pilots who had died? Did a pilot go on flying after he was dead? As dying people hear voices of those who have gone before them, did a dying pilot hear the planes of pilots who had already gone? A funny sound, but a nice sound. Just like an aircraft engine. No sound in all the world so deeply thrilling as the sweet song of an aircraft engine, and the hymn sung by wings in the wind. You had to be a pilot to know that.
So this was it? Well, that was okay. No pain at all. A sort of comforting silence. Like slipping off to sleep in a nice soft bed.
A nice warm comfy bed. And a soothing silence all about. Rest, beautiful rest in a world of fluffy white silence. It ...
Like a half drowned man groping his way up through fathoms of silent waters to the surface, Dave Dawson rose up from the depths of unconsciousness. And as a man saved from drowning remembers things that passed through his mind while down in the depths, so were Dawson's first conscious thoughts a continuance of what he had been thinking in another world. A nice, warm comfy bed, and ...
And though it was still dark all about, the sense of touch returned to him, and his finger tips telegraphed to his brain the fact that he was actually in a warm, comfy bed. He could feel smooth sheets, and a soft mattress underneath him. And then little by little he became conscious of sound. Not individual sounds, but a merging of all different kinds of sound into a sort of faintly pulsating murmur. And with that faintly pulsating murmur there came to him a sense of motion, too. A gentle vibration that traveled throughout his entire body.
It had all the effect of lulling him into deep and untroubled slumber. But in that it did not quite succeed. It didn't because at that moment his eyes opened slowly and there was the image of Freddy Farmer's face centered in a vast expanse of white. But it was more than an image of Freddy, for the lips moved back in a smile, the eyes glistened with joy, and then came the spoken words.
"That's better, my lad. How do you feel, Dave?"
Dawson stared for a moment, and then closed his eyes tight, but when he opened them again Freddy Farmer's smiling face was still there.
"You dead, too, Freddy?" he heard his own voice speak. "How did it happen, fellow?"
The smiling lips broke into a chuckle, and Freddy Farmer shook his head in positive negation.
"Not a bit of it, old thing," he said. "I'm not dead, and neither are you. Though by rights you should be. How do the arm and leg feel?"
"Not dead?" Dawson mumbled, as he strived to get his brain functioning faster. "And what arm, and what leg?"
"Yours," Freddy Farmer said. "The left one. Your arm you broke, and your leg you wrenched pretty badly. And you smashed up your face a bit. But, as usual, you'll pull through. You must have protected the rest of your body with your head when you crashed into that blighter. If you'd only waited, though. I wouldn't have let the beggar get away. Your guns went out, eh?"
Dawson didn't say anything for a moment. Instead he used that moment to take stock of himself as best he could. It was rather difficult, because the lower half of his face was bandaged, and the bandages prevented him from looking down his body. It was easy enough to tell, though, that something was wrong with his left leg and left arm. He couldn't move either of them, and to attempt it started little pains shooting around.
"Yeah, my guns went haywire for some unknown reason," he said eventually. "So I had to down the rat the only way I could. But what do you meanyouwouldn't have let him get away?"
"Well, I don't think so," Freddy Farmer said. "True, I was still quite a bit away when you barged into him, but I think I would have caught up with him. I screamed blue murder at you over the radio, but I guess your set was balmy, too."
"Didn't hook it up," Dave said. "At the start, I mean. Decided to keep radio silence. I ... Hey! Then you got the same idea as me, huh? You lost him in that fog, and then decided to light out for the Truk area?"
"Quite," young Farmer said. "I lost you both. My radio was on and I heard all our planes recalled. I ignored the order, knowing blasted well that that Nazi beggar wouldn't go back. I didn't think you would, either. I fancied it would be a three-plane race to the Truk area. And that's the way it turned out. Not bad flying for any of us, what, to get there almost at the same time. But, do you know something, Dave? Know why we didn't spot that blighter sooner?"
"Because we were blind, I guess," Dawson grunted. "Or maybe he spotted us and hid behind something every time we came along."
"No, it wasn't that at all," Freddy said. "It was because he wasn't aboard any of the carriers until the middle of the afternoon of the day we spotted him."
"He what?" Dawson gasped. "But how come...?"
"One of those crazy bits of luck that people have without asking," young Farmer said. "Or perhaps the beggar did have some kind of a premonition that we were coming after him. Anyway, when the force was one day out from Pearl Harbor one of the scouting pilots aboard one of the cruisers came down sick. Word was sent to the Trenton for a replacement pilot to be sent over. And our friend was the one sent. The flight officer on the Trenton handled the business, and Vice-Admiral Macon didn't know a thing about it. That was natural, because he had bigger things to worry about. The officers under him took charge of minor details. Anyway, the sick pilot got fit for duty again, and our friend came back aboard the Trenton. In the cruiser's motor launch, of course. I sort of half remember seeing a motor launch pull alongside us that day. But maybe it's simply my imagination, now that I know there was one. Anyway, his name on the Trenton was Brown. Yes, Brown. A nice old American name, with never a Nazi hint about it, the blighter!"
"Well, for cat's sake!" Dawson exploded. "Why didn't somebody tell us that one fighter pilot had been sent to a cruiser to double for a sick guy? What were we supposed to be, mind readers, or crystal ball gazers, or something? If...!"
"Easy, old thing!" Freddy Farmer said in alarm. "You're in bad enough shape as you are without blowing your top. It was just one of those things. The press of shipboard duties made them forget about Brown's transference, and the vice-admiral didn't know. Perhaps the ones who could have told us didn't take the spy scare very seriously. I'm thankful enough that he was from the Trenton and not from one of the other carriers. Otherwise he would have returned to it that day and we'd never have spotted him. But if I'm getting you all riled up, Dave, I'd better get out of here and have the surgeon pop in and give you something to put you back to sleep."
"No, don't go, Freddy, I ..." Dave stopped short, gasped, and stared at his pal wide-eyed. "Hey! Wait a minute!" he cried. "Where am I, and how the heck did I get here?"
"You're in the Trenton's sick bay," Freddy Farmer said. "And a cruiser seaplane brought you back the day before yesterday. Brought us both back, as a matter of fact."
"Both?" Dawson echoed in amazement. "You, too? But ... Oh! You ran out of gas and dropped into the drink, huh? And a scouting sea plane found us both? Practically within spitting distance of Truk?"
"Well, it wasn't exactly like that, Dave," Freddy Farmer said, and a faint flush seeped into his cheeks. "The truth of the matter is that when I saw you parachute down to the water and float around in your Mae West ... and you can thank it for keeping your face out of water ... I decided that it was only fair for me to share what I had with you. So I landed as close to you as I dared, got out my rubber life raft and paddled over and pulled you aboard. The next morning the carrier force planes all came over, and a cruiser seaplane was good enough to land and carry us both back here. Sturdy planes those seaplanes to carry two extra passengers. The observer and I had quite a job holding onto you, but we made it, as you can see."
"Old Freddy, the Dawson lifesaver!" Dave breathed as a warm glow stole through him. "How many times has it been, Freddy? Twenty-nine or sixty-nine times that you've cheated death for me?"
"Rot!" young Farmer snorted. "After all, I didn't have the gas to get back. I had to sit down. I'd have shared my life raft with any poor devil the same as I did with you. I ... Oh, blast it! I'd feel frightfully lost without you around, old thing, you know."
"Yeah, I can guess," Dawson grinned. Then the grin faded as he said soberly, "I wonder if that Nazi rat went down with his plane, or if he bailed out, too, and maybe got picked up by some Japs."
"No, the Japs didn't pick him up," Freddy Farmer said evenly. "I was close enough to see that you were the only one who fell clear of that wreckage, and opened your parachute. And even if he had got clear and gone down by 'chute, the Japs at Truk were too busy the next day to bother picking him up."
"So I did pull my rip cord ring," Dawson breathed, as memory of those weird crazy moments between life and death came back to him. "Yanked the ring, and didn't even realize I was doing it. It sure is funny how ... Hey! What did you say, Freddy? The Japs at Truk were too busy next day?"
"Certainly," Freddy Farmer said. "This carrier force. Remember? They hit against Truk that next day, and the next. That's how a scouting seaplane happened to spot us and take us aboard. Why, I understand that one pilot was shot down right inside the Truk coral reef and picked up by a cruiser seaplane. Stout fellows, those cruiser seaplane pilots and observers. A lot of the dirty work, and no credit to speak of. But the Truk show was wonderful, Dave. I got in one flight there, myself, as a gunner on a torpedo plane. Think I even got me a Jap plane, but I'm not sure. But it was a marvelous victory. We sank nineteen of their ships, is the report. And the number of Jap planes shot down has been placed, at two hundred and one for the two-day show. Imagine! And all the raid cost us was seventeen planes. Not one of our ships was damaged. The Navy chaps certainly gave Hirohito and Tojo a lot to cry about this time!"
"And while all that was going on I've been here out cold and trussed up like a roasted pig!" Dawson groaned. "Now, I ask you! Is that crummy luck, or is that crummy luck?"
Freddy Farmer stared at him and shook his head in mock sadness.
"Yes, yes, quite true," he said with a sigh. "A beastly shame. A blasted dirty trick played on you. As I said to Vice-Admiral Macon, I said, 'See here, Vice-Admiral! My friend Dawson is slightly under the weather, and you have no business sending all these ships and planes and men against the Japs at Truk until Dawson is better. After all, you know, Vice-Admiral, Dawson is the ...'"
"Okay, okay, don't say it!" Dawson laughed. "I'm a selfish guy. I admit it. Just the same, I sure hate to miss things."
"No doubt," Freddy Farmer said with a grin. "But don't forget, in the future, also to concentrate on things missingyou! And you know what things I mean!"
"So help me, Daddy, I'll never fly into another plane," Dawson said with a faint yawn. "But thank you for everything, kind sir, and now go away and let me sleep."
"Consider me gone, old thing," Freddy Farmer said softly, and smiled down at his pal's closed eyes.