“You smelled a mouse?” Stan grinned.
“I smelled a very dead one,” Allison answered. “Let’s locate O’Malley. He should be over in the quarters reserved for flight commanders.”
They barged into the quarters of the flight officers and looked around. O’Malley was not present but several men sat at a table playing chess. They moved over and stood beside the table.
“We’re looking for Commander O’Malley,” Stan said.
One of the boys looked up. He was wearing new and shiny insignia of a major. He grinned up at Stan and Allison, his eyes taking in their service stripes.
“I guess you mean Flight Leader O’Malley,” he said. “You should be able to find him over at Mess Three.”
“So, he’s already gotten himself shifted to flight leader,” Stan said, matching the major’s grin. “How’d he manage it?”
“By eating a pie while Colonel Benson was delivering a lecture on how to capture Italy,” the major chuckled.
“So he’s back on the firing line. I say, that’s just where he wanted to be,” Allison said.
“No, he didn’t rate that well,” the major explained. “The Old Man chucked him into a job of ferrying planes to Malta so we’d have some reserves in close to Sicily. Less than an hour ago O’Malley told me it was a quiet and peaceful job, but one he didn’t like.”