"Yes, Dave?" came back the equally faint whisper. "Wondering about what?"
"If—" Dave began, and paused. "I mean, maybe we're all wet about this business. There's not an engine out there ticking over, and it's darn close to dawn. You'd think they'd be warming them up now, if they expected to go out at a moment's notice. In other words, I'm wondering if Major General Hawker was right. If this bunch really does have any connection with the President's trip to Casablanca?"
"I'm sure it must have, Dave," Freddy Farmer replied after a few seconds of silence. "Everything absolutely adds up to that. In my mind, there's no doubt about it. As for warming up the engines, the blighters are up and about. No doubt they'll start them up any minute now. May be waiting for a bit more light, you know. The point is, what are we—"
The English-born air ace never finished that question. He didn't because at that moment a figure garbed in the uniform of the Nazi Luftwaffe rushed out of a little camouflaged hut on the left side of the desert strip and shouted orders at the top of his voice. He spoke in German, of course, but both Dawson and Farmer knew the language, and so—and so absolute confirmation of the truth was given them.
"All pilots and crews report to Herr Kommandant at once!" the voice bellowed in a note of wild, frenzied excitement. "Der Tag has come! The signal has just been received from Casablanca. Your targets are approaching there now. The American Schweinehunds, and the English ones, too. Der Tag has come! Heil Hitler!"
A brief moment of silence settled over everything. And then a silence-shattering roar came from many throats.
"Heil Hitler!"
Bombs were exploding in Dave Dawson's brain, and his heart was pumping madly in his chest as he pushed up onto his hands and knees.
"Freddy!" he got out in a choking gasp. "This is it! You hear what that bird said? They've received word from some rat in Casablanca, just as Major General Hawker thought they would. Freddy! It's up to us now, or else! Those confounded bombers just can't take off! And that's got to be that!"
"Absolutely!" the English youth echoed in a hoarse whisper. "And just look at the blighters! Like blasted ants crawling all over those planes, and—Dave! Do you see—"