Dave wasn't kidding when he said that an aerial torpedo carrying Fairey Swordfish can go down in a hurry. The plane streaked seaward like a meteor in high gear. Dave held it in its steep dive until the rolling blue swells of the China sea came rushing up a little too close for comfort. Skillfully working the controls, he leveled off and shot the plane forward toward the spot where they had first noticed the weird flashes of light.
There were no flashes of light to be seen now, however. There was nothing but sun flooded rolling water. Dave stared hard, and so did Freddy Farmer, too. But it was just a waste of eyesight for all the good it did them.
"That makes us nuts, Freddy!" Dave sang out. "I don't see a thing, do you?"
"Not a thing!" Freddy called to him. "I fancy it must have been the sun's rays playing tricks on the water."
"Well, some trick, is all I've got to say," Dave grunted and climbed the Swordfish slightly for a better look. "The same combinations of dots and dashes were repeated over and over again."
"I know," Freddy said. "Like a blasted call signal on the short-wave radio. If they'd been different and jumbled up then you could put it down to sunlight bouncing off the water, but ... Dave! To the left! To the left! See that spot of white water? Foam? Dave! There's something there!"
Dave had already snapped his eyes to the left and was staring at a patch of foamy white water on the surface of the seemingly limitless stretch of rolling blue. The white foamy patch was there for a very good reason. It was the telltale wake left by a diving submarine. And even as Dave realized that he caught sight of a long cigar shaped shadow sliding forward just under the surface of the water.
"That's a submarine, Dave!" Freddy Farmer's excited voice confirmed Dawson's belief at practically the same instant. "It was on the surface and signalling us, but we couldn't see anything but the flash signals."
"Sure, so what?" Dave growled and veered the Swordfish around toward the shadow of the undersea craft. "But why signal us? And, also, why signal us and then dive when we start to come down? Our markings are plain enough."
"Maybe it's a German U-boat!" Freddy cried excitedly.