"And where would I keep a plane here on Singapore Island!" the other snarled at him. "Of course I have no plane! Did I not say that there was more than a little risk attached to this highly important task?"
"But if we are to fly a plane?" Freddy Farmer said, and then let a perfect expression of Teutonic dumbness of his face say the rest.
"Steal one from the British!" Serrangi snapped at him. "It has been done before, and it can be done again. And, of course, you would steal one that is fully armed and contains sufficient fuel for a long flight."
Dave tapped the map with a finger.
"To Chungking?" he asked.
Serrangi thought that was very funny, and laughed shrilly.
"No, not to Chungking!" he finally cried and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "It is the Japanese with whom we work, not the Chinese. No, the end of the flight will be to the point that is marked there on the map near Lashio, in Burma."
Dave and Freddy glanced down quickly at the map. A little Burmese mountain village called Raja, just east of Lashio, was marked with a red circled black cross. Dave heard Freddy catch his breath, and he started inwardly with excitement, himself, because at Lashio was the beginning of the famous Burma Road, fighting China's lifeline. Her one remaining supply route contact with the outside world. And the whole world knew that the one thing the little brown rats of the bucktoothed Jap emperor on his white horse wanted to do most was cut the Burma Road. Once they did that they could starve the gallant Chinese into an armistice in short order. And once China had fallen, hordes upon hordes of Japanese lice could be sent elsewhere for more conquests.
For two long minutes Dave stared down at the map, then he slowly raised his eyes to Serrangi's face and smiled slyly.
"So, the Burma Road, ja?" he muttered. "Herr Hitler will be most pleased. It will open a way into India, perhaps."