"You're fully awake, aren't you, Freddy?" he whispered. "This wouldn't be any cockeyed nightmare I'm going through, would it?"
"A blasted fine chance of that!" the English youth replied with a groan. "I'm trying to make up my mind whether we're completely balmy, or just off our toppers. This is a mad business, Dave! Insane!"
"You're not telling me a thing!" Dawson breathed and squinted across the night blackened R.A.F. Base at the faint hangar lights. "But the heck of it is, we walked right into it, and we can't walk right out again!"
"If we could only get to the Raffles Hotel, and contact that agent of Bostworth's, and get some word to him!" Freddy Farmer said with a bitter sigh.
"I know," Dave grunted. "But Serrangi is no dummy no matter how you look at it. We haven't been out of his sight since we walked into the rug shop almost three hours ago. I had hoped he was going to let us come out here on our own. Maybe then we could have slipped by the Raffles and gotten some word to Bostworth. Nix, though! Serrangi came out with us in that Nineteen-Six jallopy, and showed us the path through the brush up to the edge of the field, here. And a funny sensation in the middle of my back tells me that he's back there a ways still keeping an eye on us. We sure picked something this time, pal. We picked a pip, and I ain't kidding."
"But if only Bostworth knew...!" Freddy began and let the rest trail off.
"Knew what?" Dave murmured. "That's the point! What could we really tell him that would make sense? Darn little, pal. Less than that, in fact. Serrangi tells us that at a given signal some rat at R.A.F. Base is going to blow lots of things sky high. He tells us that a Jap General has a hidden field with plenty planes up near Raja, in Burma. At the right time the Jap is going to blow the whistle, and things are supposed to pop in lots of places. And in my pocket I've got what looks like a pencil, only it's rolled up code data Serrangi gave us to give to General Kashomia. There you are."
"Well?" Freddy Farmer grunted. "Isn't that a lot?"
"It's nothing when you pick it apart," Dave said. "Figure it out. We don't know who the R.A.F. rat is, and Bostworth doesn't. Maybe there is a Jap general up at Raja with flocks of planes. So what? Is Bostworth going to send R.A.F. planes up there on our say-so to blast them out? Declare war on Japan, just like that? Fat chance! The British don't do things that way. Also, we don't know where the hidden field really is until we see the flare signals the Japs are to send up. Yeah! Burmese would get kind of sore if the British flew all over their country dumping bombs, trying to blast somebody they think is there. And here's a point, too. We don't know the striking date. It may be right after we get there ... and whether we get there, or not! Chances are, by the time Bostworth could induce Far East High Command to swing into action the Japs might be swinging their sneak haymaker. And this code data I've got in my pocket. Think Serrangi would have trusted us with it if there was even the slimmest chance that British Intelligence could break the code in time. Nuts! So what have we got?"
"You're right!" Freddy Farmer groaned. "Blasted little. Really nothing, when you come to look at it. But I hate to think of turning over that code data to General Kashomia! No doubt it's complete information of our strength, and such, here in the Far East. Probably high military secrets we've guarded for years."