The speech was one of the best Dave had ever heard drop from Freddy Farmer's lips, and it was all he could do to look pleadingly at General Kashomia, and not leap to his feet and give his English pal a great big hand. Nor was Dave the only one impressed. The Jap general stared at Freddy with the faint light of pleased admiration in his eyes. He presently nodded his head and showed his big teeth in a broad smile so typical of the sly Japs.
"You have the power to move mountains with your voice," he said eventually. "And heartless, indeed, would I be not to give utmost consideration to your plea. I shall see that a few more pieces of silver are placed in Serrangi's hand for selecting you two for the great flight you have made. But Singapore is not everything of importance to us. True, we shall strike at Singapore, and in such a manner that its garrison of troops and pilots will have no opportunity to resist. However, I shall strike at other points, also. It is not our plan to take one place at a time. It is our plan to take all places at the same time. It is the war technique of your own Fuehrer, and it has as yet to be proved wrong. No, we shall not nibble at a spot until it gives away and crumbles. We will strike at many places at the same time."
"Gott! Those are words to warm my heart!" Dave cried, and leaned forward eagerly. "And you say, most honored General, that the hour fast approaches?"
The Jap seemed to swell up to the exploding point with indescribable pride and joy. He made some quick motions with his two hands, and although he cried the words out in flawless German his voice had the pitch of a buzz saw going through a sheet of tin.
"Tomorrow when the sun is in the east, the hour will have arrived!"
[CHAPTER SIXTEEN]
Wings of Valor
As the Japanese air force general's voice died away a tingling silence seemed to hang over the jungle hut like a blanket. Not a man in the place moved. Dave was sure that his own heart had stood still at the sound of the words. Tomorrow morning? Tomorrow morning the Japs were to unleash their dogs of war against an unsuspecting civilized world? Tomorrow, when the civilized world was doing everything possible to maintain the peace with the war lords of Nippon, the hordes and hordes of little brown rats were going to spring savagely at white men's throats? It seemed almost impossible to believe. It was like a dream. Little Japan was going to strike. Little Japan? But there was just another of the white man's mistakes down through the years. Looking upon the Land of the Rising Sun as little Japan. Little in size, yes. But the British Isles are little in size, too, from the standpoint of land area in square miles. Little Japan! That was the trouble. Little on the outside, and tremendously big on the inside. For years and years the Sons of Nippon had been getting ready, and all the time the rest of the world knew it ... and did nothing. Japan would never strike in the Pacific! No? Well, there had once been the day when, as Germany prepared and prepared, government greybeards and has-beens scoffed at the idea Adolf Hitler would ever take his 1918 beaten country into war. No? Well, where was France today, and Poland, and Norway, and Holland, and all the other "free" countries? Bleeding to death under the crushing weight of the Nazi iron heel. Little Japan? Nuts!
"Tomorrow at dawn?" Dave suddenly heard his own voice whispering hoarsely. "It is almost too good to be true. In Germany tomorrow Der Fuehrer will declare a national holiday in your honor, I am sure. Forgive me, but I cannot help but repeat the plea that my comrade and I be given a part, if only a small one."
"Your desire to fight with us, and perhaps die, makes you very eager," the Jap murmured. And an odd note in his voice caused little fingers of ice to grab at Dave's heart. In that moment he had the sudden throat drying conviction that he had displeased the Jap by his pressing insistence. He had the feeling, and the narrow eyed look he received indicated as much, that the Jap general was swaying just a little bit over on the suspicious side. However, when the little brown son of Nippon spoke again there was nothing in his words or in his voice to justify such a thought.