"Let her go, Dave," he replied. "But I certainly hope these two hours whizz by, so's we can land at Singapore Base and find out what in the world this all means!"
"You and me both!" Dave grunted. "I've been given a lot of screwy orders in my time, but this one is certainly tops. Oh, well, we'll get a nice look at this neck of the Far East, anyway. Okay! Hold your hat. The balloon's going up!"
Turning front, Dave nodded to the waiting signal officer, and automatically braced his body and put his head firmly against the back rest, so that it wouldn't be snapped back when the launching "trigger" was pulled. A couple of seconds later the Swordfish's engine was roaring out its mighty song of power and straining at the locking-dogs that held it on the catapult arm. Another second and it was as though an invisible giant had slammed the rear end of the plane with the side of a barn door, or something. The Swordfish leaped forward like a scared cat. It shot off the end of the catapult arm, sank toward the water for a brief instant, then rose upward as the whirling prop bit into the air and produced flying speed.
Once clear and curving upward, Dave throttled slightly and held the nose on a gentle climb toward Heaven. He turned and grinned at Freddy and then glanced down back at the Harkness cutting through the sun flooded waters of the China Sea like a perfectly streamlined battle grey fish. For a moment signal flags that spelled out G-O-O-D L-U-C-K fluttered in the wind, then they were hauled down and the Harkness began falling far astern of the climbing plane. Dave looked front again, leveled off at a comfortable six thousand feet and relaxed comfortably in the seat.
"Ladies and Gentlemen!" came Freddy Farmer's voice to his ears. "On the far left you have the British owned island of Singapore. Just above it is the Malay Peninsula where they produce about eighty per cent of all the rubber in the world. And tin, also. A bit more to the north is French Indo-China. Far to the right are the Philippines. And way in back of you are the Dutch East Indies, including Borneo and Sumatra. If you smoke cigars, Ladies and Gentlemen, you should be doubly interested in Sumatra because the famous Sumatra leaf used as an outside wrapper for many, many brands of cigars comes from Sumatra. Personally, I'm not very interested because I do not smoke cigars. However...."
"However, shut up, Professor!" Dave interrupted with a laugh. "We can see it all, and we studied all about these parts when we were in school. But ... there is one question I would like to ask the learned Professor."
"Certainly, my child, certainly," Freddy Farmer replied. "Go right ahead. What do you want to know?"
"Boy, are you sticking your chin out!" Dave chuckled. "Okay! Why are we flying around up here, Professor?"
"Good Lord, I should have suspected that!" Freddy Farmer groaned. "Well, it's a secret. A very deep dark secret. Only one man knows. And so far he hasn't told anybody. He.... Hey, Dave!"
"Don't shout, I haven't jumped out, yet," Dave cried and turned quickly around. "What...?"