Dave Dawson at Truk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

"Are there two by the same name?" young Farmer snapped. "And will you please shut up while I try to tell you?"

"Okay, okay!" Dave growled. "Go ahead. But skip the trimmings. Just give me the facts."

"I'll give it to you as I jolly well see fit!" Freddy shot right back at him, but tempered it with a grin. "Well, Vice-Admiral Carter came in to find out from me what had happened. Did you know, Dave, that we're mighty lucky to be alive?"

"Well, every time I move my head quick, I don't feel so doggone lucky," Dawson grunted. "Then what?"

"Well, it seems fairly evident that we both would have been done in proper by that Jap, if he had been given more time," young Farmer said. "But it seems that one of the managers of the orange groves happened by just at that moment. He saw the Jap, but didn't recognize him as such. Thought he was a tramp trying to find out what he could steal from the shacks."

"Name one thing that even a tramp would want out of that hole," Dave said. "You saw the inside, didn't you? And ... Okay, Okay! I'm sorry, sweetheart. Go ahead and talk."

"Just interrupt me once more with that big mouth of yours, and you can jolly well sing for the truth!" Freddy warned. "Well, he called out to the Jap, and the Jap fired a shot at him. He missed, but the manager didn't give him the chance for a second shot. He dropped flat on his face, and when he got nerve enough to poke his head up for a look, it was just in time to see the Jap, and the chap in uniform, disappear over the brow of the next hill. And when the manager got up enough nerve to give chase—and blessed if I blame him, in view of the fact that he had no gun—it was much, much too late. So he came back and found us, listening to the birdies singing, as you would put it. He went down the valley to the nearest phone and called the base. They sent out an ambulance for us. The vice-admiral assured me that neither of us has a fracture of any kind, just a bad bump, so they let us more or less sleep it off."

"Well, that was white of them, anyway," Dave said. "I suppose you told the vice-admiral the story?"

"No," Freddy replied. "I started to, but the old brain was still spinning too much. The vice-admiral told me to rest up some more, and that he would come back when both of us could talk. I told him about the ensign and the carrier, though. And that worried him no end, too!"

"And why not?" Dawson said, as his heart began to pound. "If this is the next day, then the carrier has sailed!"