For the first time since their entrance the vice-admiral gave them a smile. It was warm, sympathetic, and full of understanding. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said. "The entire force will be glad to have you flying with us. Your past records are not exactly secrets, you know. Very well, then, you can carry on as you have been until sundown. After that you are flying and fighting for the Navy. That is all, and thank you again."
The two youths took their leave of the force commander and returned thoughtfully to the Trenton's flight deck.
"Until sundown," Dawson murmured, and squinted at the sun sliding down the western sky. "I'd say two hours, or maybe two and a half. Well, back to the old question. What do we do about it now, Freddy? A swell suggestion hasn't suddenly hit you, has it, by any chance?"
"What suggestion?" young Farmer sighed. "All I'm thinking about right now is that I hope tomorrow I get a crack at a hundred of the Jap beggars when we hit Truk."
"Well, it will take more than a hundred cracks at them, and successful cracks too, for me to feel even one degree better," Dave said. Then, as though talking to himself, he murmured, "We'll be eight hundred miles from Truk in a couple of hours or so? That means we must be about eight hundred and eighty miles from there right now."
"You're probably correct," Freddy Farmer said. "But why all the sudden figuring? What of it?"
"Only this," Dawson said, and gazed along the deck at the planes of the sundown patrol being made ready for flight. "It means that this carrier force is plenty close enough right now for our Nazi spy to get there in his Grumman Hell Cat, if he's flying one of those babies."
"And close enough, too, even if he's in a Grumman Wild Cat squadron," Freddy Farmer echoed. "But you're leading up to something, Dave."
"In a way, yes," Dawson replied slowly, and made a gesture with his hand that included all three carriers. "A last hope, you might call it. I mean, the sundown patrols for all three flat-tops are getting set to go aloft. There isn't time, and it would be foolish of us to try and pay a visit to all three carriers for a look at the pilots taking off. With preparations getting under way to launch planes we'd probably be refused permission to land on the other two flat-tops, anyway. But here's an idea, Freddy. Let's you and I take our Hell Cats up and sort of cruise around."
"Why?" young Farmer demanded. Then as his face suddenly lighted up, "Oh, you mean...?"