"If you'd just let that tongue of yours run down, I'd tell you!" the English youth interrupted. "Certainly we both knew what the other was talking about. I thought you had guessed it, too, Dave. The stuff I said to General von Peiplow was just to see if I had the right idea. And what he said to me was proof that I had. Blast the Nazis, anyway. Trust them, the cunning devils, to be the first to adopt a new weapon!"
"Pardon me, old thing!" Dave grated at him. "Would you like me to leave so you can go on having a nice little conversation with yourself? Snap out of it, Freddy! Stop talking riddles! You're driving me bats. What the heck are you driving at, anyway?"
"Those gliders, you idiot!" Freddy hissed at him. "Didn't you see with your own eyes, Dave? Don't you know, now, how those Lockheed Hudson bombers were so mysteriously destroyed last Tuesday night?"
Dave took a deep breath, and slowly counted up to ten.
"No," he finally said with forced patience. "I don't catch on to a thing. Now, for cat's sake stop beating around the bush, and put it in words I can understand!"
"Very well, then," Freddy said. "Be quiet and listen. Each of those gliders, or soaring planes, is powered with a small auxiliary engine, and enough gas to take it up to very high altitudes. Instead of a pilot the glider is loaded with high explosives. When the thing reaches maximum altitude the engine cuts out, and from then on the glider is radio controlled. Understand, now, Dave? Radio controlled! Every air force in the world has been working on that for years, and it looks like the Nazis have been able to make it work on gliding, or soaring planes. And they've got hundreds of the things in those underground hangars. This area, here, is the testing and experimental ground for radio controlled auxiliary powered gliders. You see?"
Dave sucked air into his lungs and sat perfectly motionless. His brain was whirling, and drops of cold sweat oozed out of his face.
"Sweet tripe!" he suddenly ejaculated. "Am I dumb, and are you one bright lad, Freddy, to catch on so fast! Gosh! They can fill the air with those things, and...."
"Exactly!" the English youth interrupted excitedly. "Fill the air with hundreds and thousands of the things the factories can turn out like hot-cakes. Each glider carries a load of sudden destruction for anything that bumps into it, and the whole lot can be maneuvered from a radio control plane in the air, or from the ground. Right from von Peiplow's office, too, I fancy. I've fiddled around quite a bit, and, although I'm years and years from being an expert, I knew at once that all those gadgets in von Peiplow's office had to do with the radio control of planes, or something."
"Those Lockheed bombers of flare picture patrol last Tuesday night!" Dave breathed softly. "The Nazis heard them coming. Maybe they can even spot and locate planes at night by radio, just like we can in England. Maybe they have a hush-hush radio plane locator just like we have. Anyway, they spotted those Lockheeds and sent up a flock of their TNT gliders. It is a million times better than a balloon blockade, or wire nets, and that sort of stuff. A wall of TNT loaded gliders swinging around in the night sky in solid formation. All of them controlled by radio. The Lockheed boys probably never saw them. Flew right into them and were blown to bits. That's the terrific explosion you must have seen, Freddy!"