It was a dead sure thing that parts of the Axis forces had moved out into the desert, and had established communication lines with the main base. Yet—
"Yet there's not a single sign of them!" Dave spoke the thought aloud. "Not a gosh darn sign—unless we're stone blind, and can't see beyond our noses!"
"What did you say, Dave?" he heard Freddy ask.
He turned in the seat and shrugged.
"Just talking aloud," he said. "This business is getting me down. Why haven't we seen anything? Even a village would help. But it's all as blank as a sheet of paper—yeah, a sheet of sand paper. Look, Freddy, I'm just about making up my mind to something."
"To go back?" Freddy asked, and a worried look stole into his eyes.
"Back, nothing!" Dave snorted. "We've still got gas. We're not licked by a darn sight. No, that isn't the idea. Look, we've covered a lot of ground. If we've passed over Axis forces in any of the areas we've checked, then they must have tunneled out from Tripoli, by gosh, and are still underground. That's crazy, of course, so it leaves us one more thing to try."
"Well?" Freddy grunted as Dave paused. "I'm waiting. Let's have it."
"The Tripoli area," Dave said promptly. "Let's get us some more altitude and sneak up on Tripoli as closely as we can without being spotted. If we don't spot anything there, then we can be pretty sure that the Tripoli rumors are so much hog-wash."
"I doubt that last," Freddy said gravely. "The High Command must be pretty sure, rather, dead sure, that something's up, else Fleet Air Arm Command wouldn't have agreed for the Victory to pull out of line and go steaming off on its own."