"Brain work, chum!" Dave corrected with a laugh. "Me, I'm dumb. That's why I always have to take you along on these jaunts, see?"
"Next time don't feel you have to!" Freddy sighed and started digging into the mess of Nazi code signals.
[CHAPTER THIRTEEN]
Satan Flies West
Dawn sunshine rippled along the broad wings of the American built Consolidated Catalina flying boat, but ominous coal black clouds were beginning to pile up high in the western sky. Even as Dave Dawson stared at them they seemed to fling a dark shadow far out over the rolling swells of the North Atlantic. He gave an angry shake of his head and impulsively took a tighter grip on the controls of the flying boat.
"That storm ahead looks pretty bad, Freddy," he said wearily out the corner of his mouth. "What do you think?"
Freddy Farmer stirred in the co-pilot's seat and glanced haggard eyed at the altimeter. The needle pointed to exactly nine thousand feet.
"We'll just have to hit it on the nose and pray," he said after a moment. "If we climb over it we might just as well go back to port and give up. I'm positive the raider's under it somewhere. Those signals were so weak I couldn't make head or tail of them. All we can do is take a chance we're right this time. If we aren't then...."
Freddy shrugged and left the rest hanging in midair, and bent forward to recheck the radio's adjustments for the umpty-umpteenth time in the last six hours. Dave nodded absently and kept his gaze fixed on the mountainous coal black clouds ahead. There was a dull throbbing in his head, his eyes smarted and ached, and his whole body felt stiff and sore. But what bothered him most was the bitter, empty feeling of helpless despair in his heart.
He and Freddy had been aloft in the Catalina for a good eight hours, and for the last six of those hours they had done everything within their power to make radio contact with the mystery raider and her wolf-pack of U-boats somewhere on the vast expanse of the Atlantic below them. Several times they had received code signals in answer to their call, but because of a static band the signals had been too weak for Freddy to understand. The very fact, though, that they had picked up bits of the same signals several times convinced them both that they had made contact. No definite proof, however, and hour after hour they had cruised about in the dark shrouded sky groping like a blind man in a strange room.