"Just plain disgusted, you blighter!" Freddy snarled. "Man! Why I put up with you day after day, I don't know!"
"Maybe it's love," Dave chuckled, and jumped quickly as the English youth aimed a booted foot.
Freddy's foot didn't connect with certain places, however. And he didn't make a second try. He simply snorted to himself and joined Dave in staring silently down at the black water flowing past. For perhaps some ten of fifteen minutes neither youth said anything. Each seemed to be quite content with his own thoughts. Eventually, though, Dave broke the silence.
"Well, there's one thing, anyway, Freddy," he said. "Wherever we're going, we're going to get there soon, I guess."
"Would that be the beginning of another side-splitting act of yours?" Freddy growled. "And what do you mean by it, anyway?"
"It's the detective in me," Dawson replied, unruffled. "Here we are on a destroyer heading out to sea in pitch darkness, but I haven't been assigned any place to sleep, have you?"
"By Jove, that's right, Dave!" young Farmer exclaimed excitedly. "We haven't, have we? Good grief! Do you suppose this is taking us to New Zealand, and we've got to ride on deck all the way?"
Dawson didn't answer for a moment. He threw back his head and stared up at the trillions upon trillions of stars that glittered and gleamed in the jet black sky.
"My celestial navigation tells me we're headed more toward New Caledonia than New Zealand," he said. "But I'll bet you a pair of flying goggles that we're not going to either of those places."
"I won't take the bet, because you're too blasted lucky," Freddy spoke up quickly. "But anyway, why didn't you think so?"