"Well, I got hit by a sudden hunch, while we were waiting on the pier for this tin can to tie up," Dawson said slowly. "And I got chewing the fat with some of the others there. Know something, Freddy?"
"Well, I will after you tell me, of course," the English youth replied. "What?"
"Keep your shirt on; a guy has to take a breath now and then, you know!" Dave grunted. "Well, I didn't run into a single guy who hasn't had some experience flying off an aircraft carrier. If you want my guess, it's that this load of pilots is being taken out to some carrier force waiting way off shore."
"I wonder, I wonder!" Freddy Farmer murmured after a long pause. "Why would a carrier force be so top hat as not to come in and get us, I'd like to know?"
"Call it 'high hat' next time, Freddy," Dave corrected gently. "White folks will think you're English, if you—"
"Now, look out, my good man!" Freddy began menacingly. "I'll have you know that I'm—"
"And I don't blame you for being proud that you're English, pal," Dave broke in with a chuckle. "So would I be, if I wasn't Yank. Okay, skip the funny crack. The reason a carrier force wouldn't come in to pick us up is probably because of that one word pronounced spies! One thing we want to keep plenty secret out here in the Southwest Pacific is the location of our carrier task forces. So we were loaded aboard this tin can at night, and are being sneaked out to one. Catch on?"
"Not definitely," Freddy Farmer muttered, and scowled in the darkness. "Seems to me that a carrier task force at sea would have its own pilots, and what not. Besides, a lot of us aboard this destroyer are Army Air Forces pilots."
"So what?" Dave said, and shrugged. "So maybe the Navy needs help in the air, and knows just where to get it."
"Better keep those remarks under cover, or a certain Army pilot may be reported lost overboard!"