The short, hooting laugh that spread from lip to lip of those present was proof enough that the colonel had hit the nail right smack on the head. Every last one of them had thought of little else but the reason he had been summoned to H.Q. at Sydney.
"Well, here is the picture," Colonel Welsh continued, but there was no smile on his face now, nor any light note in his voice. "The Southwest Pacific Command is going to try and beat the Japs to the punch. In other words, we're pretty sure that the Jap is about set to let fly with another of his blows at us, so we're going to beat him to it. In brief, we're going to go after them in the Solomon Islands."
The colonel paused for breath, and a mounting murmur of suppressed excitement ran its course about the Ready-Room. Nobody said anything, though, not even a whispered word of comment to his friend sitting next to him. On the contrary, each man simply hitched forward a little more on the edge of his chair, and kept his attention riveted one hundred per cent upon the Chief of Combined U.S. Intelligence.
"The assault upon the Jap-occupied Solomons," he went on presently, "will be a two part affair with land, sea, and air forces cooperating throughout. The first part will be the capture and holding of an airport on Guadalcanal Island. And the second part, which will be carried out simultaneously with the first part, will be the capture of Tulagi on Florida Island some twenty-two water miles north of Guadalcanal. That is what we have made plans and arrangements to carry out. However, a good part of whether we do it or not will depend upon you pilots."
The senior Intelligence officer paused again and for a moment let his keen eyes roam over the collection of faces before him.
"I doubt that any of you will be taking any active part in either of the two surprise attacks of which I've spoken," he suddenly hurled the thunderbolt at them. "Your job will be to find, checkmate, and stop cold Jap forces that could prevent us from carrying out either of these attacks successfully. To put it bluntly, we have information and data which indicates that a large Jap sea, land, and air force is forming at their Truk Island base in the Carolinas preparatory to moving south against our positions on New Guinea, if not directly against Australia itself. In fact, we believe that this huge Jap force is already on the move. But just exactly where it is, we can only guess. Your job, and the job of those aboard the other carrier in this force, will be—to find that Jap force at all costs! We have got to find that force and either destroy it or make it turn back. If we don't then thousands of American soldiers, sailors, and airmen will be forced to give up their lives in vain. No matter what, you have got to find this Jap force that is somewhere between Truk Island and the New Guinea coast!"
As the colonel paused again, not a man moved. Not a man hardly so much as breathed. Everyone sat motionless, eyes on the colonel's grave face, and thoughts fixed squarely upon the do or die order that had been issued!