"You wouldn't care to tell me how much, would you?" the English youth grunted.
"No, I guess not," Dawson said with a chuckle. "But you get the idea just the same. But, boy, oh boy! If we only could get word to Colonel Welsh and Admiral Jackson. Darn it, Freddy! We've got to, somehow. We've just got to!"
"No doubt of it," Freddy mumbled gloomily in the darkness. "But how? That's the stickler, old thing. How?"
"I don't know," Dawson murmured. "But maybe we'll get some kind of a break. If we don't, we'll just have to make one, that's all. This Jap rat who shot us down, I wonder how he figures to fly us to Suicide's force?"
"That one is easy," Freddy Farmer sighed. "You'll see. Tied hand and foot, and jammed down into the rear pit of that seaplane like a couple of sardines, I fancy. No, I don't think I'm looking forward to that particular airplane ride."
"Yeah, like a couple of helpless sardines, probably," Dave murmured. "Yes, I guess I can think of more comfortable flights I've had, too. Oh, well, a guy can always hope."
And with that listless comment Dave lapsed into brooding silence, and Freddy Farmer joined him. For quite some time neither of them spoke. What was there to say, anyway? What was there to say that hadn't already been spoken? Absolutely nothing. And so it was better just to sit and keep one's thoughts to oneself. What the future would bring it would bring, and that was that!
After a long, long spell of mutual silence a sudden change in the movement of the U-boat told them both that the undersea craft was going up to the surface. Dawson grunted and sat up a little straighter.
"Up we go," he grunted. "So things will be happening soon."
"Can't say I'd be mad if said things were bombs dropping on this thing from a chance plane or two of ours!" Freddy Farmer growled. "The way I feel right now, I don't think I'd mind at all. Oh, blast it! I guess that gun slap from that Jap rotter did do something to my nerve. I feel in an awful funk, Dave."