"But I thought you were taking us to Darwin?" Freddy Farmer spoke up.
"We were, but orders are canceled," Banks replied. "The big boys seem to want you two to get to H.Q. in a hurry. You wouldn't have any idea, I suppose, huh? Us Air Transport slaves don't get very close to the fighting very often. Kind of a lonely life, if you get what I mean? Take this ferry hop, for example. We're armed, of course, and there are Jap air bases within range to give us some action. But will we run into anything like that? No such luck. So we bear up the best we can, and make a hobby of collecting gossip. So if you two know any—"
And that's as far as the Flying Fortress commander got. At that moment there came the bank and snap of the aft turret guns. And a split second later the excited cry carried through the ship.
"Enemy aircraft off to port! A half dozen of them. Zeros!"
"My gosh, what do you know?" Captain Banks gasped, and stared wide-eyed at Dawson.
"You shouldn't have talked so loud, Skipper!" Dave laughed, and sprang to his feet. "Tojo heard you that time, and is obliging!"