"Welcome, Honorable Enemy Gentlemen," he said in fairly good English. "It is a pleasure to have you aboard my ship. Be seated, please. I am about to dismiss my officers. Then we will discuss your little problem."
The Jap Admiral bowed slightly again, then half turned and looked at the officers on one side. He said a few words, bobbed his head, and then turned to the officers on his other side and spoke to them. All of them bowed way over, murmured something, and went single file outside. And soon the cabin was empty save for the two boys, the Admiral, and the big Jap officer.
With an effort Dawson tried to shake the cobwebs out of his brain, and get himself on the alert. But it was like trying to wake himself up out of the middle of a crazy, cockeyed dream. In fact, that's just exactly what all this business seemed like. Like part of some dizzy dream in which nobody acts his correct part. "Then we will discuss your little problem." What was going on here, anyway? And, "Welcome, Honorable Enemy Gentlemen!" Where did the guy get that welcome stuff? For fair, somebody was just plain nuts. And Dawson was worried not a little that maybe he was the one.
"Be seated, Honorable Enemy Gentlemen, please. We have plenty of time. And in war it is a good thing to relax and be comfortable whenever one gets the chance. Yes, in those chairs behind you, please."
If Dawson and Farmer had been under a complete hypnotic spell they couldn't have obeyed more mechanically as they backed up until the chair edge hit them behind the knees, and then sat down. And like a couple of dazed puppets waiting to be moved around, they just sat there with eyes fixed on the Jap Admiral. He seated himself, and stared at them for a long time before he spoke.
"So you have very interesting news for me?" he suddenly said with a rising inflection of voice. "Well, I am interested. So tell me all about it, please?"
Dawson gulped slightly and tried desperately to bat his brains off the merry-go-round on which they were riding, and get them to function properly. If he ever was to play a game of wits, this was the time. But at that precise moment he couldn't have spoken his own name correctly for the life of him.
Freddy Farmer, however, rushed to his rescue. The English youth looked the Jap Admiral straight in the eye, and shook his head.
"Too late, now," he said quietly. "Neither of us knows where our force is now. It may still be up north off your Japanese coast, or perhaps it is now steaming back to Pearl Harbor."
"That is too bad," the Jap said without a single change of expression. "I was hoping that perhaps I could detach one or two of my destroyers to go meet them and sink them."