Both boys got the full meaning of the "one or two destroyers" crack, but both refused to rise to the bait. They simply shrugged and waited for the Jap Navy big shot to take the lead again. They thought they saw a faint flicker of anger cross his flat, shiny face, indicating that he was a little annoyed. But that's all the sign he gave. He stared at them each in turn for several more minutes, then seemed to fix his gaze on Dawson's face.
"You say there are five carriers?" he asked.
"Yes, five carriers and—" Dawson replied, and then stopped dead as the walls of the room seem to come tumbling down around his ears.
He heard Freddy Farmer's startled gasp, and wished in that moment that he possessed a gun so that he could shoot his brains out. Of all the stupid, dumb fools, he took the prize. With his bare face hanging out he had walked straight into the Jap Admiral's trap, and had been caught cold. In short, the Jap had suddenly addressed him in German, and without thinking, fathead that he was, he had started to reply in the same tongue.
"And you Americans boast of being so very, very clever!" the Jap Navy big shot was now sneering at him. "Fools! Little children! You are all soft, and eaten away in the brain. You are finished. Do you not realize that?"
Dawson didn't say anything. He was mentally kicking himself too much to bother about speaking words. And God knows he had spoken too many words as it was—in the wrong tongue. Fathead of fatheads. Of course that Jap pilot rat had reported the entire conversation aboard the U-boat. Had mentioned, no doubt, that he and the Nazi had spoken in German so that the two prisoners wouldn't understand. But they had understood everything spoken. And now the Jap Admiral knew that they had understood. In short, he had only to add two and two to make a pretty sure guess that they hadn't spoken a word of truth aboard the U-boat, and had played dumb in an attempt to pick up information they might use if they ever managed to escape. And, to put it another way, the Jap Admiral had checkmated them cold when they had barely begun to sell him a load of phoney goods.
"Yes, Japan's enemies are so cleverly foolish!" the slant-eyed one continued amidst hissing sounds. "However, you are here under my watchful eye now. And no real damage has been done. So we will forget all else that has been said, and start over again."
The Jap stopped suddenly, and leaned forward a little over the desk at which he had seated himself.
"You were shot down after having flown from an American carrier," he said. "Now, what was the name of that carrier?"
"The Tokyo Express," Dawson replied quickly. "And the first stop is Tokyo, too, believe it or not."