"You mean he didn't turn it over to you, sir?" Freddy Farmer blurted out on impulse.
"He didn't have the chance, worse luck!" the other replied, and rubbed one clenched fist into the palm of his other hand. "But he did do the only thing he could do. During those thirty hours he was left unmolested he not only read every one of the unfinished sentences, but he memorized every single word before destroying and disposing of the two torn halves of paper. However, Fate, you might say, was still giving him a black look. At the end of the thirty hours the prisoners were herded into the prison head's office and questioned. Questioned, and knocked about from here to there when they didn't, or couldn't give answers that satisfied their captors. Jones was no better off than any of the others. In fact, it developed that he was worse off. An answer he gave to one question didn't please the Nazi overlord, who lost his temper and struck Jones in the face with his fist. Jones, to save himself from toppling over backwards, flung up both hands, and his right hand unfortunately whacked one of the lesser Nazi officials in the face. And that tore it, of course. Jones wasn't questioned any more. He was promptly jumped on, half beaten to death, and then chained hand and foot, and sent off to a Nazi internment camp."
The senior R.A.F. officer stopped short. His lips stiffened, his two hands bunched into rock hard fists, and there was the bright glint of cold steel in his eyes.
"I need not describe to you the things Jones went through, and suffered, after that!" he finally grated out through clenched teeth. "The so-called routine of a Nazi internment camp is well known all over the world by now. But I come to the end of my part of this story. Six days ago, Agent Jones arrived back in England. He was the mere shadow of the man I sent into Europe over three years ago, but the British spirit, like the American spirit, knows no such thing as defeat. He never gave up. He tried to escape three times, and was caught. He himself says that he'll never know how he managed to go on living from one attempt at escape to the next. But the fourth time he made it. His escape is a hair-raising story in itself, but it's unimportant here, so I won't bother with it. But he did return to England six days ago, and he was able to put down on paper every one of those words he had memorized."
"Stout fellow!" Freddy Farmer cried enthusiastically. "He certainly deserves the Victoria Cross, if ever a chap did. So now all that invaluable information is ours!"
Air Vice-Marshal Leman smiled sadly and shook his head.
"No, Farmer, it isn't," he said slowly. "We only have half of it. And the half we have is practically useless without the other half. Like Jones when he first read it, we can only guess at what the other half reveals. We don't know. And guesses in war are quite often as useless as no information at all."
"But, my gosh!" Dawson cried. "You mean, sir, he went through all that for nothing? That he might just as well have tossed the whole thing overboard in the first place?"
"No, not quite, Dawson," the Air Vice-Marshal said. Then, looking over at Colonel Welsh, he added, "I guess you'd better tell the last half of our story, sir."