The last was because Freddy had suddenly sat bolt upright and was staring at one of the wall maps as though it were an ancient ghost come out of the past. He started as the Colonel spoke to him sharply. The blood rushed into his face, and he frowned in embarrassed indecision.
“Well, out with it!” Colonel Welsh snapped. “You’ve come up out of nowhere with good ideas before. What’s it now? What are you thinking about?”
Freddy Farmer hesitated a moment longer, and a look of sorrow and regret came into his face.
“Perhaps it isn’t a mystery, sir, those four words that poor chap spoke,” he said. “That chap, Rigby, spoke about receiving your wire about Copper coming up. The place he was coming from, sir. I just happened to notice it there on the map.”
“Albuquerque,” Colonel Welsh said. “Well, what about it?”
“Well—well, he had trouble forming words,” Freddy said. “Say those four words together.”
“Eh?” Colonel Welsh echoed.
“Freddy’s right!” Dave cried. “Al-bar-cur-keys! Albuquerque! It sounded to us like bar, instead of ba. And we got it keys, instead of que, pronounced key. He was trying to tell us where he’d come from, and—Yet, doggone it, I wonder?”
“Yes, Dawson?” the senior officer prompted, as Dave hesitated and fell silent. “You wonder what?”
“He repeated those four syllables several times,” the Yank born air ace replied with a frown. “And he kept saying, 'Southern.’ And he said ... 'Seven-Eleven—there.... Strike soon.’ Did he mean that this Seven-Eleven is south of Albuquerque? Or did he mean something that we haven’t got yet? And—well, is it all right to ask you about this Seven-Eleven, sir?”