“Perfectly,” Colonel Welsh said gravely. “And don’t worry about the L.A. Base Commandant. He happens to be one of the whitest men in the Air Corps. Besides, when he loaned you his ship in the first place, that meant it was yours as long as you wanted it. He’s that way. Now—well, get out of here before I change my mind! I feel like the executioner at Sing Sing waiting to throw the switch. Get off with you. Good luck.... And may He watch over you as He has in the past.”
“Thanks, sir,” Dave said with an effort. “And—so long.”
“Quite, sir,” Freddy Farmer murmured. “Happy landings until we meet again—which of course will be very soon.”
The two flying aces clicked their heels, saluted smartly, then turned abruptly away and climbed into the Vultee’s pits. Dave ran his eye over the instruments in an automatic check, opened his throttle a bit to “blow” his engine and clear the cylinders of dead gas fumes. Then he opened it all the way and sent the Vultee streaking straight out along the cross-field runway. He had it off and in the air in no time, climbing smoothly up toward the dawn sun-flooded heavens.
At five thousand he leveled off, circled the field a couple of times in an air salute to Colonel Welsh down on the ground, then dipped his wings and cut around to a crow flight course across the mountains and southeastward to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not until San Francisco was out of sight behind the tail did he turn around and grin at Freddy.
“Gee, I’m sorry, Freddy,” he said above the roar of the engine in the nose. “I didn’t even give it a thought. But it’s not too late yet. If you want to, it’ll be perfectly okay by me pal.”
The English born youth looked surprised, and then slowly suspicion crawled into his eyes.
“What would be perfectly okay by you?” he demanded. “What didn’t you think of this time?”
“Why, you, of course!” Dave replied as though Freddy should know it. “I didn’t once ask if you’d rather not come along with me. I—I guess I just sort of took it for granted. But I can still skip back, and land, and dump you off, you know.”
No anger showed in Freddy Farmer’s face. He just looked at Dawson in sad sympathy, and sighed heavily.