Freddy Farmer brightened and scrambled down from his cockpit.
“I say, do you suppose I could get a spot of tea?” he asked.
Dave frowned and looked at him. In fact, he cocked his head first on one side, and then on the other.
“What size skirt do you take, and blouse?” he murmured, straight-faced. “As a girl you’d get it easy. These guys are very polite. But to ask for tea in that uniform, with pilot’s wings and all—”
Dave paused and sighed heavily. Freddy glared and took a quick step forward.
“That, my good fellow, is the last straw!” he cried. “Now your countrymen here will see what happens to a bloke who insults the honored and traditional drink of the English. I shall—”
Freddy stopped as a couple of mechanics came running over to the plane. They came to a halt and saluted.
“The check-in booth is over there, sir,” one of them said to Dave. “If you hurry, you’ll make it by two after one. We’ll take charge of your ship, sir. Nice trip?”
Two after one! Those three words were like three bombshells going off in Dave’s brain. They were the code words that would identify Colonel Welsh’s two agents who would meet them in Albuquerque. But only one, the taller, had spoken them. Dave looked at the shorter one and smiled apologetically, and touched a finger to his ear.
“Engine deafened me a little,” he said. “What was that?”