“Nibble?” Freddy echoed, and frowned in perplexity.
“An idea of who, and how, about Tracey,” the mechanic explained. “And—well, the two of us feel like going out and cutting our throats.”
“And how, we do!” grated the taller mechanic. “Of course we didn’t know who he was. It’s part of our job to meet all foreign ships landing here. I mean, planes that don’t belong to this field. We met Tracey’s ship, and we serviced it for him. If I had only known, I’d have watched it like a hawk until he’d taken off again. But we didn’t know a thing about him until a couple of hours ago when Colonel Welsh got us on the wire to explain about you two coming down. He didn’t tell us where you were headed, just that you were two after one, and that those were to be the identification words.”
The man looked questioningly at Dave, but the Yank ace just grinned, and shrugged.
“Oh, we’re just out for a bit of fishing, you know,” Freddy Farmer offered the information presently. “We’re hoping we have all kinds of luck.”
“I’m hoping for you,” the tall agent mechanic said. “We both are. That means you’re just passing through, huh? When do you want your ship ready? And I guess we might as well patch up those two bullet holes.”
The last caused Dave almost to jump out of his shoes.
“Huh?” he gulped, bug-eyed. “Bullet holes? Where?”
The tall mechanic pointed to the left side of the fuselage at a point exactly between the forward and rear pits. There were two neat bullet holes in the dural covering, not over an inch apart. Dave stared at them and felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead. A foot farther front and they would have been in his spine. A foot farther to the rear and they would have been in Freddy’s legs.
“Holy smoke!” he breathed. “Sweet tripe! I had no idea!”