"That you wait until it's over before you ask me to explain the jokes and tag lines!" Dawson said with a chuckle. Then quickly, "Now, now, little man! Food's scarce in England. Put down that plate!"
"As if I'd waste a crumb on the likes of you!" Freddy Farmer growled, but he did release his sudden hold on his plate. "Now if there were a hammer or a length of lead pipe handy. Oh well, probably neither would make an impression on your thick skull!"
Dawson laughed at the look on Freddy's face, and as he resumed eating his meal he suddenly realized that his mood of gloom and depression had gone. He felt swell; sitting right on top of the world.
As it was still early evening, the two aces took their time finishing the meal. But finally they settled the check and wandered out into the blacked out streets of London. As they reached the Strand they both impulsively paused and peered at the shadowy sky line. It was a long time since the Luftwaffe had given up the attempt to force stout-hearted London to its knees, but many scars of those weeks and months of nightly sky horror were still visible. No, there were not heaps of bomb rubble all about. On the contrary, Londoners had pitched to with a will and cleaned up their beloved city. The scars that Dawson and Freddy Farmer saw were simply the gaping holes where once a building, or a theater, or a row of shops, had been. In other words, it was not what they saw that sent their thoughts flying back to the blitz of London; it was the familiar things that they didn't see. And would never see again.
"The dirty beggars!" Freddy Farmer said in a low, strained voice. "The dirty dogs for doing this to London!"
"Yeah," Dawson murmured. "But they're getting paid back, pal. And how they're getting paid back! Before we're through they'll wish they'd never been born."
"What a pity," young Farmer grunted.
"Huh, pity?" Dawson echoed sharply. "Because we're smacking them plenty, and—"
"No," Freddy interrupted. "I mean, what a pity any of them were ever born in the first place. So help me, I don't believe I'll ever live to see the day when just hearing the word Nazi won't make my blood boil, and make me see red."
"And that goes for millions of people, Freddy," Dawson said. "But right now, nuts to the future. Shall we try to flag a taxi in this sprawled out coal mine, or is the Holborn near enough to walk?"