"Huh?" Dawson grunted absently.
"For me, in case we should get captured," Freddy Farmer said, and edged along the flight deck toward the B-Twenty-Five. "In that event I can simply tell them that you've got it, and they'll cut you up in pieces and no doubt leave me alone. At the most, keep me a prisoner for the duration. You see?"
"Just a dear sweet pal!" Dawson growled. "Do that, my little man, and I promise to return to haunt you in your dreams. No fooling!"
"Better think up something worse than that, old bean!" Freddy Farmer shot right back at him. "Right now you haunt me when I'm awake! But let's get on with it, what? The aircraft seems about ready."
"What a tough break I need a navigator!" Dawson growled as they went down deck to the B-Twenty-Five. "If I didn't, I could toss you over the side for that crack, and finish this thing in peace."
"And a jolly, rotten break we're in such a hurry, too!" the English youth got in the parting shot. "It would be amusing to pretend we were lost just to see you sweat—and beg me to locate us."
"That'll be the day!" Dave added one bit more. "And you know what I mean, pal! Beg you, even for the time of day? Nuts!"
Some ten minutes later there was no longer any kidding around between the two air aces. Their North American B-Twenty-Five was clear of the flight deck of the Carrier Tempest, and up in the night-shrouded heavens. As a matter of fact, they could no longer even see the carrier. Just as soon as they had left, with the heartfelt good wishes of every officer and man aboard, the carrier had heeled way over and gone pounding around at full speed and onto a new course that would see her well away from that spot, come dawn.
Yes, the Tempest was far behind them, and Dawson and Farmer were just two steel-hearted eagles winging southwestward through night-shadowed skies, with its canopy of a billion or more twinkling stars high overhead. However, those twinkling stars meant far more than just night diamonds of beauty to Dawson and Farmer. To them they were the sign posts to their objective at Legaspi. They pointed the way along the skyway of the gods that they were to travel. To them they were understandable and tangible things. All else about them and below was darkness; the darkness of the unknown.
Relaxing comfortably in the pilot's seat, but with mind and body ready to spring to the alert at an instant's notice, Dawson fed the twin engines a minimum of high test to maintain desired cruising speed, and held the aircraft dead on the course Freddy Farmer had plotted out. With luck they should sight their objective at the very first sign of dawn light. And even then, it wouldn't be any too soon. This was the longest hop of them all to be made in the B-Twenty-Five. And no matter how careful and frugal Dave was with the fuel aboard, it was going to be close. So close, in fact, that they hadn't even considered a direct flight to China, though the coast line was not much farther away than the Legaspi airfield. But that was exactly the point. A landing on the China coast wouldn't do them any good at all. And it could well do them all kinds of harm. At Legaspi there was a field where they could sit down. There was fuel there, and Yanks to help them with the plane. But on the China coast? No such thing! Even though they managed to land still in one piece, it would be dollars to doughnuts that they'd probably land right smack in the laps of the occupying Japs. So it had to be Legaspi next. Legaspi, or bust.