"Coming up tonight, huh?" the pilot echoed with a happy smile. "Swell! That means you and me will be shifted to some other station. And that'll suit me okay. This neck of the woods is giving me the creeps. Thirty days here. It's been like thirty years. Let's have a drink on getting out of here soon."
"Yeah!" the redhead said, and licked his lips. "Let's have a couple of them. I'm dry as a bone."
With that moment began an hour and a half that was just about the toughest ninety minutes Dave Dawson had ever spent in his life. The two unshaven men went over to the table and dropped into chairs and proceeded to ignore their prisoners. That didn't bother Dave in the slightest, though. He was quite content to have the two ignore him, for he was too busy with his thoughts—thoughts that tumbled and spilled around in his brain like little red hot stones. A hundred times at least he strained at the ropes that held his wrists bound behind his back. And a hundred times circles of white pain about his wrists convinced him that he didn't stand a chance in the world of freeing his hands, to say nothing of his ankles. A hundred times he cursed himself bitterly for not getting away from that attacker last night—and without damage to the Lockheed's engines. A hundred times he thought of the Aircraft Carrier Indian and the unknown doom that hovered over her; the unknown doom that was aboard her in the form of some rat Axis spy who had killed and obtained vital information that could easily spell disaster for many of Uncle Sam's fighting men of the sea if it reached Japanese hands soon enough.
A hundred times he thought of many things, and each time his utter helplessness to do anything about them was like a hot knife twisting in his heart. But the most torturing thing of all was the realization that he and Freddy had been stopped cold before they had even been able to get started. The Carrier Indian was over three hundred miles away, riding at anchor in San Diego harbor. Who knew when they would see it? Who knew if they would ever see it? Caught cold before they had even got started on the very first of the special assignments they were to carry out for Uncle Sam. What a sweet beginning! Yes! What a sweet beginning that could well be the end, too. And that end might come when the man referred to as the big boss arrived.
Thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts that walked, raced, cut and slashed their way through Dave's brain. Seconds dragged on into minutes, and the minutes seemed to drag on into an eternity of time. Then suddenly sound forced its way through Dave's thoughts and brought him back to the present. The sound was soft moaning and groaning. And it came from Freddy Farmer's lips.
The English youth was sitting on a gun case just beyond where Colonel Welsh sat, but out in front of him so that Dave could see his pal. And the look on Freddy's face was one of great pain, and not a little of terror, and fear. His eyes were half closed, and he seemed to be staring at nothing at all as he rocked jerkily back and forth like some African savage praying to his idol gods. For a brief instant Dave could hardly believe his eyes or his ears. Then a wave of sympathy mingled with just a little annoyance swept through him.
"Pull up your socks, Freddy!" he said in a low voice. "Show these rats you can take it. Come on, Freddy. Chin up, pal!"
The English youth groaned louder and opened his eyes a little. The look he flung Dave burned with scorn.
"Blast you and your chin-up rot!" he grated. "I've had enough of this. Gangster stuff, this is, not war. I know now I should never have left England. This is a madman's country. I tell you I've had enough of it!"
Freddy fairly screamed the last, and had Dave not been tied hand and foot he would have leaped over and slapped his pal's jaw. Something had happened to Freddy Farmer. Something had snapped inside of him. Dave had seen his pal in a hundred tight corners, every bit as tight as this one. He knew full well that Freddy was red-blooded courage from his head to his feet. But something had happened, and the English youth was ready to crack up like an hysterical old woman.