"No," he said. "The tender will leave in secret from a point up the shore, and the Indian's Captain will be informed of your coming. No, I mean sparing your lives for a while by sending you out officially. Otherwise, you two would probably try to swim out to her and be shot in the water by the deck watch. So I'll send you officially, and—well, God bless both of you—and keep you in His shadow. Amen!"
[CHAPTER FOURTEEN]
Invisible Walls
Her engines turning over at close to top speed, the Aircraft Carrier Indian sliced her bow through the sky blue waters of the Pacific on a southwesterly course. To port and to starboard her destroyer escort scooted and twisted about like little smoke-belching water bugs having a field day. High in the air and several miles out in front, the advance scouting section winged along with all eyes on the watch for the first sign of possible enemy interference.
For eight days, now, the Indian had been racing across the vast Pacific for her rendezvous with the cruiser squadron and other navy craft that were to make the surprise attack on the Jap-occupied Marshall Islands. For eight days, and eight nights, racing westward and southward toward a well planned blow, and victory. Yet it might not be victory but disaster and death. For eight days and eight nights Freddy Farmer and Dave Dawson had played an active part in the life aboard that mighty ship of eagle's wings. They had made new friends, they had thrilled to the thunder and the power of their Douglas Devastator torpedo bomber as they went ripping off the carrier's flight deck and up into the blue Pacific sky for their daily practice patrol trick. They had felt once again the tingling excitement of the alert alarm, and the hunt for possible enemy craft in adjacent waters.
It had been eight days and nights of new things, a new routine, new orders, new faces, almost a new language in a new world. They were a part of what would be in not so many months to come the mightiest fighting force in all the world's history. It was perfect, it was tops—but it was not enough. Not enough, because with each passing hour, each passing day, their own personal defeat drew closer and closer. Eight days, and eight nights, and they were no nearer to accomplishing their special mission than they had been the very first moment they heard details of it fall from Colonel Welsh's lips way back in Washington, D. C.
"It really is an invisible wall this time, Dave," Freddy Farmer muttered bitterly as he and Dawson sunned themselves in the flight deck crash nets on the starboard side. "We might as well admit it. We haven't the faintest idea who the blighter might be. For all we know, he's already passed on his blasted information to the Japs; tossed it over the side at night, with a delayed flare bomb, for some trailing Jap submarine to sight and pick up. Blast it all! For all we know, the blighter may not be aboard at all."
"You're telling me?" Dave groaned, and rolled over on his stomach. "For all we know he's been watching us every minute, and laughing his darned head off. When I let fly at Colonel Welsh back there in San Diego—and it's a wonder he didn't knock me kicking for my lip—I felt sort of cocky. I had a hunch that we'd be sure to trip over a break. What, I had no idea. But we've gone into things before with our heads down, and nothing else but a prayer. And somehow we managed to barge or stumble into something that paid off. But this? We're just a couple of guys without a prayer. Doggone it, Freddy! I haven't even met a guy aboard this ship I didn't like at once. And that goes for the ratings, as well as the officers. Nuts! I guess I must have expected to see some ugly-faced bird with dark glasses and a fake mustache sneaking around the flight deck at night. It's got me stopped cold."
"Me too!" Freddy said with a heavy sigh. "I heard a story once of something that happened in the last war. It was in a camp in England, an infantry training camp. A spy was sabotaging things, causing gun accidents, and several chaps were hurt. Well, they hunted high and low for the lad, but no go. Then one of the chaps working on the case got an idea. One evening when all the men were in barracks, and lights were out, he went from barracks to barracks, popped open the door, switched on the lights and yelled, 'Attention!' in German. In the third barracks a chap leaped out of his bed and sprang to attention. He was the blighter they wanted. German Army training drilled into him, you know. He reacted to the German command automatically."
"I get it!" Dave snorted. "So we should go all over the ship yelling 'Attention!' in German? Nice, but I've got a better idea. We dress up to look like Hitler and cover the ship. The first bird who gives us the Nazi salute we throw to the deck and nail him down. Then we search his quarters and find the stolen plans. It would be a cinch, but I guess there aren't any Hitler uniforms aboard. Too bad! We'll have to think up something else."