Hardly had the Number One plane cleared its wheels before the Flight Operations officer stabbed his finger at the Number Two plane. It streaked off in a thunderous roar, and the finger was pointed at the Number Three plane. Then Four, then Five, and then Six, and the patrol was in the air climbing for altitude before taking up formation for the flight far out over the reaches of the Pacific.
Flying with the nonchalant ease, yet constant alertness, that comes with experience, Dave held the Devastator steady and twisted around to glance back at Freddy Farmer. The English youth was just a wee bit pale about the gills, but there was a bright look in his eyes, and a tight grin on his lips. Dave winked and nodded down at the Indian.
"Want to change your mind, pal?" he called out. "I can take you down with no trouble at all. How do you feel?"
"Never better!" Freddy shouted. "Just take me down, and it'll be the last landing you'll ever make. I'm up here to stay, my little man!"
Dave laughed, but there was just a little tightness to it.
"And do I hope that's the truth!" he cried. "Didn't see anything as we went to the plane, did you?"
"Not a sign," Freddy replied. "I don't think any of them even looked at us. Maybe he figured he'd done the job good on me, and that only five planes would take the air."
"Well, the rat knows different now!" Dave grated, and turned front. "He knows there are six ships up here, and that we're in one of them."
As Dave spoke the words he let his gaze wander from plane to plane in the formation. Oddly enough, a lump formed in his chest, and there was an empty feeling in his stomach. He had met and talked with every member of that patrol in the air. Kidded with them, played cards, and done all of the things one does with one's shipmates. It was hard, terribly hard to believe that one of them, possibly two, were earning blood money from Berlin or Tokio. Every one of them had struck him as being a swell guy. A swell guy, or one of the best actors that ever stepped on a stage. It didn't seem possible that savage hatred for the United States, for the whole civilized world, was flying along in the formation. It just didn't seem possible. Could he be wrong? Could both Freddy and he be all wet in their deductions? Had Freddy actually been slugged by accident, perhaps by a blundering mechanic carrying something heavy? Had he got scared at what he'd done, and dragged Freddy under that wing and taken to his heels? And had Freddy made a mistake about his wearing pilot's garb? Could it have been simply that?
Those and countless other questions churned around in Dave's head as he stared at the other planes in the formation droning northward over the seemingly endless sky blue waters of the Pacific. Whether the answers that came to mind were right or wrong, he had no way of telling. Only time would tell that. In a short while the formation would spread out so as to cover as great an area as possible. Then would be the time for the murderer of Commander Jackson and Lieutenant Commander Pollard to make his move, whatever it was going to be.