"Oh, skip it!" Dave grunted. "Maybe I'm just getting cold feet at the last minute."
Freddy stepped close to him.
"Would you like me to bash you one, my American pal?" he asked sharply. "Well, just stop talking that way about yourself. Cold feet? What rot! After what I saw you do at the Dunkirk show? Rubbish! No, Dave, don't talk that way to me. Now, what else were you going to say?"
Dave grinned and playfully rasped his knuckles across Freddy's jutting chin.
"One in a million, that's you," he said softly. "One in five million, or name any figure. Well, it's the old hunch business working again, if you must know, Freddy. I mean, everything seems too pat, too cut and dried. I've got the hunch that something we couldn't even dream of is going to pop up and dump us into a mess of trouble before we're back in England again."
"And right you are!" Freddy breathed softly. "I have a feeling just like that, myself. Got it first this afternoon, but I didn't say a word for fear the colonel might take it the wrong way. He might have thought I was hedging and trying to back out. You know, make excuses?"
"Nobody would ever think you were trying to back out of anything!" Dave said loyally. "But what was it that popped into your mind, anyway?"
"Pierre Deschaud," Freddy said.
Dave shot him a puzzled look.
"Huh?" he echoed. "Pierre Deschaud? So what?"