DAVE DAWSON ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT

by R. SIDNEY BOWEN

Author of: "DAVE DAWSON AT DUNKIRK" "DAVE DAWSON WITH THE R. A. F." "DAVE DAWSON IN LIBYA" "DAVE DAWSON ON CONVOY PATROL" "DAVE DAWSON, FLIGHT LIEUTENANT" "DAVE DAWSON AT SINGAPORE" "DAVE DAWSON WITH THE PACIFIC FLEET" "DAVE DAWSON WITH THE AIR CORPS" "DAVE DAWSON WITH THE COMMANDOS"

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1943, BY CROWN PUBLISHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

Mystery Man

"Okay, okay!" Dave Dawson growled, and rolled over to a more comfortable position in the hotel bed. "It's dear old England. A wonderful country, a great place. And you're tickled silly to be here. Okay, I agree with every word you say. God save the King, and there'll always be an England. Now, will you let a guy get some sleep?"

"But you don't understand what it means to me, Dave." Freddy Farmer spoke through the darkness from the other bed. "This is my native land, my home, and I've—"

"Gone completely screwy!" Dawson snapped. "Sweet tripe! You were here only two days ago. Two days you've been away, and you're sounding off as though you'd been away for a million years. Just a two day jaunt over to France, and the guy starts flag waving. My pal, much as I like you, you are a pain in seventeen different places at the same time. Go to sleep, you bow-legged Commando!"[1]

"Just what I've said quite often," Freddy said placidly. "It takes an Englishman to really appreciate his homeland. Two years or two days, what does it matter? The joy that is his upon arriving back home is always the same. Do you see what I mean, Dave?"

Dawson groaned, sat up in bed, and switched on the table lamp. But as he did so he took a quick automatic glance at the room windows to make sure that the blackout curtains were drawn and securely fastened. Then he hunched around in bed and glared at his closest and dearest friend in the world.

"The day will come!" he snarled. "So help me, the day will come!"

The English-born air ace blinked, and looked blank.

"Eh?" he echoed. "What say, Dave?"

"Just that the day will come, so help me!" Dawson answered, and leveled a stiff forefinger. "The day will come when I'll forget I like you, and will up and bust you right on your snoot. For cat's sake, Freddy! You're worse than a woman, from what I hear of them. Don't you ever shut up?"

Freddy Farmer propped a hand under his head and grinned.

"But I don't feel sleepy," he said. "I want to talk. Don't you? Now, really, you're not sleepy, are you, Dave? After all, we haven't had much time to talk since we got back from that Commando show in Occupied France. We've—I say! What's the matter, old fellow?"

The last was because Dawson's hands had come up in an attitude of prayer, and his lips were moving soundlessly.

"Just calling for strength," he told his pal. "For a second there I almost wished that you had been left behind, you doggone phonograph record. Look, pal, see these lines on my face? And these pouches under my eyes? Well, that's not from age. Just because I'm tired."

Freddy Farmer stared hard, and his face flooded with sympathy. However, there was a very wicked gleam in his eyes.

"I say, Dave, old thing!" he murmured. "I'm frightfully sorry, no end. I thought—well, as you Yanks say, that you could take it. I didn't dream that little Commando show in Occupied France would do you in so much. Put out the light, you poor fellow, and try to get some sleep. Want me to send down to the chemist shop for something to make you sleep? Drugstore, you call it in the States, don't you?"

Dawson carefully settled himself in a sitting position, and then, clasping his hands in his lap, he started to count.

"One—two—three—four—five—!"

"I say, Dave, what's up?" Freddy Farmer cried in alarm.

"When I get to ten, you'll find out!" Dawson barked. Then, with a heavy sigh, "Okay, okay, you want to talk, so what chance have I got? I couldn't sleep, now, if I were hit by a truck. But just one thing, Freddy Farmer: keep this night in your memory, always!"

"Why, Dave?"

"Just never mind, sweetheart!" Dave grunted. "Skip it for the present. As you were saying?"

"Oh, so you want to talk, old thing?" the English youth echoed, and grinned maliciously. "Splendid! It is nice to be back in England, isn't it?"

"I could answer that, but my folks brought me up to act like a gentleman!" Dawson snapped. "What else, Edison?"

"Edison?"

"The inventor of the phonograph," Dawson said. "Turn the record and put in a new needle!"

"Well, I was wondering—" the English youth murmured, as he let the wisecrack sail right over his head—"I was wondering what next, Dave?"

"More loss of sleep," Dawson flung at him, "because of more useless talk at three in the morning from a certain nit-wit. And, I do mean you!"

"And the same to you, sir!" Freddy came right back at him, and made a face. "But I am still wondering what's going to happen next?"

"Who cares, so long at it's action against those dirty Nazis," Dawson said.

"Quite!" the English youth murmured. "But you're a very tired little fellow. Go on back to sleep. I'll tell you about it in the morning. That'll be time enough. Good night, Dave. Or rather, good morning."

Freddy reached a hand toward the table lamp between the twin beds, but Dave grabbed hold of it in time.

"Nix!" he said. "That look on your face makes me suspicious, young fellow. You've got something important on your mind. I can tell. Come on, now. Let's have it, pal."

"Oh, I fancy it will keep until morning," Freddy Farmer said with a wicked grin. "Go get your beauty sleep. After all, it arrived after you had gone to sleep. So what's the difference?"

By now Dawson was wide awake, and as he swung his legs out from under the covers there was a dangerous glint in his eyes.

"Stop right there, pal!" he grunted, and leveled a finger. "What came after I'd gone to sleep? Do you tell me, or do I toss you through that window, blackout curtains and all?"

"Oh no you don't!" the English youth cried as he leaped out of bed on the far side. "Calm down, young fellow, and I'll tell you. Stay put, or not a word will I tell you!"

Dawson relaxed and sank back on his bed.

"Okay, but it had better be good!" he growled through a yawn. "Okay, what's the big mystery?"

"It was a phone call," Freddy Farmer said with a jerk of his head toward the instrument on the wall. "From the Air Ministry. We are to report at Room Twelve Hundred at eight o'clock in the morning."

"Hey, they can't do that to us!" Dave cried. "We're supposed to be on leave. We—Did the chap at the other end say what it was all about?"

Freddy Farmer shook his head and slid back into bed.

"Not a word," he said. "Naturally, I asked questions. But that's all the good it did me. The chap was very brusque. Report at eight, and that's that."

Dawson sighed and gave a sad shake of his head.

"Not that I don't want to do my part in trimming the Nazis," he said, "but, my gosh, I could do with at least a couple of days leave. Why, I haven't even had time to see a movie in months. Oh, well, maybe it's for something unimportant."

"I doubt it," Freddy Farmer said emphatically. "I guess you've forgotten Room Twelve Hundred at the Air Ministry, Dave."

"Huh?" Dawson echoed, jerking his head up. "Room—? Holy smoke! That's Royal Air Force Intelligence! But it doesn't make sense, Freddy. We're not in the R.A.F. now. We're with the Yank forces!"

"Quite!" the English-born air ace grunted. "But I fancy Air Ministry wouldn't have phoned that order if they hadn't first obtained permission of Yank G.H.Q. But what difference does it make, anyway, if it's Yank G.H.Q. or the Air Ministry? Either of them could detail a job to us. But the important thing to me is, what is it this time?"

"The fellow on the phone didn't give you any kind of a hint?" Dawson persisted.

The English youth shook his head.

"Not the faintest," he replied. "We'll just have to wait and find out, I'm afraid."

Dawson groaned and glanced at the clock on the night table. The hands showed him it was exactly sixteen minutes to four. Just four hours and sixteen minutes to wait!

"Nuts!" he sighed, and slid down under the covers. "I wish I hadn't made you tell me, pal. Now there's a fat chance that I'll get any more sleep! You don't happen to have a deck of cards around, do you? We could kill time with some two-handed rummy."

"Sorry," Freddy Farmer said. "Not a card. But I'll sing to you, if you like."

"Never!" Dawson cried out in mock protest. "Spare me that, please, sir. Besides, I don't want to have the authorities piling in here to arrest you for impersonating the air raid sirens. Nix! I'll permit you to sing over my dead body. I'll—Oh, darn it! What do you suppose they've got cooked up for us in Room Twelve Hundred at the Air Ministry?"

"How I wish I knew!" Freddy Farmer breathed solemnly. "But if past experience means anything, there's one thing we can bank on, no doubt."

"Which would be?" Dawson grunted.

"A messy job of some kind," the English youth opined. "They seem to save that sort of thing especially for us."

"Check and double check!" Dawson murmured. "You've got something there, pal. And how!"

And with that both boys lapsed into silence, and stared thoughtful and scowlingly up at the hotel room ceiling.

CHAPTER TWO

Room 1200

Any period of time will pass if you'll just wait long enough, and so eventually it was eight o'clock in the morning, and the two air aces had paused before Room Twelve Hundred at the Air Ministry. They had paused by unspoken mutual consent. And now as their eyes met they both grinned, and lifted their right hands with the middle fingers crossed over the indexes.

"Here's for luck, or something," Dave Dawson murmured with a wink.

"Quite," Freddy Farmer echoed. "At least, I hope it won't be bad luck."

For a couple of seconds more the two youths hesitated, and then Dave Dawson took a deep breath, turned the door knob, and pushed the door open. He entered the small outer office with Freddy Farmer right at his heels. A Flight Lieutenant seated at the small desk took one swift look at their American Air Force uniforms and recognized them at once.

"Good morning, Captains," he said with a smile. "I'll tell Air Vice-Marshal Leman, and Colonel Welsh, that you are here."

Both Dave and Freddy instantly stiffened and went wide-eyed. It was Dawson who found his tongue first.

"What's that, Flight Lieutenant?" he got out. "Did I hear you say Colonel Welsh? You don't mean Colonel Welsh, chief of the U.S. Armed Forces Intelligence?"

"That's exactly who I mean," the Flight Lieutenant replied. "He arrived in England by bomber yesterday. Just a moment, please, and I'll let them know you're here."

The Flight Lieutenant went over to a huge solid oak door, knocked on it, and then stepped through and closed it behind him. Dave and Freddy chose that moment to gape puzzle-eyed at each other.

"Well, what do you know!" Dawson finally breathed. "Colonel Welsh, who had us hauled out of the R.A.F. in the first place!"[2]

"I know," the English youth echoed. "Fancy, meeting him here in London. Well, I guess that certainly means that something new has been cooked up for us. Good grief! His name was the farthest from my mind!"

"You and me both!" Dawson said with a nod. "And it sure does mean that plenty's on the fire, if Colonel Welsh is over here. But it'll be good to meet him again. He always rated tops with me."

"Quite!" the English youth murmured.

And that's as far as he got. At that moment the Flight Lieutenant opened the huge solid oak door, and motioned for them to come into the inner office. They did, with Dawson leading the way, and so it was his hand that was grasped first by the thin-faced officer in the uniform of a U.S. Infantry Colonel.

"Well, Dawson, I'm certainly mighty glad to meet you again!" the Colonel greeted him. "And you, too, Farmer. Neither of you has changed a bit."

"Thank you, sir," Dawson smiled back at him. "And it's good to meet you again. This is certainly one big surprise."

"Quite, sir," Freddy echoed as he, too, shook hands with the Colonel. "I hope you had a nice flight across."

"A perfect hop," the senior officer said. "But I'm forgetting my manners. Air Vice-Marshal Leman, let me present Captains Dawson and Farmer. But perhaps you've already met?"

The good looking Air Force officer, who had sat smiling behind a desk that seemed to fill half the room, got up instantly and came around it with his hand outstretched.

"No, but I've certainly heard no end of things about you two," he said as he shook hands with both boys. "But who hasn't, for that matter?" he continued with a chuckle. "Including Adolf Hitler, of course. There, have chairs, Gentlemen. I can see it in your faces that you are wondering no end what this is all about. Well, Colonel, I fancy you'd better do the talking for us, eh?"

The senior American officer smiled, nodded, and then waited until everybody was comfortably seated in chairs.

"I've a job for you," he presently told the two youths bluntly. "And I want to say right here that it is probably the toughest assignment you ever received. Feel like taking a crack at something really tough?"

Dave Dawson leaned forward on the edge of his chair, and nodded eagerly. All thoughts of leave were gone from his brain now. Just the sight of Colonel Welsh had changed everything all around. He was more than ever anxious for action.

"The tougher it is the better I'll like it, sir," he said with a grin. "Speaking for myself, of course."

"Oh, you're jolly well speaking for me, too!" Freddy Farmer spoke up quickly. "Besides, you'd have to have me along to watch out for you, you know."

Everybody chuckled at that remark, and then Colonel Welsh's thin face became very grave and serious.

"I really meant that, just the same," he said with a grim nod. "This one is really tough, and your chances of pulling it off successfully are about one in six million, roughly speaking."

"The odds have been pretty big against us in the past, sir," Dave said quietly. "But where are we heading this time, or shouldn't I ask yet?"

"You may, and I'll answer it," Colonel Welsh replied. "This time it's Russia."

That brought both youths up stiff and straight on the edges of their chairs.

"Russia?" Dave gasped out.

"Russia?" Freddy Farmer echoed incredulously. "Good grief!"

"That's right, Russia," Colonel Welsh repeated. "But just where in Russia, the good Lord Himself alone knows. To be perfectly frank, it's quite possible that I'm sending you after no more than a handful of Russian air. That's why I say the odds against your success are about one in six million. However, if by any possible chance you do pull this one off, why then—"

The American Intelligence Chief paused and made a little gesture with his hands.

"Why then," he continued a moment later, "Civilization will owe you a far bigger debt of gratitude than it does now, even."

Neither of the boys said anything. They just sat quietly, with their eyes fixed on the senior officer, and waited for him to continue. However, when the Colonel spoke again it was not to the boys. He addressed himself to Air Vice-Marshal Leman.

"On second thought, sir," he said, "perhaps you'd better tell your part of it first. Then I'll take it up from there."

The senior R.A.F. officer shrugged and nodded.

"Very well, if you like, Colonel," he said. And then, turning to the two air aces, he began, "This all started back in the summer of 1939, just before Hitler started into Poland. Of course, anybody with half an eye, or half an ear, could have both seen and heard things that would have left no doubt of what the Nazis had up their sleeves. We of Intelligence knew perfectly well that no amount of appeasement would change Hitler's plans one single bit. We knew that the man was no more than a mad dog, and that only a bullet in the brain could stop him. However, the Government in power at the time thought otherwise, and tried to—Well, all that blasted business of the Munich meeting is dead history now. So it doesn't help anything to bring it out into the light again."

The R.A.F. Intelligence chief paused for breath and to clear his throat. Then he made a little gesture with one hand and continued.

"What I'm trying to bring out," he said, "is that though there was hope in certain quarters that something could be done to stop Hitler at that time, and without bloodshed, we of Intelligence were carrying on as though we were actually at war. Or at least on the brink of war, which of course we were. Anyway, our agents were all over Europe gathering every bit of information possible, and making underground contacts that might prove useful when, and if, the guns started firing. Well, one of my agents—and we'll call him Jones for the moment—had a rare bit of luck. It was one of those things that happen say once in a hundred years. It happened as a result of no effort of his part, either. It—well, it was simply a bit of absolutely lucky coincidence.

"This Jones, having completed a small mission in Prague, in Czechoslovakia, was on his way by train to Krakow, Poland, when right at the borders of Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the train was wrecked. Split rails caused the wreck, and some sixty odd persons were killed. Fortunately, Jones was in one of the three cars that remained on the track, and he received no more than a severe shaking up. Well, it so happened that a Nazi trade mission on the way to Moscow was aboard the train, and two of its members were killed. That, of course, made it more than just an ordinary train wreck. According to Jones the whole place was alive with Nazi officials in no time at all. Actually the exact location of the wreck was a good mile within the Polish borders, but that didn't bother the Nazis any. They regarded it as German ground and took complete charge of everything at once. The Polish officials objected, but that's all the good it did them. Incidentally, the thing did not appear in the public prints, but as a matter of record that wreck was the first of the so-called border incidents that terminated with the Nazi invasion, and slaughter, of Poland."

Air Vice-Marshal Leman paused again, and sat staring off into space as though choosing the words he would speak next. And when he did speak again there was just the faintest trace of bitter disappointment in his voice.

"Whether the wreck was an accident, or was deliberately planned," he continued, "will never be known. However, the Nazis instantly took it as an act of sabotage and, in true Nazi fashion, started arresting people left and right. They arrested people who were actually on the train, as well as a lot of the male inhabitants of a small village that bordered that stretch of track. And anybody who even so much as offered a single word of protest was immediately clubbed half to death, and definitely regarded by the Nazis as one of the perpetrators of the so called crime against the Third Reich. Well, you can imagine what a madhouse that place was, with passengers dead and dying, others trying to do what they could for the injured, and the Nazi brutes pounding roughshod over everything and everybody. It was indeed a perfect pre-view of what was to come on a much more gigantic scale.

"Well, Jones, being no more than shaken up a bit, joined those who were doing what they could to help the injured. He came upon one man who was pinned under the shattered end of one car. The man was conscious, but he was bleeding at the mouth, and his chest was horribly crushed. Jones took him for a German, but that didn't make any difference at the time. He started trying to get the pieces of the shattered car off the man and drag him free in case fire broke out. It was a pretty hopeless task. The slightest movement made the pinned man's face go grey with pain, and finally he begged Jones—and in perfect English, mind you—just to let him stay where he was. The intense pain of being rescued was too much for him. And no sooner had he spoken the plea than the surprising thing happened. The injured man whispered for Jones to bend close, and listen to what he had to say. Jones did just that, and the man said that he was a Russian by birth but had lived most of his life in Germany. He said that he had discovered a horrible plot to wipe the Soviet Republic from the face of the earth. That he had learned every detail of Hitler's mad plan to conquer and enslave the entire world!"

The R.A.F. officer stopped short and smiled almost apologetically.

"I know what you must be thinking," he said to the two air aces, who sat motionless and just a little bit wide-eyed. "You're thinking that perhaps I've gone a bit balmy, or that I'm reciting a bit from one of those crazy war stories that are being so widely read these days. But that's not true. All this actually did happen. In short, over a month before the war actually started, one man pinned under a wrecked railroad train just inside the Polish border knew every detail of Hitler's entire war plan. And what's more, he gave half of that invaluable information to the British Intelligence agent I've called Jones!"

CHAPTER THREE

Fate Laughs

The echo of Air Vice-Marshal Leman's last words seemed to hang in the air for long seconds. And then suddenly the echo faded out and the room was filled with a silence in which a pin could have been heard to drop. Dave Dawson gulped softly as he let the clamped air from his lungs, and inched forward on the edge of his chair.

"Only half the information, sir?" he questioned. "So it didn't do Agent Jones any good?"

The senior R.A.F. officer smiled sadly, and seemed to emphasize his feelings with a soft sigh.

"Let me continue with the story, and I think your question will be answered, Dawson," he said. "Yes, the injured man gave Jones only half the information he had collected. But even that half didn't help any. You see, this man had written down everything that he had learned. According to Jones he must have done it with a needle point pen, and under a magnifying glass. It filled two sheets of ordinary manuscript paper, on both sides. It was sewn in his coat, and he got Jones to take it out for him. And then the man tore the two sheets in half and gave half to Jones. Then he tore his half to bits, put them in his mouth and swallowed them!"

"Well, for cats' sake!" Dave Dawson blurted out before he could check himself.

"Quite!" the Air Vice-Marshal said with a faint smile. "It was quite a mad thing to do, considering. But we must suppose that the poor chap was probably half mad from the pain he was suffering. And of course, Jones had naturally not revealed his true identity. Well, anyway, this man told Jones to get away from the spot as soon as he could, and reach the village of Tobolsk as soon as he could. Tobolsk doesn't appear on any of the maps, but it is a tiny village situated about eighty miles west of Stalingrad on the Volga. He told Jones to deliver his half of that precious information to a farmer who lived in Tobolsk. And—well, that's where the real hard luck began to set in."

"Beg pardon, sir?" Freddy Farmer murmured as the senior officer suddenly lapsed into silence and sat scowling darkly down at the top of his desk. "You mean, sir, that Agent Jones wasn't able to contact this farmer in Tobolsk?"

"I mean much more than that!" the other replied with a grimace. "I mean that everything simply went from bad to worse. To begin with, Jones was unable to catch the name of the man he was to contact in Tobolsk. He asked the injured man to repeat it, but it wasn't repeated. The man had become unconscious. Jones had no chance to try to revive him, or to wait for the man to regain consciousness either, for at that moment a party of Nazis swept down on him, thrust him to one side and started getting the injured man out from under the wreckage. It seems that they had suddenly decided that the poor devil had had an active part in causing the wreck. I know that sounds incredible. But I ask you, is there anything sane about the Nazi mind, let alone their actions?"

"Not the ones I've run up against," Dawson grunted with a shake of his head.

"Definitely not!" Freddy Farmer agreed. "But what rotten luck for Agent Jones!"

"And only the beginning!" Air Vice-Marshal Leman growled in his throat. "As Jones stood there quite helpless, the Nazis hauled that poor chap out from under the wreckage and whisked him away, just like that. There was absolutely nothing Jones could do about it without getting into trouble himself. After all, he certainly couldn't take any chances of being arrested. Himmler, of course, knew full well that we had our agents all over Europe, and with war just around the corner it would be all up with any of the poor chaps who were caught. War or no war, we'd certainly never hear from them again. And we couldn't very well admit that they were agents of ours and ask the German Government to release them. Once an agent goes out on a mission he is absolutely on his own. If he gets into a tight corner it's up to him to get himself out of it. To assist him would simply tip our hand, and unquestionably disrupt our entire espionage system. And—"

The R.A.F. Intelligence officer stopped short with a little laugh.

"But I'm a fine one to be telling that to you two chaps, who have actually experienced the situation more than once," he said. "Of course you understand what Jones was up against. His hands were tied, and he simply couldn't make any move without walking straight into the clutches of the Nazis. However, his very good judgment didn't gain him a single thing. He was arrested by the Nazis!"

"Arrested?" Freddy Farmer gasped. "Good grief! What for?"

"For the same reason other passengers aboard the train were arrested," the Air Vice-Marshal replied. "Simply for no good reason at all, other than the fact that the Nazis figured they weren't functioning according to plan unless they made some arrest. Anyway, Jones was presently arrested along with the others, perhaps because he was seen talking to the injured man. At any rate, they arrested him and herded him into one of the several police vans that had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. Just picture what must have been going on in his mind! Stuffed down in one of his pockets were two halves of sheet paper containing data on Hitler's war plans for ultimate world conquest. And there he was in a Nazi prison van under guard, and being driven back into Germany."

"Not so good!" Dawson grunted impulsively. "Right behind the old eight ball, and how!"

"Eh?" the R.A.F. Intelligence chief echoed with arched eyebrows.

"An American expression, sir," Colonel Welsh spoke up with a chuckle. "Dawson means that Jones was certainly between the devil and the deep blue sea. Right out on the end of the limb, so to speak."

The Air Vice-Marshal blinked just a little at that string of descriptive adjectives, but decided to let them ride without further explanation.

"Yes, Jones was very much in a bit of a spot," he said with a nod. "He had the two halves of paper, but of course he'd had had no time to examine them yet. Fact is, he had no way of knowing whether what he'd heard was true or not. Perhaps those torn halves of paper in his pocket with all the minute writing didn't mean a thing to anybody. In short, it might be best to wad them into a ball and toss them unseen over the side of the police van, and forget the whole thing. Whether they contained things of importance or not would certainly make no difference to the Nazis should those blighters find them on him. The Nazi beggars are thorough, if nothing else. As you say in America, they don't overlook a single bet. They do things automatically, and take care of the questioning part of it later."

"And lots of times they don't even bother with the questioning part!" Dawson spoke up, with a knowing nod. "They may be butchers and murderers, but they aren't anybody's fools."

"Far from it," the Air Vice-Marshal agreed instantly. "So it was very touch and go with Jones. Should he get rid of the stuff and pay attention to saving his own skin? Or should he risk everything until he had a chance to make what he could from the writing on his two torn halves of paper? Well—well, permit me to say that he was a British Intelligence officer, so the decision he made is obvious. He took the chance on keeping the two halves. And for once luck was with him. Unseen by the guard on the van, he managed to wad the two halves of paper—they were very thin sheets—into a ball and hide them in his left armpit under a patch of gummed skin tissue that all agents carry—as you two chaps well know."

The senior officer stopped talking as though waiting for the two air aces to nod. And then he continued on.

"Well, Jones, and those with him, were taken to the town of Opelln inside Germany, and thrown into jail. For thirty hours they had neither food nor water, and four unfortunates died. Or perhaps they were fortunate in being able to die, considering what the others suffered later. Anyway, Jones was unmolested for thirty hours. And you can be sure he made full use of them. He borrowed a pair of thick lens glasses from one of the other prisoners, and using a lens as a magnifying glass, he read what his two halves of paper contained. And I will say right here that it was the most exciting bit of reading that Jones or any other man ever perused. Before his eyes was revealed a good part of what Hitler intended to do. And, mind you, exactly what he has done since the start of the war! Of course, with only half of it there, Jones was unable to learn definite details. He could only read what he could read, and guess at what the other half contained. But had Jones been able to turn his newly gained knowledge over to us, the—well, I can tell you that the history of this war thus far would have been completely different from what it has been."

"You mean he didn't turn it over to you, sir?" Freddy Farmer blurted out on impulse.

"He didn't have the chance, worse luck!" the other replied, and rubbed one clenched fist into the palm of his other hand. "But he did do the only thing he could do. During those thirty hours he was left unmolested he not only read every one of the unfinished sentences, but he memorized every single word before destroying and disposing of the two torn halves of paper. However, Fate, you might say, was still giving him a black look. At the end of the thirty hours the prisoners were herded into the prison head's office and questioned. Questioned, and knocked about from here to there when they didn't, or couldn't give answers that satisfied their captors. Jones was no better off than any of the others. In fact, it developed that he was worse off. An answer he gave to one question didn't please the Nazi overlord, who lost his temper and struck Jones in the face with his fist. Jones, to save himself from toppling over backwards, flung up both hands, and his right hand unfortunately whacked one of the lesser Nazi officials in the face. And that tore it, of course. Jones wasn't questioned any more. He was promptly jumped on, half beaten to death, and then chained hand and foot, and sent off to a Nazi internment camp."

The senior R.A.F. officer stopped short. His lips stiffened, his two hands bunched into rock hard fists, and there was the bright glint of cold steel in his eyes.

"I need not describe to you the things Jones went through, and suffered, after that!" he finally grated out through clenched teeth. "The so-called routine of a Nazi internment camp is well known all over the world by now. But I come to the end of my part of this story. Six days ago, Agent Jones arrived back in England. He was the mere shadow of the man I sent into Europe over three years ago, but the British spirit, like the American spirit, knows no such thing as defeat. He never gave up. He tried to escape three times, and was caught. He himself says that he'll never know how he managed to go on living from one attempt at escape to the next. But the fourth time he made it. His escape is a hair-raising story in itself, but it's unimportant here, so I won't bother with it. But he did return to England six days ago, and he was able to put down on paper every one of those words he had memorized."

"Stout fellow!" Freddy Farmer cried enthusiastically. "He certainly deserves the Victoria Cross, if ever a chap did. So now all that invaluable information is ours!"

Air Vice-Marshal Leman smiled sadly and shook his head.

"No, Farmer, it isn't," he said slowly. "We only have half of it. And the half we have is practically useless without the other half. Like Jones when he first read it, we can only guess at what the other half reveals. We don't know. And guesses in war are quite often as useless as no information at all."

"But, my gosh!" Dawson cried. "You mean, sir, he went through all that for nothing? That he might just as well have tossed the whole thing overboard in the first place?"

"No, not quite, Dawson," the Air Vice-Marshal said. Then, looking over at Colonel Welsh, he added, "I guess you'd better tell the last half of our story, sir."

CHAPTER FOUR

East of Darkness

As one man, Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer swiveled around in their chairs and stared expectantly at the chief of the American Intelligence services. He did not return their look for a moment or two, however. As Air Vice-Marshal Leman had done once or twice, he scowled silently off into space as though thinking up the exact words he wanted to say. Eventually, he seemed to decide on them, and leveled grave eyes at the two youthful airmen.

"Just as Air Vice-Marshal Leman has said," he began slowly, "what little we know of all this Tobolsk business is practically useless without the other half of it. It was the worse kind of luck for Agent Jones not to catch the name of the man he was supposed to contact in Tobolsk. True, Tobolsk is well behind the Nazi lines at the moment. And also, it is quite possible that he may be dead. As a matter of fact, we have every reason to believe that this unnamed man is dead, or at any rate, that he no longer lives in Tobolsk."

"And what do you mean by that, sir?" Dave wanted to know when the other didn't continue at once.

"From certain developments that have recently come to light," the Colonel replied. "From—well, from the American angle of this crazy, mixed up mystery. Contrary to general belief, Yank Intelligence was more than a little active long before the Japs pulled the knife on Pearl Harbor. We knew just as sure as the earth grew little apples that Uncle Sam would be in this war up to his ears before very long. So we did what we could, short of causing the State Department to come down on us with both feet. And—well, to use an expression that groans with age, it certainly is a small world. And there is nothing so baffling, or so helpful, as coincidence. It pops up in the darnedest places, if you get what I mean?"

"I can guess close enough, I think, sir," Dave said with a grin. "Tobolsk again?"

"Take a bow, son," Colonel Welsh grinned back at him. "You just about hit that nail right on the head. Tobolsk again is correct. One of my agents was working with Russian Intelligence until a few days ago. He was actually on the lease-lend end of the business, on the look-out for sabotage along the supply routes leading up through Iraq and Iran from the Red Sea. Well, to get on with the actual story, he was on his way from Baku to Moscow by air when the plane he was in ran smack into a storm, came out of it nobody knew just where, and bumped head on into a flock of German Messerschmitts. And the plane—it was a Russian craft—got shot down. My agent was the only one who came out of the crash alive. He must have been born under a lucky star, because he didn't so much as receive even a goose egg on his head, or a scratch any place.

"The aircraft crashed just before dark, and my agent didn't have the faintest idea where he was, save that he was in the middle of some woods. Anyway, he used his head and put as much distance as he could between himself and the crashed plane. But after a while it got so dark that he couldn't tell but what he might be just going around in circles. At least he realized that he was still in the woods. So he sat down to wait out the night. And lucky for him he did. When daylight came again, he saw to his horror that he was less than a hundred yards from the end of the woods, and an equal distance from a German panzer division obviously camped and resting up from recent action at the front. Naturally, he realized then that he was well behind the Nazi lines. But he still didn't know at what part of the front."

Colonel Welsh paused and smiled grimly.

"There he was smack in the middle of the Germans, and wearing a suit of clothes he had bought in Moscow a month before," he continued presently. "It so happened that he didn't have any money. Nor did he have a gun of any kind. All he had on his person were identification papers that would have slapped him up against a firing squad wall five seconds after the Nazis got their hands on him. So his first job was to destroy all his identification papers. And his second job to make sure the Nazis didn't lay hands on him. Well, we can skip the next few days. He spent all of them, nights included, dodging Nazi patrols, and getting out from under the hand of Death reaching for him. And then came the night of coincidence, we'll call it.

"He was groping his way northward across a field, with the idea of somehow slipping through the Nazi positions to the Russian side, when suddenly the ground seemed just to drop out from underneath him. One instant he was groping his way along, and the next he was out cold as an iced fish. When he opened his eyes again he found himself in the cellar of a bomb and shell blasted farm house. He was stretched out on a smelly mattress, and a couple of thread-bare blankets were over him. He took stock of what was what and realized instantly that he wasn't in Nazi hands. Nazis don't give blankets to prisoners they pick up at night. Anyway, my agent decided to stay right where he was, and wait for whatever was to happen next. And a body full of aches and pains helped him a lot to decide to do just that."

The Chief of U.S. Intelligence let his words come to a halt, and it was all Dawson and Freddy Farmer could do to refrain from telling him to hurry up and get on with the rest. They held their tongues, however, and waited with pounding hearts and tingling nerves.

"An hour or so later," Colonel Welsh finally continued, "an old man came down into the cellar holding a chipped bowl of some steaming liquid. It proved to be a bitter kind of tree root broth, but just the same it tasted mighty good to my agent. He accepted it, and drank it down without a word. Then he took a good look at this man and saw that he wasn't so old after all. He was no older than my agent, but war had made him look three times his true age. My agent's first questions were concerning what had happened to him, and how he had come to be there. My agent, of course, spoke Russian, but it developed that this man with the root broth spoke English, too. The long and short of it was that in the dark my agent had simply stepped down an uncovered, abandoned well. Why he hadn't broken his neck is something that nobody will ever be able to explain. Anyway, this man, who said he was a Russian, and named Ivan Nikolsk, said that he had found my agent at the bottom of the well. And that he was about to shovel dirt in on top of him, thinking him to be a Nazi, when he saw that my agent's clothes were Russian made. So he hoisted my agent up out of the well and took him down into the cellar. And that was that. Nikolsk simply believed that he was saving the life of a brother Russian. And he'd hide him from the Nazis, who were all about, at least until he'd found out more about the man whom he had pulled from the abandoned well."

The Colonel paused to shrug slightly, and make a little this-probably-sounds-nuts gesture with one hand.

"Well, the two of them started talking back and forth, of course," he resumed his story presently, "and my agent learned a few things about his lifesaver. One, that Nikolsk had been born in Moscow but had lived most of his life in Germany. And two, that Nikolsk had almost lost his life in a railroad train wreck just before the invasion of Poland. And three, that—"

"Good grief!" Freddy Farmer interrupted with a gasp. "The same chap that Agent Jones met!"

"One and the same," Colonel Welsh admitted with a nod. "He told my agent how he had been arrested by the Nazis and thrown into prison, where he almost died as the result of his train wreck injuries. But he survived, somehow. He survived the questioning and beatings he received. And, like Jones, he refused to let a Nazi internment camp finish him off for good. He managed to escape almost three years later and make his way out of Germany, and across German-occupied Poland and German-occupied Russia to the little village of Tobolsk. There he hoped to meet a life-long friend. But he never met him. When Nikolsk finally arrived, his friend, and most of the village's inhabitants, had simply disappeared from the face of the earth. But—"

Colonel Welsh leaned forward slightly and tapped a forefinger on the desk top.

"Ivan Nikolsk had survived things that you could not even put into words, for there are no words in any language to describe them adequately," he said. "But though he came out of it all with his life, he came out of it with only part of his brain. It didn't take my agent long to see that Nikolsk went off the beam completely every now and then. He would be making sense, when suddenly his speech would start rambling all over the place. And even then, almost a year later, he had the certain belief that his friend would return to Tobolsk, and he would be able to see him."

"Did he tell your agent why he wanted to see his friend?" Dawson asked eagerly.

"No," Colonel Welsh replied. "That's one of the questions he wouldn't answer, though my agent asked it more than once as he heard more and more of the strange story. It's funny, but though Nikolsk had saved my agent's life, and believed him definitely on Russia's side, he couldn't get it out of his head that my agent might rob him of his great secret. Yes, you're guessing it. Nikolsk's secret knowledge of the Nazi war plan that he had learned while in Germany. Oddly enough, he told my agent every detail of his meeting with Agent Jones. Of how he had torn the secret information in half, given half to Jones, and destroyed the half that he kept. He told my agent all that, but he wouldn't tell him one word of what the information was about. And do you know why?"

"Didn't trust your agent, obviously," Freddy Farmer spoke up.

"Yes, that's my guess, too," Dawson added.

"No," Colonel Welsh said with a vigorous shake of his head. "True, he didn't tell my agent what his half of the information was because he was afraid of being betrayed. But he wouldn't reveal anything about the other half—because he had forgotten it!"

"Forgotten it, for cat's sake!" Dawson exploded. "But—?"

"Just what I am about to explain," Colonel Welsh cut in. "He swore blind that what he knew was of no use at all without the half that he had given to Jones. And to get it all together he had to see either Jones or his friend. He felt that Jones was dead, but—but he still held to the crazy belief that his friend would return to Tobolsk one day, and that together they would place in Joseph Stalin's hands something more valuable than a hundred armored divisions, or a thousand squadrons of aircraft!"

As the echo of the last died away, a tingling silence settled over the room. Dawson had the insane urge to pinch himself hard just to make sure he wasn't sleeping through a very cockeyed dream. He knew, and had seen for himself, many of the upside down things that come out of war. But this dizzy tale was a new high for everything. When he tried to mull it over, and gain some sense from it, it simply made his brain hurt.

"This is certainly something, sir," he mumbled, and gave the Colonel a searching look. "And you are going to say that your agent didn't learn a darn thing, and had to leave it that way? Gosh! I think I would have slung Nikolsk over my shoulder and high-tailed to Moscow as fast as I could, and counted on Joseph Stalin, himself, getting him to talk."

"Don't worry," the Colonel said, with a grim, smile, "my agent thought of that idea, too. But, of course, it was impossible. He even suggested the idea, but Nikolsk would have no part of it. He insisted that what little he might be able to tell Stalin wouldn't help at all. He had to wait for either his friend, or Agent Jones, to turn up. And he was going to park right there in Tobolsk, keeping out of the way of the Nazis, until either of those things happened."

"So I would say," Freddy Farmer spoke up as though talking to himself aloud, "that this friend was the third man who possessed part of the original information. Either that, or Nikolsk had sent another copy of all of it to him, in case something should happen to him. And Jones showing up with a torn half would prove to the friend that Nikolsk was finished. And—"

"No doubt the truth of the matter, Farmer," Air Vice-Marshal Leman took up the talking. "This friend was in the know about some of the business, if not all of it, no doubt. But Moscow had received not one single word, which proves what we fear. Namely, that Nikolsk's friend is dead, and will never return to Tobolsk."

"But there is still Agent Jones!" Dawson cried eagerly.

Colonel Welsh and Air Vice-Marshal Leman exchanged a long look. And it was the R.A.F. Intelligence chief who finally spoke.

"Yes," he said softly. "There is still Agent Jones."

CHAPTER FIVE

Doubling for Death

For a long, long minute Dawson waited for Air Vice-Marshal Leman to continue. But the R.A.F. officer seemed to have said his bit, and that was that. He lapsed into silence and stared fixedly down at his hands folded on the desk. Dave started to put the obvious question, but before his lips could form the words Colonel Welsh broke the silence.

"Yes, there is still Agent Jones," he said. "But it isn't so simple as all that. I mean, it isn't just a question of flying Jones over to Tobolsk and letting him get together with Nikolsk. Ivan Nikolsk has done the disappearing act again. And in addition, we have the very strong hunch that friend Himmler's Gestapo has entered into the picture."

"He's disappeared, sir?" Freddy Farmer choked out. "What blasted rotten luck! But isn't there something that can be done? I mean, have you any idea where Nikolsk might be? And—?"

"One thing at a time, Farmer," Colonel Welsh said with a chuckle, and held up his hand. "Not so fast, son. The thing's a mess right at the moment, but we have hopes."

"Sorry, sir," Farmer said, as the red rushed up his face to the roots of his hair. "But it was a bit of a let-down after getting all warmed up, you know."

"Well, that's the way with war," the American Intelligence chief said with a smile. "But to get on with my story. Just now I jumped ahead. So I'll go back to my agent in Tobolsk. Well, he stayed there in Nikolsk's cellar for four days. By the end of four days he had all his strength back, and falling down the empty well shaft was just an unpleasant memory. During those four days and nights Nikolsk was constantly with him, for the reason that a lot of Germans moved into the village. And from what Nikolsk could see they were there for some mysterious reason. I mean, they didn't camp, and they didn't have much equipment with them. Fact is, they were mostly Gestapo men in uniform.

"So for four days and four nights my agent and Nikolsk hugged that cellar and prayed to their gods that the Germans wouldn't stumble over them. And whenever he had the chance, my agent went to work questioning his new found Russian-friend, but, sorry to say, he didn't even get to first base. The instant those Germans showed up Nikolsk closed up like a clam. Matter of fact, my agent says that he was practically blue with fear most of the time. He seemed to think that the Gestapo boys were after him."

"Were they?" Dawson asked quietly as the other paused.

Colonel Welsh shrugged and dragged down the corners of his mouth.

"Yes and no," he said. "We don't know anything for certain. The next day Nikolsk left the cellar and didn't return. My agent waited a day longer, and then decided that it was time for him to be moving. He had some tattered peasant clothing that Nikolsk had given him, and he slipped out at night and continued his journey northward. In two days he was on the Russian side of the war. And as luck would have it, he bumped into a tank officer he knew. The rest was easy. A plane took my agent to Moscow. And after a day in Moscow he came on down here to London and reported to me. That was last night. When I heard his story I got in touch with the Air Vice-Marshal here. We went into a huddle, and—well, that brings us up to the present moment."

A hundred thousand questions had been leaping around in Dave Dawson's brain. So when the Colonel stopped talking he got the first one out as soon as he could.

"What about your Gestapo hunch, sir?" he asked. "Just how do you mean they've entered the picture? Only because of the Tobolsk business?"

The American Intelligence chief gave an emphatic shake of his head.

"No, not that alone," he said. "My agent stated that he was dead certain that he had been followed in Moscow. And that he is being followed right here in London. True, he's taken all kinds of measures to trip up whoever has been shadowing him. But the lad seems to be very clever. My agent can smell him, you might say. He can even feel eyes watching him. But he hasn't yet been able to get a look at this so-called shadow of his. And you can add to that, sir, eh?"

As Colonel Welsh spoke the last he turned and nodded at Air Vice-Marshal Leman. The R.A.F. officer nodded gravely, and the corners of his mouth tightened slightly.

"Quite!" he grunted, and looked at the two youthful air aces. "The blasted thing is the most incredible mess I've ever bumped up against. Truly fantastic. You'll be sure I've gone balmy when you hear this, but it is the absolute truth. Agent Jones has also been followed ever since he returned! What's more, his flat over on Regent Street has been entered and thoroughly searched at least twice, to his knowledge. And once—though he can't say for sure—a half-hearted attempt to kidnap him was made. At least, he was grabbed during a blackout, and he received a blow on the head that didn't quite stun him. Of course, it might just have been one of those countless blackout accidents. He may have bumped into a couple of skitterish chaps, and they may have got a little bit out of hand. When the blow didn't stun him, and he wrenched himself free, the two other chaps had disappeared. So there's no way of telling whether it was an accident or the real thing."

"But it must have been an accident!" Dawson spoke up with a frown. "And after what Jones went through, maybe his imagination is playing him tricks. I mean, maybe he just thinks that he's being followed, and thinks that his place was searched. I—"

Dawson cut himself off short, and suddenly felt like kicking himself. A funny look had leaped into Air Vice-Marshal Leman's eyes. And there was also a funny expression on Colonel Welsh's face. Dawson had the instant belief that he had spoken out of turn and put his foot into it.

"You don't agree, sir?" he asked the R.A.F. officer lamely.

The funny light faded from the other's eyes, and he shook his head.

"No, I don't agree; Dawson," he said quietly. "True, I realize that it seems silly to think that the Gestapo got wind of Agent Jones, or Nikolsk, or Colonel Welsh's agent. The whole thing covers a period of about three years, but—well, I have to give credit to Himmler's gang of murderers for one thing, at least. They never forget anything. And they never give up the hunt. How they found out about Ivan Nikolsk, and his connection with Agent Jones, and his connection with the Colonel's agent, are three things we'll probably never learn. But the fact remains that the Gestapo has pulled many things out of thin air in times gone by. It is one of the smoothest working and one of the cleverest organizations in the history of man. So we would be plain blasted fools to brush any thought aside as being impossible of accomplishment. No, far better for us to assume that the Gestapo has wind of what's up, and to make our own plans accordingly."

"Check and double check on that, sir," Dawson said respectfully. "And with your permission, I'd like to withdraw that crazy remark I just made."

"Granted at once, Dawson," the Air Vice-Marshal said with a pleasant smile. "Matter of fact, I really don't blame you for making it. Would have done so myself, if I didn't know all the facts."

A couple of minutes of silence settled over the room, and then it became too much for Freddy Farmer. He inched forward on the edge of his chair, and looked straight at the Air Vice-Marshal.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but may I ask why Dawson and I were ordered to report to you? I mean, is there something we can do to help straighten out the mess? And, if so, I can say for both of us that we're only too eager to try anything."

"Old fire eater Farmer," Dawson said with a chuckle. Then, glancing at the Air Vice-Marshal, he added, "He took the words out of my mouth, sir. I've been wanting to ask that question ever since we came in here."

The Chief of R.A.F. Intelligence didn't reply at once. He looked over at Colonel Welsh, and a special kind of look seemed to pass between them. Then finally, the American officer spoke.

"Yes, we had good reason to send for you two," he said. "And there is a way that you can help—I hope."

"Those last two words don't sound so good, sir," Dawson spoke up with a grin. "You mean, there's nothing definite?"

"No, I don't mean that," the Colonel replied. "I mean—"

The senior officer paused, and scowled heavily as though he were reluctant to let the rest come off his lips.

"No, I don't mean that," he repeated presently. "You two can help us, and more than you realize at the moment. However—well, to give it to you straight, it might turn out to be a dirty trick on both of you. Your war service might suddenly end with a bang, or worse."

Dawson swallowed hard at that remark, but managed to keep a grin on his lips.

"We've flirted with that kind of a situation a couple of times before, sir," he said quietly. "So maybe Lady Luck wouldn't leave us cold all of a sudden."

"Quite!" Freddy Farmer echoed. "At least, it wouldn't be anything new and novel to us, if you know what I mean?"

"I do," Colonel Welsh said with a chuckle. "But it so happens that this would be a new and novel item. That is, unless you've acted as decoys of the real thing in the past?"

"Huh, decoys?" Dawson gulped. "How's that again, sir?"

Colonel Welsh leaned forward and rested his forearms on the end of the desk.

"Obviously," he said, "the thing we want to do, and as soon as we can, is to get Ivan Nikolsk and Agent Jones together. Though Nikolsk has disappeared for the moment, we feel very strongly that he is not very far from Tobolsk. As my agent stated, his one and only aim in life was to meet his friend, or Agent Jones, at Tobolsk. Therefore there is good reason to believe the Gestapo simply scared him into some other place of hiding, and not too far away. So if Agent Jones should go to Tobolsk, the chances are that he would meet up with Ivan Nikolsk sooner or later. My agent and Agent Jones have checked, and the appearance of Nikolsk hasn't changed much. I mean that Agent Jones is certain that he would recognize him at once. And he is also certain that he can fully establish his identity to Nikolsk."

"And our job is to fly Agent Jones to Tobolsk, and land him safely, eh, sir?" Freddy Farmer spoke up excitedly.

"No, definitely not," Colonel Welsh replied evenly. "Your job will be to take the Gestapo boys off the necks of Agent Jones, and get them all wrapped up in the task of chasing you!"

CHAPTER SIX

Eagles for Moscow

Had Colonel Welsh calmly pulled out an automatic and fired the whole clip through the ceiling of Room Twelve Hundred, Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer wouldn't have been half so surprised as they were right at the moment. Like two sitting statues of stone, they froze motionless, and gaped wide-eyed at the Colonel. A billion questions spun around in their brains, but for several seconds neither could have made his lips speak words; not for a million dollars in cold cash.

In time, though, Dawson succeeded in getting his tongue back into working order.

"Sweet tripe!" he exploded. "That is a new one for us! Decoys for the Gestapo rats! Gosh!"

"It doesn't meet with your approval, Dawson?" Air Vice-Marshal Leman put the question with a slight frown.

"Sure, one hundred per cent, sir," Dave came right back at him quickly. "But it was so sudden like—well, it's sort of got me still swinging at thin air. One right on the outside corner that I didn't even see the pitcher let fly."

"Eh, what?" the senior R.A.F. officer grunted with a blank look on his face.

"Another American expression, sir," Colonel Welsh explained immediately. "Dawson means I took the wind out of his sails. Caught him flat-footed off the bag, you might say."

"Oh, yes, quite!" the English officer murmured, but didn't exactly lose his blank look. "Well, I'm glad that you approve, because we are definitely counting on you two for help. If this bit of a mission is completely successful, there's no telling how much it may change the course of the war in our favor, you know."

"If it can be done, we'll both do our best to hold up our end, sir," Freddy Farmer murmured.

"And you can say that again for me," Dawson added his bit. Then, turning to Colonel Welsh, he asked, "What's the plan, sir? Or shouldn't I ask that now?"

"You should, and I'll answer it," the American Intelligence chief replied. "Here is the picture as we've doped it out. You two, whether you admit it or not, are not exactly unknown to the Gestapo. Ten to one the Gestapo knows that you are here in London. In fact, it's almost an even money bet that Gestapo agents in London know that you are here in this office right now."

"Gosh!" Freddy Farmer breathed softly. "That doesn't give a chap a very pleasant feeling. But go on, sir."

"What I'm working up to is this," the Colonel continued. "If the Gestapo has wind of the Tobolsk business, and I'll bet a year's pay that they have, they are going to be just a bit more excited to learn that you two have been brought into the picture. And it is our plan to bring you into the picture right out in broad daylight, so to speak. In other words, the Air Vice-Marshal here, you two, my agent, and Agent Jones and myself are going to have lunch as Simpson's at the Savoy Hotel this noon. Then we are all coming back here for a short while. Tonight you two will travel to Aberdeen in Scotland. There you will board a bomber that will fly you direct to Moscow. When you reach Moscow the Soviet Intelligence will take over. You will disappear from sight, and you will remain out of sight for a bit. Then at the right time you two and a Russian Intelligence officer, who knows every square inch of the Tobolsk area, will take off by plane and head down the front to the village of Urbakh, which is on the Russian side of the front."

The Colonel paused a moment to catch his breath and shift his weight on the chair.

"Meantime," he presently continued, "Agent Jones will also be making a little journey. You see, we hope that you two will be able to draw the Gestapo away from Jones. He will be sneaked out of England by air, and go to Gibraltar, and on to Alexandria, and up through Iraq, and Iran, and up through the Caucasus to the village of Urbakh. There he will meet your party coming down from Moscow, and—well, from that point on, our plan is only general. You, of course, will have to make your own plans from hour to hour, according to how the situation shapes up. The goal, of course, is for all of you to get over into Tobolsk behind the Nazi lines and contact Ivan Nikolsk, and learn what he has to say, in the event you can't get him out of there by air."

"Zowie!" Dawson breathed aloud without thinking. "Just like that, huh? I—Sorry, sir."

Colonel Welsh gave a little wave of his hand to signify that Dawson's comment was taken in the right spirit. In fact, he grinned, and nodded his head vigorously.

"Zowie is right!" he echoed. "I'll admit that the assignment appears so screwy, and dizzy, that a man would be a fool even to give a thought to its turning out even partially successfully. But on the other hand, that's something in our favor in a way. It's such a screwy idea that maybe even the Gestapo wouldn't believe we'd try to pull it off. You see, our hope is that they'll think that you're going to Moscow to turn over valuable information to Soviet Intelligence. In short—well, to be very blunt and brutal, it is our hope that the Gestapo will fall all over themselves trying to stop you two from reaching Moscow, and in their efforts will forget all about Agent Jones."

"Well, I wish them luck, I don't think!" Dawson said more cheerfully than he felt. "At any rate, there should be some fun in beating those murdering bums to the punch. Check, Freddy?"

"Quite!" the English-born air ace managed to get out. "I've always wanted to visit Moscow, too."

"Well, our prayers will be that you'll have that opportunity," Colonel Welsh said almost fervently. "If you can shake them off at Moscow, even if they suddenly realize they've been very nicely duped, and guess the real truth, we hope there'll not be enough time for them to do anything about it."

"There's one thing I don't quite catch, sir," Dawson said after a couple of minutes of general silence. "The trip over the Nazi front to Tobolsk. There'll be four of us in the party, and, we sincerely hope, five of us coming out. That's quite a crowd to be charging about behind the German lines, to my way of thinking."

"I agree with you in principle," the American Intelligence chief replied. "But this is one of those occasions where we're banking on the idea of safety in numbers. In the first place, there must be someone along who knows that area like the palm of his hand. That's where the Russian Intelligence officer will come in. He'll know the best place to land, and where to hide the aircraft from prying Nazi eyes. Secondly, there has to be the man to contact Nikolsk. That's Agent Jones, of course. Thirdly, or it should be secondly, Nikolsk will have to be found, and that's where the Russian Intelligence officer will come in handy again. He'll be able to hunt around while the rest of you lie doggo and wait. And lastly, there must be a pilot to fly the plane in, and to fly it out again. That's where you two come in. Double insurance, if you get what I mean?"

"I get it, sir," Dawson said grimly. "You hope that both Freddy and I will fly in, but there must be one of us left to fly the ship out, eh?"

"I mean just that," Colonel Welsh said, and there was no smile on his thin face now. "One of you has got to come back!"

"And both of us will!" Dawson replied instantly.

"Definitely!" Freddy Farmer echoed, and seemed content to let it stay like that.

"Well, that's the picture in more or less detail," Colonel Welsh said with a glance at his watch. "We'll talk over some more of the details again. Right now, though, I guess we've done enough talking. Let's break up this meeting, and think things over. Maybe all of us will have things to add later. That agreeable with you, Air Vice-Marshal?"

"Quite," the senior R.A.F. officer said with a nod. Then, glancing at Dawson and Farmer, "All the luck in the world, you chaps. And I need not tell you how I admire you both, and envy you, too, if you must know the truth. I'd give every one of my stripes of rank to be able to go along with you."

"Thank you, sir," Dawson said for them both. Then, with a pointed glance at the decoration ribbons under the tunic wings of the Air Vice-Marshal, he added, "And we'd like nothing better than to have you along, sir."

"See here, what about me?" Colonel Welsh snapped with a half grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Am I supposed to be an old woman, or something?"

"Just Dawson's nasty manners, sir," Freddy Farmer spoke up with a straight face. "He'll never learn. But I can assure you that his words really included you both."

"And how, sir!" Dawson exclaimed hastily. "I figured you'd take that for granted."

"Well, that's a little better!" Colonel Welsh growled in mock annoyance. "But you'll never know, Dawson, how close you came to having to pay for that lunch this noon. But of course, I understand, now. So I'll let you off this time, and pay for it myself."

Dawson blew air through his lips, and went through the act of wiping beads of sweat from his brow.

"Boy, did I come close to having to wash a mess of dishes!" he breathed. "Because, if the truth must be known, I've got all of three shillings in my pocket!"

"As though that were unusual!" Freddy Farmer shot at him. "Just name the day when your pay wasn't all spent before you received it."

"Quite!" the Air Vice-Marshal broke into the conversation. "But that's a well known R.A.F. habit, of course. Well, Gentlemen, shall we disband, eh, and meet later at Simpson's, what?"

And nobody put forth any objections.

CHAPTER SEVEN

You Can't See Death

Like A black steel snake with a single yellow eye, the "Flying Scotsman" went roaring northward over the steel rails that led to Aberdeen. In their compartment, four cars back from the engine, Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer tried to lose their thoughts in the newspapers and magazines they had bought before leaving London. But it was just about as easy to do that as it is for a man to shave with an electric razor in a thunder storm.

However, the two air aces stuck grimly to it for well onto two hours, until finally Freddy reached the end of his string. He flung the magazine across the compartment they shared alone, and heaved a long, loud sigh.

"This is without question the balmiest war ever!" he proclaimed with vocal emphasis.

Dawson looked up from his newspaper, nodded, and tossed it to one side.

"At any rate the screwiest one I ever fought in," he said. "So you haven't been reading either, huh?"

"On the contrary, yes," Freddy replied. "But the same blasted paragraph over and over again. I just can't seem to concentrate."

Dave glanced at the thick blinds that covered the windows and smiled faintly.

"I guess nobody could blame you for that, considering," he murmured. "We've been handed some sweet jobs, since we elected to take our own personal swings in this war. And each time has seemed tougher than any of the others. But this—this really is tops for cockeyed assignments. Know something, Freddy?"

"What?"

"We stand less chance of pulling this thing off than Mussolini stands of being made King of England," Dave said.

"And don't I know it!" Freddy Farmer groaned. "I swear I don't know who's craziest—Leman and Colonel Welsh for putting the proposition up to us, or us for accepting it. Why, good grief, Dave—"

The English youth seemed unable to continue, so he just left the rest hanging in mid-air, and scowled unseeingly at the single light in the compartment ceiling.

Dave nodded, but didn't speak, because he was thinking the same thoughts as his war pal. And none of them were happy thoughts. True, they would go all out to pull off this miracle that had been dumped in their laps, but he realized in his heart that their chances were thinner than tissue paper. And every click of the coach wheels on the rail breaks added just another exclamation mark to that thought.

To be truthful with himself, he had actually believed that their chances of success were not much less than fifty-fifty. But that had been during the luncheon at Simpson's. There he had met Agent Jones, and Colonel Welsh's agent, who was introduced by the name of Brown. And something about both men had touched a hidden note within him, and filled him with a savage desire to succeed, and the partial belief that all might come off well, at that. During the luncheon no word, of course, had been spoken of the secret double mission about to be undertaken. But when they had all returned to Air Vice-Marshal Leman's office, they had gone into the whole thing in minute detail. At that time Freddy and he had heard both stories of Tobolsk first hand. And though little was added they had not already heard, hearing the stories from the lips of the men who had gone through it all simply made Dave want more than ever to deliver all the valuable information into the right hands. Maybe it was to help repay Jones and Brown for what they had suffered. Or maybe it was because he believed that success might shorten the war considerably. He couldn't make up his mind which idea appealed to him most. He only knew that, when Freddy and he had finally parted company with the others, he wanted to come through with flying colors this time more than he had ever wanted to in his entire war career.

"Say, Freddy!" Dave suddenly broke the silence. "In case I haven't asked it yet, have you seen any Gestapo lads tagging along after us?"

The English youth shook his head and made a face.