A crack about how Freddy must certainly feel about that last rose to Dawson's lips, but he suddenly realized that he was plenty hungry himself, so he let the remark slide. "Thank you, sir, for giving us the chance to help," he said instead. "After all, we were both very dumb to let that Japrat put one over on us." "Quite!" Freddy Farmer said with a grim nod. "No, I wouldn't say that," the vice-admiral corrected them. "The best of us meet up with that sort of thing, sooner or later. It's not that we're dumb as much as it is that the Japs are sure clever devils. We may call them monkey men, but it's going to take a lot of brains, and a lot of hard, tough fighting, before we sink their rising sun. Well, I must be getting along. Naturally I'll see you both again before you leave. And in case it should skip my mind, I'll say it now. Good luck, and good hunting, to both of you!" CHAPTER FIVE _Westward Ho!_ "Pretty, pretty, hey, kid?" Dawson grunted, and made a sweeping gesture with one hand. "What is?" Freddy Farmer murmured absently. "Oh, you mean this California scenery? Yes, it's very nice, but stop talking about it so much, will you? You'll have me believing that you are a native of this state." "No, dope!" Dave snapped. "I don't mean the scenery, though it really is something. I mean those Flying Fortresses and Liberators, lined up over there. Remember? This is the Los Angeles Air Forces base. We flew up here last night from Dago. We're ferrying one of those jobs out to Pearl. Or don't you remember? Oh, I get it. You're in _that_ kind of a daze, huh?" "What do you mean, that kind of a daze?" young Farmer demanded. "I was just wondering if ..." "Sure!" Dawson broke in with a chuckle. "Just what I mean. You're wondering if there's time to slip out to Hollywood so maybe you can get Dorothy Lamour's autograph, and Hedy Lamarr's, and ..." "Rot! That's kid stuff!" Freddy snorted as his cheeks went a beet red. "Of course ... well, I mean, they are both very lovely ladies, and ..." "Okay, we'll skip it!" Dave laughed as Freddy started to stammer in his confusion. "We'll pretend you were wondering something else, which your face says you weren't. What was it?" "Definitely something else, and please go walk into one of those revving propellers, will you!" Freddy said hotly. "Frankly, I was wondering why the vice-admiral sent us up here to fly an Air Forces plane out instead of sending us over by a Navy plane. A Catalina, or a Coronada, for instance." "I wondered about that myself, for a while," Dave replied, as the smile faded from his lips. "But I think I figured it out." "All right, master mind!" young Farmer said with a patient sigh when Dawson didn't continue. "I'll be nice and polite, and ask. What did you figure out?"