"You ten-cent, cockeyed, bat-brained dope!" he ranted at himself. "Of course, of course! That rat is trying to make Truk, isn't he? That's _his_ objective, isn't it? Certainly! Then why flub-dub around in this stuff hoping that he'll break up through to let you see where he is? You sap, get this air wagon hitting on everything it's got, and high tail for Truk yourself. Don't try to smoke this rat _out_! Get to the Truk area first, and smoke him _down_!" With a savage nod of his head to emphasize his words, he quickly made a check of the course and speed he had flown since taking off from the Trenton's flight deck, and then plotted a course that _should_ take him to that little cluster of pin point islands, surrounded by a coral reef, thirty-five to forty miles in diameter, known as Truk. Yes, it should take him there, and he hoped and prayed so with all his heart and soul. Just the same a cold lump of lead formed in his chest and came up to lodge fast in his throat no matter how much he swallowed to get it back down. "If only Freddy were with me!" he sighed as he swung his Hell Cat on course, and gave the Pratt & Whitney in the nose every ounce of high octane it would take. "Blindfolded, that guy can find any spot in the world just so long as you give him wind direction, or something. Yeah, if he were only here, but he isn't. This is strictly up to you, Captain Dumb Dawson. And I do mean dumb, too. You took so long to get this one logical idea that maybe that Nazi rat is miles and miles on his way there now. And when you show up you'll get a sky full of Jap Zeros thrown in your face for your efforts. Oh well ... Aw, skip it!" As though to silence the little taunting, ribbing voice, he banged his free fist against the side of the cockpit. That done, he hunched forward a little bit in the seat and concentrated every bit of his attention on his flying. Eight hundred miles to Truk? Well, a Hell Cat can do four hundred miles an hour plus. So in a little under two hours he would be there, and ... it would be yes, or no. Success or failure. And if it was failure, it would be complete failure for him. There would be no turning back to the carrier force with his tail between his legs. There just wasn't enough gas in his tanks for that. If he didn't find the Nazi rat in time, and if he didn't get shot down by Zeros that certainly must be patrolling the Truk area, he would run out of gas and be forced into enemy waters. "And that will be the same as being shot down, and maybe worse!" he said with a slight shudder as the thought forced its way into his brain. "Wouldn't those Jap butchers love to find a Yank pilot floating around in his rubber life raft! Wouldn't they just love _that_! A nice little pleasant session of target practice, and then ... Cut it, Dawson! Cut it, fellow, or you'll be driving yourself bats, do you hear?"