"One of those crazy bits of luck that people have without asking," young Farmer said. "Or perhaps the beggar did have some kind of a premonition that we were coming after him. Anyway, when the force was one day out from Pearl Harbor one of the scouting pilots aboard one of the cruisers came down sick. Word was sent to the Trenton for a replacement pilot to be sent over. And our friend was the one sent. The flight officer on the Trenton handled the business, and Vice-Admiral Macon didn't know a thing about it. That was natural, because he had bigger things to worry about. The officers under him took charge of minor details. Anyway, the sick pilot got fit for duty again, and our friend came back aboard the Trenton. In the cruiser's motor launch, of course. I sort of half remember seeing a motor launch pull alongside us that day. But maybe it's simply my imagination, now that I know there was one. Anyway, his name on the Trenton was Brown. Yes, Brown. A nice old American name, with never a Nazi hint about it, the blighter!" "Well, for cat's sake!" Dawson exploded. "Why didn't somebody tell us that one fighter pilot had been sent to a cruiser to double for a sick guy? What were we supposed to be, mind readers, or crystal ball gazers, or something? If...!" "Easy, old thing!" Freddy Farmer said in alarm. "You're in bad enough shape as you are without blowing your top. It was just one of those things. The press of shipboard duties made them forget about Brown's transference, and the vice-admiral didn't know. Perhaps the ones who could have told us didn't take the spy scare very seriously. I'm thankful enough that he was from the Trenton and not from one of the other carriers. Otherwise he would have returned to it that day and we'd never have spotted him. But if I'm getting you all riled up, Dave, I'd better get out of here and have the surgeon pop in and give you something to put you back to sleep." "No, don't go, Freddy, I ..." Dave stopped short, gasped, and stared at his pal wide-eyed. "Hey! Wait a minute!" he cried. "Where am I, and how the heck did I get here?" "You're in the Trenton's sick bay," Freddy Farmer said. "And a cruiser seaplane brought you back the day before yesterday. Brought us both back, as a matter of fact." "_Both?_" Dawson echoed in amazement. "You, too? But ... Oh! You ran out of gas and dropped into the drink, huh? And a scouting sea plane found us both? Practically within spitting distance of Truk?"