"Keep your shirt on; a guy has to take a breath now and then, you know!" Dave grunted. "Well, I didn't run into a single guy who hasn't had some experience flying off an aircraft carrier. If you want my guess, it's that this load of pilots is being taken out to some carrier force waiting way off shore." "I wonder, I wonder!" Freddy Farmer murmured after a long pause. "Why would a carrier force be so top hat as not to come in and get us, I'd like to know?" "Call it 'high hat' next time, Freddy," Dave corrected gently. "White folks will think you're English, if you--" "Now, look out, my good man!" Freddy began menacingly. "I'll have you know that I'm--" "And I don't blame you for being proud that you're English, pal," Dave broke in with a chuckle. "So would I be, if I wasn't Yank. Okay, skip the funny crack. The reason a carrier force wouldn't come in to pick us up is probably because of that one word pronounced _spies_! One thing we want to keep plenty secret out here in the Southwest Pacific is the location of our carrier task forces. So we were loaded aboard this tin can at night, and are being sneaked out to one. Catch on?" "Not definitely," Freddy Farmer muttered, and scowled in the darkness. "Seems to me that a carrier task force at sea would have its own pilots, and what not. Besides, a lot of us aboard this destroyer are Army Air Forces pilots." "So what?" Dave said, and shrugged. "So maybe the Navy needs help in the air, and knows just where to get it." "Better keep those remarks under cover, or a certain Army pilot may be reported lost overboard!" Dave jumped straight up at the sound of the voice at his elbow, and whirled around in midair. When his feet came back on deck again he saw Colonel Welsh standing in front of him. "Gosh, you scared me, Colonel!" he gasped. "I thought a Navy pilot _had_ overheard me!" "Good thing one didn't," the senior officer chuckled. "Plenty of rivalry between you Army and Navy pilots. And I'm afraid there are hot heads on both sides. Well, how are you enjoying a ride on a destroyer, eh?" "Oh, just too, too wonderful, sir!" Dawson replied with a groan. "But I didn't see you on the pier, Colonel. When did you come aboard? At the last minute?" "No, I came aboard much earlier," the Colonel replied. "I've been up in the commander's quarters." "Er ..." Freddy Farmer began, and faltered. "I mean," he began again, "I don't suppose he told you, sir, where we are headed?" The colonel laughed and shook his head.