"Oh, yes, quite," Freddy Farmer murmured, and nodded absently. "A blasted funny business this, though. I still can't make up my mind if those seaplane beggars _were_ Japs. Why did they just force us down, and then let us alone? That's definitely not Jap style. And to say that that seaplane was--But, man! That's impossible! Definitely!" "What is?" Dave wanted to know. "That it was one of our planes, and they shot us down by mistake," Freddy said. "But that couldn't be. Our markings were as plain as day for anybody to see." "Yeah," Dave said, and sighed. "But maybe we _look_ like Japs, and they figured we'd swiped the Dauntless." Freddy Farmer's comment on Dave's wisecrack was a pronounced snort. Then both lapsed into brooding silence and stared more or less unseeingly out across the limitless expanse of ocean. CHAPTER TEN _Steel Sharks_ The sun was a shimmering ball of brass that seemed to hang motionless in the high heavens forever and ever. At least it seemed forever to Dawson and Farmer, huddled down in the small rubber life raft that rose and fell with maddening monotonous regularity under the urging of the long, rolling swells of the Southwest Pacific. Brassy sun on high, all about them, and even dancing up off the waters straight into their eyes. "Oh, for a shack about six miles this side of the North Pole!" Dave groaned, and licked his cracked lips. "What I wouldn't give for a spot like that, right now!" "Yes, quite," Freddy answered listlessly. "And, of course, during the six months of night they have up there. You know, Dave, I--I say! Look! Look, Dave! To starboard. Way out where the blasted sky meets the blasted water! Do you see something?" For a couple of moments Dawson refused to turn his head. It seemed as though he had spent his entire life in this raft squinting hopefully at imagined objects, only to be slapped in his burning, stinging face by lost hope. For twenty-six heart-crushing long hours Freddy and he had been floating about in the raft on the crest of the Southwest Pacific. Twelve of those hours had been spent in the darkness of night, hoping, hoping, hoping that dawn's light would bring them a sight of one of their own planes, or one of the task force ships. Just to see something besides sky, water, and darkness would have been something, even if it hadn't meant rescue for them. But it had been only sky, water, and darkness. Then sky, and water again, and a blast furnace sun that seemed to pierce the top of their heads and burn their brains to a crisp.