"Right," the senior officer said briskly. "But, I'm not going to tell you who they are, any more than I'm going to tell them who you are. That may sound strange, but it's been my experience that agents working in pairs accomplish more than agents working in a group. As officers you two will have the run of the ship, you might say. At the same time, though, you might tip your hand if you went poking around in the non-com and enlisted men's quarters. It works the other way around, too. So I'm planting men in both departments of the ship. You won't know who the other two are, and they won't know who you two are. But here's a very important point to remember. This Intelligence work I'm counting on your doing is, in a way, over and above the call of duty. "I mean by that that you two will be aboard ship as flying lieutenants. That will be your main job, and you'll take orders from your Section Leader, or higher ranks, just as though we'd never had this talk at all. You'll have no special privileges any more than anybody else aboard ship will have. You won't because not a living soul aboard will know the real reason why you are there. Not even the Indian's captain will know. As they say in England, this is going to be a strictly hush-hush job. Yes, you'll be starting from scratch. All I can arrange is for you to be assigned to the Indian to fill the two flying officer vacancies. What happens after that is up to you. A tough one, eh?" "The odds aren't so good," Dave said with a faint grin. "But I see your point, sir, and its advantage. If nobody knows why we're there, then there's no chance of the truth leaking out." "I say, one point, though," Freddy Farmer spoke up with a worried expression on his face. "What about me? My accent, I mean. Won't it seem a bit odd for me to be put aboard an American aircraft carrier?" "Not a bit, so stop worrying about that," Colonel Welsh said with a smile. "A month or two ago, yes, but not now. You have only to pick up the papers to see that both American and British airmen are being trained in this country. We're not keeping things separate any more. Take Java, for example. There are Yanks, British, and Dutch over there all fighting together, and under the Dutch Command. We're the United Nations now. And we'll become more so before this thing is over. No, Farmer, it won't seem odd at all for an English youth to have been trained in this country and be assigned aboard a U. S. Navy aircraft carrier for sea duty. True, you may get a bit of ribbing--about your English accent, and stuff. But I guess you can take that, eh?" "Farmer has learned fast, sir," Dave said with a chuckle. "He can dish it right back with the best of them. Snappy come-backs are apple pie for him. I even have to bear down myself at times. Fact is, I wouldn't be surprised but that in six months or so you won't be able to tell him from a Yank." "Goodness, no, if the Yank is you!" Freddy said with a groan.