"Sure it's a break," Dave said excitedly. "The luckiest break you and I ever bumped into. And it was certainly luck, all of it. Don't you see, Freddy? Our little rat friend is worried. He's not sure whether we've got him spotted or not. He's got a job to do, see? He wants to be sure he'll be able to do the job, so he tries to remove us from the picture by crowning you. Get it?" "Of course I don't get it!" Freddy Farmer snapped. "You're talking in blasted riddles, Dave. Make sense!" "Look, pal!" Dave said slowly. "We know darn well now that he's a pilot, don't we?" "Well, the lad who bashed me was, and is, a pilot," the English youth admitted with a nod that made him wince. "Okay, he's a pilot," Dave continued. "That means he plans to make contact with the Japs by air, when out on patrol. He doesn't know if we are keeping an eye on him, so he slugs you so that we won't go on patrol this trick. See?" "But what if we don't make the patrol?" Freddy cried. "What's that--?" "For cat's sake, get it, Freddy!" Dave almost shouted. "It means that _he is in our section_! It means that he is in our section and tried to make sure that we wouldn't be aloft to keep our eye on what he did. Don't you see? It _has_ to be that. If he were flying with some other section, it wouldn't matter to him whether we flew our patrol trick or not. But we're in the same section. So he lays you out just before take-off time, figuring that before I can be assigned somebody else to fly with me our section will be off and on its way. And I'll have to wait over, or go off with the next section." "Good grief, yes, of course!" Freddy Farmer breathed fiercely as his eyes got as big as dinner plates. "For once, you're absolutely right, Dave. The beggar is in our section. He has to be." "Doggone right!" Dave echoed, and took hold of Freddy's arm. "Now you come on aft to the sick bay, and get fixed up. I've got to work fast and get the Exec to assign me somebody else to take your place. Perhaps--" "Somebody to take _my_ place!" Freddy Farmer cried angrily. "Over my dead body! That's rot. I'm making the patrol with you. I--" "But, Freddy, you got slammed pretty--" "You can shut your trap, Dave Dawson!" the English youth snapped viciously. "After all this waiting, if you think I'm going to go on waiting while you make this patrol and perhaps get yourself into no end of trouble, then you're completely balmy. Now, let go of my arm, and stand aside, or you'll be the one to get bashed. And I mean it, Dave. I'd still make this patrol even if the blighter had broken both my arms and both my legs." Dave hesitated a fraction of a second, then shrugged and sighed.