Dave pressed himself flat to the ground, and dug his fingers into the soft earth as though to prevent some invisible force from catching him up and tossing him off into space. All about was pitch darkness save for a few hangar lights on the far side of Singapore's R.A.F. Base. High overhead billions and billions of stars winked solemnly down on a world seemingly gone stark raving mad with war. In the distance there was sound, but it was so jumbled and so indistinct that it had no meaning for listening ears. For a brief instant Dave closed his eyes tight and pressed his face hard against the warm ground. Then he raised his head and turned it toward Freddy Farmer who hugged the ground right at his side.

"You're fully awake, aren't you, Freddy?" he whispered. "This wouldn't be any cockeyed nightmare I'm going through, would it?"

"A blasted fine chance of that!" the English youth replied with a groan. "I'm trying to make up my mind whether we're completely balmy, or just off our toppers. This is a mad business, Dave! Insane!"

"You're not telling me a thing!" Dawson breathed and squinted across the night blackened R.A.F. Base at the faint hangar lights. "But the heck of it is, we walked right into it, and we can't walk right out again!"

"If we could only get to the Raffles Hotel, and contact that agent of Bostworth's, and get some word to him!" Freddy Farmer said with a bitter sigh.

"I know," Dave grunted. "But Serrangi is no dummy no matter how you look at it. We haven't been out of his sight since we walked into the rug shop almost three hours ago. I had hoped he was going to let us come out here on our own. Maybe then we could have slipped by the Raffles and gotten some word to Bostworth. Nix, though! Serrangi came out with us in that Nineteen-Six jallopy, and showed us the path through the brush up to the edge of the field, here. And a funny sensation in the middle of my back tells me that he's back there a ways still keeping an eye on us. We sure picked something this time, pal. We picked a pip, and I ain't kidding."

"But if only Bostworth knew...!" Freddy began and let the rest trail off.

"Knew what?" Dave murmured. "That's the point! What could we really tell him that would make sense? Darn little, pal. Less than that, in fact. Serrangi tells us that at a given signal some rat at R.A.F. Base is going to blow lots of things sky high. He tells us that a Jap General has a hidden field with plenty planes up near Raja, in Burma. At the right time the Jap is going to blow the whistle, and things are supposed to pop in lots of places. And in my pocket I've got what looks like a pencil, only it's rolled up code data Serrangi gave us to give to General Kashomia. There you are."

"Well?" Freddy Farmer grunted. "Isn't that a lot?"

"It's nothing when you pick it apart," Dave said. "Figure it out. We don't know who the R.A.F. rat is, and Bostworth doesn't. Maybe there is a Jap general up at Raja with flocks of planes. So what? Is Bostworth going to send R.A.F. planes up there on our say-so to blast them out? Declare war on Japan, just like that? Fat chance! The British don't do things that way. Also, we don't know where the hidden field really is until we see the flare signals the Japs are to send up. Yeah! Burmese would get kind of sore if the British flew all over their country dumping bombs, trying to blast somebody they think is there. And here's a point, too. We don't know the striking date. It may be right after we get there ... and whether we get there, or not! Chances are, by the time Bostworth could induce Far East High Command to swing into action the Japs might be swinging their sneak haymaker. And this code data I've got in my pocket. Think Serrangi would have trusted us with it if there was even the slimmest chance that British Intelligence could break the code in time. Nuts! So what have we got?"

"You're right!" Freddy Farmer groaned. "Blasted little. Really nothing, when you come to look at it. But I hate to think of turning over that code data to General Kashomia! No doubt it's complete information of our strength, and such, here in the Far East. Probably high military secrets we've guarded for years."

"At least," Dave grunted. "And it puts us right behind the eight ball. We've got to turn it over to General Kashomia. Nothing happens until we do. And we can't do anything until something does happen. We've sort of got to pay out more rope, and pray we can take up the slack fast when we have to. If you get what I mean?"

"Yes, but what a chance we've got to take!" Freddy said in a voice that trembled slightly. "If we fail, Dave.... I mean, if things go through as the blasted Japs seem to be planning, the blood of Singapore will be on our hands. It will be because we failed. It...!"

Dave stuck out an elbow and jabbed the English youth in the side.

"Cut it!" he hissed. "That's not Freddy Farmer talking! Let's beat our brains out after we've failed. And, pal, that's something you and I just ain't going to up and do. Not while we can stand up and keep punching. So, heave that kind of talk in the river, Mister!"

Dave felt pressure on his arm, and heard Freddy's emotion choked voice.

"Thanks, Dave. I'm all right, now. I wish you'd kick me, and hard."

"I'll take a rain check on that invite," Dave said with a chuckle. "But forget it, Freddy. Heck! You'd up and leave me flat, if you knew some of the thoughts that have been breezing around in my head. So skip it. I guess it's this waiting that's getting us. I wish Serrangi's boys would hurry up and start the fireworks so's we can get started. You know, this sort of thing is darn near getting to be a habit."

"What is?" Freddy wanted to know.

"Posing as Axis agents, and swiping a British plane," Dave said. "Remember that time when we were on convoy patrol, and had to waltz off with that Catalina? We were plenty lucky then, and I've got a hunch we're going to have to be twice as lucky this time."[2]

"Lucky to get off without British bullets in our backs," Freddy Farmer murmured. "And lucky if all the gas tanks are filled. It will certainly be a blasted mess if our gas gives out and we have to force land somewhere in Thailand, or Burma."

Dave didn't make any reply to that for the simple reason there wasn't anything to be said. Perhaps the most pronounced fear of all regarding the wild, crazy venture into which they were plunging blindly was the fear of their fuel running out on them before they had reached the hidden airdrome in the wild Burmese mountains. If it was to be a Wellington or Whitley bomber they were to take aloft there wouldn't be any worry at all. But stealing a bomber was definitely out. It took time to get those babies off the ground, and possible British fighter planes giving chase could catch a bomber in short order. So it had to be the fastest two seater type at the Base. And as luck would have it they had spotted the six Bristol "Taurus" powered Fairey "Albacores" on the tarmac but a few seconds after they had reached the place where they now hugged the ground. They could make the distance in an Albacore. It might be close, but everything would be in their favor. They could get one off fast, they could gain altitude in the night sky fast, and an Albacore had a level flight speed that wasn't too much under the speed of a single seater fighter plane. Yes, it might be close, but an Albacore was their best bet. So they had picked the one they would rush for just as soon as Serrangi's men created the planned "disturbance" on the far side of the field.

But it was the body tingling waiting that dragged you down. It was like rats inside of you gnawing and gnawing at your nerves until you had to sink your teeth deep into your lips to stop from screaming and mentally flying apart in small pieces. Waiting! Waiting for what? A chance to rush out across the night shadowed drome, and smack into the withering fire of British guards? To steal a plane and race madly up into the night sky ... and be caught by British planes and sent hurtling earthward a ball of raging fire? To reach Raja and turn over the secret code data, and then stand by helpless as a gigantic, treacherous blow by the Nazi backed Japanese was struck at England in the Far East? To....

Dave shook his head savagely to blast the taunting thoughts from his brain. Many, many times in the past had he and Freddy tackled a problem that seemed hopeless, but never anything so seemingly utterly hopeless as this. It wasn't a case of just ferreting out the enemy's secret, and then smashing him. On the contrary, it was actually the direct opposite. Freddy and he were going to give the enemy what he needed, and then attempt to smash him before he could make use of it! Pure and simple, it was no more than handing a killer a loaded gun, and then taking it away from him before he could shoot you between the eyes. It was crazy, it was ridiculous, it was absurd, and it was insane. Yet it was the only thing they could do. They had to play it this way. There was no other loophole, and no chance to dive through it if one should suddenly present itself. It....

The rest of Dave's whirling thoughts spun off into oblivion as gun fire and wild shouting suddenly broke out on the far side of the field. It was like high voltage cutting through both of them, and they came up on their toes and fingertips as one man. For a brief instant they poised motionless eyes fixed on the tongue of flame that suddenly shot up from some building way over beyond the hangars. Then a silent signal passed between them and they went tearing bent well over out across one corner of the field toward the nearest Fairey Albacore some seventy yards away.

Seventy yards? It seemed seventy miles to Dave as he and Freddy Farmer fairly flew over the ground like a couple of frightened deer. With each racing step he took he half expected to see a British soldier rise right up out of the ground and level a rifle at him. No British soldier appeared, however, and hope zoomed in Dave as he saw the tarmac guards start running in the direction of the shouts, the shots, and the flames. The thought of death was not something that held him in fear and trembling. But to be mowed down by one of your own kind was a death no man would desire, if death it must be.

Seventy yards, thirty yards, ten yards, one yard! And then Dave and Freddy virtually vaulted into the pit of the Albacore. No plans had been made by them in advance about who would take what seat. It just happened to work out that Dave popped into the pilot's seat, and Freddy Farmer popped into the navigator-gunner's seat in back. Heart jammed up hard against his back teeth, and nervous sweat pouring off his body in rivers, Dave's fingers flew over the gas cocks, and starter, and ignition switches on the instrument panel. At the same time ... it was as though he had twenty hands instead of two ... he fastened the harness buckles of the seat parachute pack, hooked the safety belt clamp, opened up the throttle, and booted off the wheel brakes. The last operation was to jab the starter button ... and pray as he had never before prayed in all of his young years!

An eternity of heart crushing agony was Dave's, and then the Bristol Taurus in the nose roared up in its full throated song of power. The Albacore trembled and quivered for a brief instant and then shot forward as though ropes holding it back had been slashed through. Braced for the shock, Dave bent more forward over the stick and grimly waited for the craft to pick up sufficient take-off speed. With every revolution of the three-bladed steel propeller the plane tore faster and faster across the hard sun baked surface of the Base field. A thousand and one weird, crazy images seemed to pop up out of the ground just in front of the thundering plane. Dave's imagination went on a holiday during those few awful moments. He saw squads of British India troops loom up and blast away at the plane with rifle and machine gun fire, he saw armored cars rushing toward him from all angles, with guns blazing, and he saw a half division of tanks move like lightning into position to bar his way. He saw everything that an excitement quivering brain could conjure up. But all the plane actually crashed into was the air of night faintly tinted by the glow of the flames somewhere in back of the hangars.

And then the wheels lifted and Dave sent the Albacore curving up and around in the night sky. As he held the craft at its maximum climbing angle he twisted around in the seat and shot a quick glance down at the R.A.F. Base. Lights had sprung up all over the place, and he could just barely see the figures running toward the lines of planes. Some quarter of a mile in back of the row of hangars red flames were gutting an equipment stores building. The thing, however, that made Dave's heart slide down to its normal position in his chest was the utter absence of gun fire spitting up toward them. They had caught the field guards flat footed, and they would be well out of sight before British single seaters could come tearing up after them.

Taking his gaze off the scene below, Dave twisted all the way around and looked back at Freddy. In the pale light of the cockpit bulb the English youth's face was tense and set. And there was just a faint sadness in the eyes that stared down at the R.A.F. Base falling away from the Albacore's belly at a fast rate of speed.

"What's the matter, pal?" Dave called out. "Sad they didn't pepper away at us?"

"Don't talk rot!" Freddy snappily flinging him a scornful glance. "I'm jolly well tickled pink they didn't. I was just thinking that the Japs must never get Singapore, Dave. It means a lot to England, Singapore does. Like Gibraltar, and Malta."

"Oh, so that's all that's worrying you, huh?" Dave echoed. "I thought it was something serious. Well, go on back to sleep. I'll take care of everything for you, see?"

"That's splendid!" Freddy cracked and nodded downward. "As a starter, then, you can climb us a little faster. A couple of planes down there are taking off. And from here they look like Hawker Hurricanes!"

"Huh?" Dave yelled and shoved his head over the side. "My gosh, that's right. Hang on! I'm going to stick this baby right on her tail and go right up the pole!"

"Do that, and shut up!" Freddy said as the Bristol Taurus roared out in maximum power.

Holding the plane up as steeply as possible and toward the south Dave gave it his undivided attention until top service ceiling had been reached and the Island of Singapore was just another one of the blurred shadows thousands and thousands of feet below his wings. At top ceiling he leveled off and took a suck now and then on the oxygen tube he had stuck in his mouth to prevent sudden blacking out. Then on sudden impulse he killed the Albacore's engine and glided southward at a very flat angle while he spent the next five minutes scrutinizing the limitless expanse of night air behind and below. At the end of five minutes he started the engine again and heaved a little sigh of relief. They were clear of Singapore, and had succeeded in shaking off the two R.A.F. planes sent up to intercept them. Now, all that remained was to fly south for a spell, then double back up the middle of the South China Sea toward the southern tip of French Indo-China, and so on.

"Simple, in the bag!" Dave suddenly grated savagely as reaction set in. "All we have to do is the impossible. It should be a cinch!"

"What did you say, Dave?" came Freddy's voice.

"I said, I hope it'll be a nice day for something!" Dave grunted and shrugged his shoulders. "And do I hope!"