"Meaning?" he asked.

Young Farmer made a faint motion of his hand toward the milky sort of
world through which the B-25 was flying. The sun had been up for a long
time, now, but haze blurred the sun's rays and turned both sea and sky
into a drifting milky-tinted mass that made instrument flying absolutely
necessary.

"Meaning that I'm wondering if my navigation has gone haywire," Freddy
said. "We should have made landfall half an hour ago, Dave. But there is
nothing but blasted water down there. How's our fuel?"

"Okay, we've got plenty in the tanks," Dawson said. "If your navigation
is all cockeyed, then I'll eat this ship. Of course, you are a funny
sort of gink in lots of ways, my little man. But when it comes to
navigating, I'll take you every time. So relax, pal. What's a half hour
on an ocean hop? We probably bumped into a head wind, that's all."

"Thanks, old thing," Farmer smiled at him. "And I certainly hope that
you're right. However, this whole blasted business has been so balmy
right from the start that I'm willing to expect almost anything. And, in
fact, I do."

Dawson ignored that remark. Freddy had certainly hit the nail on the
head. Of all the jobs they had tackled, this one was certainly the most
mixed up and involved. It seemed so for the very simple reason that not
one thing had gone along as planned. At every turn something had popped
up to toss a monkey wrench into the works and necessitate a complete
revision of plans. Realization of that caused little fingers of ice to
pluck at Dawson's heart. The object of all this business was a safe
journey by air to Casablanca for the President and the American High
Command. With everything going haywire from the start, what other blows
of Fate might be struck once the President was on his way?

"But I'm just tired, and letting myself get off the beam!" Dawson
mumbled. "The colonel's secret is still his secret. And--and that raider
business was just one of those things. Darn it! Nazi agents just
couldn't have found out anything!"

"Just what I've been trying to convince myself of for hours," he heard
Freddy Farmer say. "But I'm still finding it a bit of a difficult job.
As you say, though, we're both so blasted tired. I feel as though I've
been in this aircraft all my life."

"Yeah, me, too!" Dawson agreed. "I--"

He stopped speaking, straightened up in the seat, and peered into the
milky-colored sky off to the left and a little bit ahead. He star