-faced.

Outside the door Stan turned to Allison. "The Old Boy isn't such a tough
cookie after all."

"Don't be so sure about that. You know I had a hunch he was spoofing us
all the time." Allison scowled. "I'm sure he was."

"You smelled a mouse?" Stan grinned.

"I smelled a very dead one," Allison answered. "Let's locate O'Malley.
He should be over in the quarters reserved for flight commanders."

They barged into the quarters of the flight officers and looked around.
O'Malley was not present but several men sat at a table playing chess.
They moved over and stood beside the table.

"We're looking for Commander O'Malley," Stan said.

One of the boys looked up. He was wearing new and shiny insignia of a
major. He grinned up at Stan and Allison, his eyes taking in their
service stripes.

"I guess you mean Flight Leader O'Malley," he said. "You should be able
to find him over at Mess Three."

"So, he's already gotten himself shifted to flight leader," Stan said,
matching the major's grin. "How'd he manage it?"

"By eating a pie while Colonel Benson was delivering a lecture on how to
capture Italy," the major chuckled.

"So he's back on the firing line. I say, that's just where he wanted to
be," Allison said.

"No, he didn't rate that well," the major explained. "The Old Man
chucked him into a job of ferrying planes to Malta so we'd have some
reserves in close to Sicily. Less than an hour ago O'Malley told me it
was a quiet and peaceful job, but one he didn't like."

Stan looked at Allison. "You were right, there was a mouse, a big, dead
one." He nodded to the major. "Thanks, Major," he said.

They turned away and walked out of the room. Allison laid a hand on
Stan's arm as they turned toward the door of Mess Three.

"Suppose we surprise O'Malley," he suggested.

"He'll be in no mood for surprises," Stan answered. "He'll be a wild
man. With the whole Army and Navy getting set to force a beach-head and
him on ferry duty, he'll be red-hot."

"We are to fill in on his flight. We might work it so that he wouldn't
know until we take off. We could be a bit late in showing up." There was
a twinkle in Allison's eyes.

Stan began to grin. "I like the idea," he said. "We're stuck the same as
he is and might as well cheer him up."

They went to the operations room and located Captain Marks who regarded
them with unbelieving eyes.

"You mean to say you gave up a vacation trip to Alexandria to take this
ferry