p>"Oh, come off it, Dave!" Freddy grated. "What do you expect folks to say? Man, but you're getting to be a testy blighter! So we are going to a carrier task force, eh? Well, I'll have to admit that for once you were right. But I certainly wish he'd told us more."

"And you can repeat that!" Dave grunted. "And all this may be simply the beginning of a very costly waste of time and effort. That, my little friend, did not sound so nice to me. It didn't even sound close to nice."

"Quite," Freddy said with a little sigh. "But[Pg 57] nothing's nice about this blasted war, you know. So we might just as well make the best of it. And—"

The English youth choked off the rest as the alarm horn sounded aboard the destroyer, and the craft seemed virtually to spin around to port the length of her keel, and then fairly streak across the water.

"The submarine detector has picked up something, I guess!" Dave muttered, and took a firmer grip on the chain rail. "Now, wouldn't it be sweet to get torpedoed even before we get any place?"

"You say the happiest things!" Freddy got out in a slightly strained voice. "Shut up, and use your eyes. Maybe we'll sight something."

"In this darkness?" Dave echoed, and promptly leaned over the chain rail and strained his eyes at the black water beyond the bow. "Don't be silly. Not unless it's trimmed with neon lights."

For perhaps five minutes the destroyer pounded through the night sea at emergency knots. Then the all clear horn sounded again. The destroyer's speed slackened off slightly, and her bow came cutting around to the previous course. A faint sigh of relief seemed to whisper along the spray-drenched decks. And then pres[Pg 58]ently everything was as normal as before.

"Probably one of ours," Dave grunted. "Or jus