CHAPTER TWO
_Room 1200_
Any period of time will pass if you'll just wait long enough, and soeventually it was eight o'clock in the morning, and the two air aces hadpaused before Room Twelve Hundred at the Air Ministry. They had pausedby unspoken mutual consent. And now as their eyes met they both grinned,and lifted their right hands with the middle fingers crossed over theindexes.
"Here's for luck, or something," Dave Dawson murmured with a wink.
"Quite," Freddy Farmer echoed. "At least, I hope it won't be _bad_luck."
For a couple of seconds more the two youths hesitated, and then DaveDawson took a deep breath, turned the door knob, and pushed the dooropen. He entered the small outer office with Freddy Farmer right at hisheels. A Flight Lieutenant seated at the small desk took one swift lookat their American Air Force uniforms and recognized them at once.
"Good morning, Captains," he said with a smile. "I'll tell AirVice-Marshal Leman, and Colonel Welsh, that you are here."
Both Dave and Freddy instantly stiffened and went wide-eyed. It wasDawson who found his tongue first.
"What's that, Flight Lieutenant?" he got out. "Did I hear you sayColonel Welsh? You don't mean Colonel Welsh, chief of the U.S. ArmedForces Intelligence?"
"That's exactly who I mean," the Flight Lieutenant replied. "He arrivedin England by bomber yesterday. Just a moment, please, and I'll let themknow you're here."
The Flight Lieutenant went over to a huge solid oak door, knocked on it,and then stepped through and closed it behind him. Dave and Freddy chosethat moment to gape puzzle-eyed at each other.
"Well, what do you know!" Dawson finally breathed. "Colonel Welsh, whohad us hauled out of the R.A.F. in the first place!"[2]
[Footnote 2: _Dave Dawson With The Pacific Fleet._]
"I know," the English youth echoed. "Fancy, meeting him here in London.Well, I guess that certainly means that something new has been cookedup for us. Good grief! His name was the farthest from my mind!"
"You and me both!" Dawson said with a nod. "And it sure does mean thatplenty's on the fire, if Colonel Welsh is over here. But it'll be goodto meet him again. He always rated tops with me."
"Quite!" the English youth murmured.
And that's as far as he got. At that moment the Flight Lieutenant openedthe huge solid oak door, and motioned for them to come into the inneroffice. They did, with Dawson leading the way, and so it was his handthat was grasped first by the thin-faced officer in the uniform of aU.S. Infantry Colonel.
"Well, Dawson, I'm certainly mighty glad to meet you again!" the Colonelgreeted him. "And you, too, Farmer. Neither of you has changed a bit."
"Thank you, sir," Dawson smiled back at him. "And it's good to meet youagain. This is certainly one big surprise."
"Quite, sir," Freddy echoed as he, too, shook hands with the Colonel. "Ihope you had a nice flight across."
"A perfect hop," the senior officer said. "But I'm forgetting mymanners. Air Vice-Marshal Leman, let me present Captains Dawson andFarmer. But perhaps you've already met?"
The good looking Air Force officer, who had sat smiling behind a deskthat seemed to fill half the room, got up instantly and came around itwith his hand outstretched.
"No, but I've certainly heard no end of things about you two," he saidas he shook hands with both boys. "But who hasn't, for that matter?" hecontinued with a chuckle. "Including Adolf Hitler, of course. There,have chairs, Gentlemen. I can see it in your faces that you arewondering no end what this is all about. Well, Colonel, I fancy you'dbetter do the talking for us, eh?"
The senior American officer smiled, nodded, and then waited untileverybody was comfortably seated in chairs.
"I've a job for you," he presently told the two youths bluntly. "And Iwant to say right here that it is probably the toughest assignment youever received. Feel like taking a crack at something _really_ tough?"
Dave Dawson leaned forward on the edge of his chair, and nodded eagerly.All thoughts of leave were gone from his brain now. Just the sight ofColonel Welsh had changed everything all around. He was more than everanxious for action.
"The tougher it is the better I'll like it, sir," he said with a grin."Speaking for myself, of course."
"Oh, you're jolly well speaking for me, too!" Freddy Farmer spoke upquickly. "Besides, you'd have to have me along to watch out for you, youknow."
Everybody chuckled at that remark, and then Colonel Welsh's thin facebecame very grave and serious.
"I really meant that, just the same," he said with a grim nod. "This oneis really tough, and your chances of pulling it off successfully areabout one in six million, roughly speaking."
"The odds have been pretty big against us in the past, sir," Dave saidquietly. "But where are we heading this time, or shouldn't I ask yet?"
"You may, and I'll answer it," Colonel Welsh replied. "This time it'sRussia."
That brought both youths up stiff and straight on the edges of theirchairs.
"Russia?" Dave gasped out.
"Russia?" Freddy Farmer echoed incredulously. "Good grief!"
"That's right, Russia," Colonel Welsh repeated. "But just where inRussia, the good Lord Himself alone knows. To be perfectly frank, it'squite possible that I'm sending you after no more than a handful ofRussian air. That's why I say the odds against your success are aboutone in six million. However, if by any possible chance you do pull thisone off, why then--"
The American Intelligence Chief paused and made a little gesture withhis hands.
"Why then," he continued a moment later, "Civilization will owe you afar bigger debt of gratitude than it does now, even."
Neither of the boys said anything. They just sat quietly, with theireyes fixed on the senior officer, and waited for him to continue.However, when the Colonel spoke again it was not to the boys. Headdressed himself to Air Vice-Marshal Leman.
"On second thought, sir," he said, "perhaps you'd better tell your partof it first. Then I'll take it up from there."
The senior R.A.F. officer shrugged and nodded.
"Very well, if you like, Colonel," he said. And then, turning to the twoair aces, he began, "This all started back in the summer of 1939, justbefore Hitler started into Poland. Of course, anybody with half an eye,or half an ear, could have both seen and heard things that would haveleft no doubt of what the Nazis had up their sleeves. We of Intelligenceknew perfectly well that no amount of appeasement would change Hitler'splans one single bit. We knew that the man was no more than a mad dog,and that only a bullet in the brain could stop him. However, theGovernment in power at the time thought otherwise, and tried to--Well,all that blasted business of the Munich meeting is dead history now. Soit doesn't help anything to bring it out into the light again."
The R.A.F. Intelligence chief paused for breath and to clear his throat.Then he made a little gesture with one hand and continued.
"What I'm trying to bring out," he said, "is that though there was hopein certain quarters that something could be done to stop Hitler at thattime, and without bloodshed, we of Intelligence were carrying on asthough we were actually at war. Or at least on the brink of war, whichof course we were. Anyway, our agents were all over Europe gatheringevery bit of information possible, and making underground contacts thatmight prove useful when, and if, the guns started firing. Well, one ofmy agents--and we'll call him Jones for the moment--had a rare bit ofluck. It was one of those things that happen say once in a hundredyears. It happened as a result of no effort of his part, either.It--well, it was simply a bit of absolutely lucky coincidence.
"This Jones, having completed a small mission in Prague, inCzechoslovakia, was on his way by train to Krakow, Poland, when right atthe borders of Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the train waswrecked. Split rails caused the wreck, and some sixty odd persons werekilled. Fortunately, Jones was in one of the three cars that remained onthe track, and he received no more than a severe shaking up. Well, it sohappened that a Nazi trade mission on the way to Moscow w
as aboard thetrain, and two of its members were killed. That, of course, made it morethan just an ordinary train wreck. According to Jones the whole placewas alive with Nazi officials in no time at all. Actually the exactlocation of the wreck was a good mile within the Polish borders, butthat didn't bother the Nazis any. They regarded it as German ground andtook complete charge of everything at once. The Polish officialsobjected, but that's all the good it did them. Incidentally, the thingdid not appear in the public prints, but as a matter of record thatwreck was the first of the so-called border incidents that terminatedwith the Nazi invasion, and slaughter, of Poland."
Air Vice-Marshal Leman paused again, and sat staring off into space asthough choosing the words he would speak next. And when he did speakagain there was just the faintest trace of bitter disappointment in hisvoice.
"Whether the wreck was an accident, or was deliberately planned," hecontinued, "will never be known. However, the Nazis instantly took it asan act of sabotage and, in true Nazi fashion, started arresting peopleleft and right. They arrested people who were actually on the train, aswell as a lot of the male inhabitants of a small village that borderedthat stretch of track. And anybody who even so much as offered a singleword of protest was immediately clubbed half to death, and definitelyregarded by the Nazis as one of the perpetrators of the so called crimeagainst the Third Reich. Well, you can imagine what a madhouse thatplace was, with passengers dead and dying, others trying to do what theycould for the injured, and the Nazi brutes pounding roughshod overeverything and everybody. It was indeed a perfect pre-view of what wasto come on a much more gigantic scale.
"Well, Jones, being no more than shaken up a bit, joined those who weredoing what they could to help the injured. He came upon one man who waspinned under the shattered end of one car. The man was conscious, but hewas bleeding at the mouth, and his chest was horribly crushed. Jonestook him for a German, but that didn't make any difference at the time.He started trying to get the pieces of the shattered car off the man anddrag him free in case fire broke out. It was a pretty hopeless task. Theslightest movement made the pinned man's face go grey with pain, andfinally he begged Jones--and in perfect English, mind you--just to lethim stay where he was. The intense pain of being rescued was too muchfor him. And no sooner had he spoken the plea than the surprising thinghappened. The injured man whispered for Jones to bend close, and listento what he had to say. Jones did just that, and the man said that he wasa Russian by birth but had lived most of his life in Germany. He saidthat he had discovered a horrible plot to wipe the Soviet Republic fromthe face of the earth. That he had learned every detail of Hitler's madplan to conquer and enslave the entire world!"
The R.A.F. officer stopped short and smiled almost apologetically.
"I know what you must be thinking," he said to the two air aces, who satmotionless and just a little bit wide-eyed. "You're thinking thatperhaps I've gone a bit balmy, or that I'm reciting a bit from one ofthose crazy war stories that are being so widely read these days. Butthat's not true. All this actually _did_ happen. In short, over a monthbefore the war actually started, one man pinned under a wrecked railroadtrain just inside the Polish border knew every detail of Hitler's entirewar plan. And what's more, he gave _half_ of that invaluable informationto the British Intelligence agent I've called Jones!"