outh at cruising throttle, and with a solemn,
fervent prayer in their hearts that after the seven hours of darkness in
that part of the world would come dawn and the definite knowledge that
they were within sight of the New Guinea coast. Both realized that then
would begin the most difficult part of the long flight. Though
MacArthur's troops and planes were hammering hard at the Japs, the
devils from the Land of the Rising Sun still held most of New Guinea.
And, frankly speaking, the two youths could expect more trouble before
they sat down on the Yank-held base at Port Moresby.

However, they had won out so far, and against great odds, so there was
more than a little joy in their hearts as they went winging south. For a
long time they chatted back and forth about this and that for no other
reason than the pleasure of companionship. Eventually, though, they ran
out of words, and save for a short sentence now and then they both
remained silent.

As far as Dawson was concerned, that was perfectly okay. His chest was
on fire, and it hurt him to talk. Also, there were little alarming
spells of giddiness that came to him every now and then. He didn't dare
say anything to Freddy, because that would add just one more worry to
the English youth's stock. So he kept his mouth shut, clamped down hard
on the knife-like pains in his chest, and flew doggedly southward,
praying for dawn as he had never prayed in his whole life before.

But the darkness dragged on and on until Dawson was ready to despair of
ever seeing a dawn again. A numbness had settled in his left shoulder,
except when he moved it. And when he did by accident, he had to shut his
teeth tight to stop from crying out from the pain. A cold clammy sweat
formed on his forehead, and the beads kept continually trickling down
into his eyes to blur his vision, and caused him to imagine he saw all
kinds of crazy things that didn't exist at all a split second after he
had brushed the sweat from his eyes. Particularly he was seeing the
lights of ships below. Or, at least, certain he was seeing them until he
looked again. Of course, every time he "saw" the lights he knew
perfectly well that any boat in that part of the Southwest Pacific,
Yank or Jap, most certainly wouldn't be showing so much as a speck of
light at night. However, what he imagined seemed so real that he was
constantly sitting up straight and peering down over the right wing or
the left.

If dawn would _only_