There was movement everywhere around them-unseen, stealthy. A hollow, grunting cough rose from the foot of their tree.

"Wot was dat?" asked Shrimp.

"Stripes," said Clayton.

Shrimp wanted to ask what stripes was, but so far he had addressed no word to the Britisher. However, curiosity at last got the best of pride. "Stripes?" he sasked.

"Tiger."

"Geeze! You mean they's a tiger loose down there?"

"Yes. Two of them."

"Geeze! I seen 'em oncet at the zoo in Chicago. I guess it wouldn't be so healthy down there. I heard they ate people."

"We've got to thank you, Colonel, that we're not down there," said Jerry Lucas.

"I guess we'd be a lot of babes in the woods without him," said Bubonovitch.

"I learned a hell of a lot in Colonel Saffarrans' jungle training outfit," said Shrimp, "but nothin' about wot to do about tigers."

"They hunt mostly at night," Clayton explained. "That's when you have to be on your guard." After a while he said to Bubonovitch, "From what little I have read about Brooklyn I was lead to believe that Brooklynites had a special pronunciation of English all their own. You talk like any one else."

"So do you," said Bubonovitch.

Clayton laughed. "I was not educated at Oxford."

"Bum had a higher Brooklyn education," explained Lucas. "He went through sixth grade."

Bubonovitch and Rosetti dropped off to sleep. Clayton and Lucas sat at the edge of the platform, their legs dangling, planning for the future. They agreed that their best chance

lay in getting a boat from friendly natives (if they could find any) on the southwest coast of the island and then trying to make Australia. They spoke of this and many other things. Lucas talked about his crew. He spoke of them with pride. Those who were unaccounted for, he worried about. Those who were dead were dead. There was nothing to be done about that now. But Clayton could tell by the tenseness in his voice when he spoke of them how he felt about them.

He spoke of Rosetti. "He's really a good kid," he said, "and a top ball turret gunner. Nature molded him for the job. There isn't much room in a ball turret. Bum says the War Department should breed 'em, crossing midgets with pygmies. Shrimp has the DFC and Air Medal with three clusters. He's a good kid all right."

"He certainly hasn't much use for Britishers," laughed Clayton.

"What with all the Irish and Italians in Chicago, it's not surprising. And then Shrimp never had much of a chance to learn anything. His father was killed in Cicero in a gang war when he was a kid, and I guess his mother was just a gangland moll. She never had any use for Shrimp, nor he for her. But with a background like that, you've got to hand it to the kid.