Produced by Greg Weeks, Roger L. Holda, Joseph R. Hauserand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net
DAVE DAWSON AT DUNKIRK
_by_ R. SIDNEY BOWEN
THE WAR ADVENTURE SERIES
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY AKRON, OHIO * NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY CROWN PUBLISHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I HITLER GIVES THE ORDER! 11
II DIVING DOOM 21
III DAVE MEETS FREDDY FARMER 34
IV PRISONERS OF WAR! 45
V IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP 55
VI THEY'LL NEVER BEAT US! 66
VII SHOOT! 77
VIII ESCAPE! 88
IX A DESPERATE MISSION 102
X TRAPPED IN WAR SKIES! 115
XI FIGHTING HEARTS 130
XII IN THE NICK OF TIME 148
XIII BOMBS FOR NAMUR 160
XIV ORDERS FROM HEADQUARTERS 172
XV BELGIUM GIVES UP! 186
XVI FATE LAUGHS AT LAST 199
XVII THUNDER IN THE WEST 215
XVIII WINGS OF DOOM 227
XIX THE WHITE CLIFFS! 241
CHAPTER ONE
_Hitler Gives The Order!_
The first thing Dave Dawson saw when he woke up was the combinationclock and calendar on the little table beside his bed. He stared at itsleepy eyed and tried to remember why he had put it where he would seeit the very first thing when he opened his eyes. He knew there was somereason, an important one, but for the life of him he couldn't remember.
He struggled with the problem for a moment or two and then sat up in bedand glanced about the room. For one brief second the unfamiliar sightstartled him. Then he realized where he was and grinned broadly. Sureenough! This was his room in the Hotel de Ney in Paris, France. This wasjust a little part of the wonderful dream that had really come true!
The "dream" had begun two weeks ago. It had begun with the thunderingroar of the _Dixie_ Clipper's four engines that had lifted Dave and hisfather from the waters of Port Washington Bay, Long Island, on the firstleg of the flight across the Atlantic to Lisbon, Portugal. His fatherhad been sent to Europe on a government mission, and after much coaxingand pleading had consented to take Dave along. The thrill of a lifetime,and during every minute of these last two weeks Dave Dawson had beenliving in a very special kind of Seventh Heaven.
To fly to a Europe at peace was something, but to fly to a Europe at warwas something extra special. It was a trip a fellow would remember allthe days of his life. It was an adventure that he'd tell hisgrandchildren all about some day. The Clipper roaring to a landing atBermuda, then on to the Azores, and then farther eastward to Lisbon. Thetrain journey across Portugal to Spain, then up across Spain and overthe Pyrenees into France. Finally on to Paris and all the beautifulthings that beautiful city had to offer.
Not all of the things, however, had been beautiful. There were lots ofthings that were grim looking and made a fellow think a lot. The thingsof war. True, the war was a long, long ways from Paris. It was fareastward between the great Maginot Line of the French and the SiegfriedLine of Adolf Hitler's Nazi legions. There it had remained for eightmonths, now, and people were saying that there it would remain. Hitlerwould never dare attack the Maginot Line, and eventually the war wouldjust peter out.
Yes, that was the talk you heard all over Paris, but the grim thingswere there for you to see with your own eyes just the same. Thebatteries of anti-aircraft guns strategically placed about the city. Thefat sausage balloons that could be sent up to great heights as abarricade against raiding German bombers, should Hitler ever decide tosend them over. Then too there were the French Flying Corps planes thatpatrolled almost constantly over the city day and night. The armytrucks, and small tanks that rumbled through the suburbs day after day.The lorries filled with solemn eyed French troops going up to battlestations. And at night ... the black out. No lights on the streets savethe tiny blue flashlights that the people carried. At first it made youthink of a crazy kind of fairyland. Then the faint _crump-crump_ of adistant anti-aircraft battery going into action, and the long shafts ofbrilliant light stabbing the black skies, would remind you that Francewas at war, and that danger might come to Paris, though as yet it hadnot even come close. But....
At that moment the musical chimes of the French alarm clock cut into histhoughts. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was exactly fifteenminutes of seven. He glanced at the calendar, too, and it told him thatthe date was May 10th, 1940.
May Tenth! In a flash the elusive bit of memory came back to him. He letout a whoop of joy and flung back the covers and leaped out of bed. MayTenth, of course! Gee, to think that he had actually forgotten. Why,today was doubly important, and how! For one thing, he was now exactlyseventeen years old. For the other, that swell French officer,Lieutenant Defoe, of the 157th Infantry Regiment, was going to take Dadand himself on a personally conducted tour of the famous Maginot Line!The Lieutenant had said he would come by the hotel at seven thirtysharp. That's why he had put the clock so close to his bed! To make surehe would hear the alarm, in case his dad in the next room over-slept.Heck, yes! Seventeen years old, and a trip to the Maginot Line!
He danced a jig across the room to the tall mirror that reached from thefloor to the ceiling and took the stance of a fighter coming out of hiscorner for the knock-out round. For a couple of minutes he shadow boxedthe reflection in the glass, then whipped over a crushing, finishingright and danced back.
"Boy oh boy, do I feel good!" he cried happily and tore off his pajamas."Bring on your Joe Louis. Hot diggity, the Maginot Line. Me! Oh boy!"
In almost less time than it takes to tell about it he was bathed andfully dressed and ready to go. He started for the door leading into hisfather's room but checked himself as he saw the camera on the bureau. Hetook a step toward it, then snapped his fingers as he rememberedLieutenant Defoe had said that the Maginot Line was one place where eventhe President of France could not take a camera. For a second he wastempted to take one anyway, but sober judgment quickly squelched thatidea. He knew that Lieutenant Defoe had gone to a lot of trouble to getpermission for him and his father to visit that great string offortresses, and it would be pretty cheap to do anything that would getthe Lieutenant in wrong.
So he left the camera where it was, caught up his hat, and went over tothe connecting door and knocked loudly.
"Rise and shine in there, Mister!" he called out. "Big doings today,remember? Are you up, Dad?"
There was no sound save the echo of his own voice. He knocked again andshouted, "Hey, Dad!" but there was still no sound from the room beyond.He hesitated a moment, then grasped the knob and pushed the door open.
"Hey, Dad, get...!"
An empty room greeted his amazed gaze. The bed hadn't been slept in. Asa matter of fact there was not a single sign that the room had beenoccupied. There were no clothes in the closet, no toilet articles andstuff on the dresser, and not even
any traveling bags. The sudden shockmade his heart contract slightly, and for a long moment he could donothing but stare wide eyed at the vacant room.
"Can I be dreaming?" he heard his own voice murmur. "This is Dad's room.I said good night to him here last night. But, there's no one here.Dad's gone, for cat's sake. _Hey, Dad!_"
All that he got for his extra loud shout was a muffled voice protestingviolently in French, and an angry pounding on the floor of the roomabove. He closed his Dad's door and went down the stairs three at a timeand straight across the lobby floor to the desk.
"Have you seen my Father?" he asked the girlish looking man at the desk.
The girlish looking man didn't hear. He was talking on the telephone.Talking a blue streak with his hands as well as his mouth. In fact, inorder to make full use of both his hands the clerk had dropped thereceiver and was giving all of his attention to the mouth piece. Helooked like he was trying to do the Australian Crawl right into it anddown the wire to whoever was at the other end of the line.
Dave grinned and stood watching the clerk. The words came out like astring of machine gun bullets. Much, much too fast for Dave to line themup in a sentence that made sense. He caught a word here and there,however, and presently the grin faded from his face. He heard the name,_Holland_, and _Belgium_. He heard _Nazi cows_. He heard _Maginot Line_,and _Siegfried Line_. And a whole lot of the girlish looking clerk'spersonal opinions of Hitler, and Goering, and Hess, and Goebbels, andeverybody else in Nazi Germany.
He did not hear a lot, but he heard enough, and his eyes widened, andhis heart began to thump against his ribs in wild excitement. He bangedon the desk and shouted at the clerk, but he might just as well haveshouted at the moon. The clerk was far, far too busy trying to swim downthe telephone cord.
Dave started to yell even louder but at that moment a hand took hold ofhis arm and swung him around. He found himself staring into the flushed,good looking face of Lieutenant Defoe. The French officer was breathinghard and there was a strange look in his eyes that checked the happygreeting on Dave's lips.
"Hey, what's wrong, Lieutenant?" he asked instead. "That clerk acts likehe's going nuts. And, say, Dad isn't in his room. Not even any of histhings."
"I know, _mon Capitaine_," Lieutenant Defoe said and held onto his arm."Come. First we shall have some breakfast, and then I will explain all."
The fact that Defoe was there, and that the French officer had calledhim by the kidding title of My Captain soothed the tiny worry that wasbeginning to grow inside Dave.
"Okay, Lieutenant, I am starved at that," he said as the officer led theway to the breakfast room. "But, that clerk. He was shouting somethingabout the Germans in Holland and Belgium, and.... Hey, my gosh! HasHitler invaded the Lowlands?"
"Early this morning," Defoe said gravely. "Another of his promisesbroken, but we expected it, of course. Yes, _mon Capitaine_, now Francewill truly go to war. Here, sit there. Let me order. They are perhapsexcited a little this morning, and I will get better results."
Dave waited until the French officer had ordered for them both and putthe fear of the devil in the lumbering and thoroughly flusteredwaitress. Then he leaned forward on the table.
"What about Dad, Lieutenant?" he asked. "Is anything wrong? I mean, ishe all right?"
The French officer nodded and wiped beads of sweat from his face with ahuge colored handkerchief. It was then Dave saw how tired and weary theman looked. His eyes were drawn and haggard. His funny little mustacheseemed even to droop from fatigue. Despite his natty uniform, and thetwo rows of shiny medals, the Lieutenant looked as though he had notslept for days.
"Yes, your father is well, and safe," Defoe finally said through amouthful of hard roll. "He is in England."
Dave spilled some of the water he was drinking.
"England?" he gasped. "Dad is in England?"
"In London," Defoe said and crammed more roll into his mouth. "It wasall very sudden. Be patient, _mon Capitaine_, and I shall try toexplain. First, a thousand pardons for not arriving sooner, but I wasdelayed at the War Ministry. And there was not one of those cursed taxiswe have in Paris, so I was forced to run all the way. You were surprisedand alarmed to find your father gone, eh?"
"I was knocked for a loop," Dave said with a grin. "But, look, tell me.Why in thunder did Dad go to London? Because of the German invasion intoHolland and Belgium?"
"No," Defoe said. "Some business with your American Ambassador there.What, I do not know. We were in the lounge having a good night glass ofwine just after you had gone to bed. A wireless message arrived. Yourfather said that he had to leave for London at once. An Embassy car tookhim to Calais where he could embark on a destroyer. He said that hewould be gone for three days. You were asleep and he did not wish towake you. He asked me to take his room, and to be your companion untilhe returned. He said he would write you from London. He said it was justa quick business trip and nothing for you to worry about."
"Yes, yes," Dave said, trying to keep his voice polite. "But what now?"
Lieutenant Defoe gestured expressively with a butter knife in one handand a piece of roll in the other.
"Now, everything is changed, _mon Capitaine_," he said. "In a few hoursyou and I shall drive together to Calais. There I shall salute you andbid you farewell. A British destroyer will take you to Dover. And fromthere to London you shall travel by train. Your father will meet you atthe station in London. What you will do then, I do not know. Your fatherdid not honor me with the information."