CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
_Thunder In The West_
The cold, clammy air of early dawn finally pried Dave's eye lids openand brought him back to the conscious world. For a moment he stareddully at the mass of grey shadows all around him. Then gradually herealized that the shadows, most of them, were rocks and huge chunks ofcement, and that light was filtering down through cracks and holesbetween them. That realization brought back memory of where he was. Thenswiftly followed recollection of all that had happened and why he wasthere. He started to get to his feet, and his movements awakened FreddyFarmer slumped against him. The English youth groaned, opened his eyesand stared blankly around for a moment. Then they cleared as fragmentsof memory came racing back to him, too. He sat up and gingerly flexedhis arms and legs.
"Gee, it's morning!" he exclaimed.
"And the Stukas have gone, thank goodness," Dave said. "Lets get out ofhere. Maybe the train's back and we can get aboard it this time. Gosh!I'm stiff as a board."
"I can hardly move!" Freddy moaned and got slowly to his feet. "Man, Inever thought a chap could fall asleep while bombs were falling. Myfather told me that he once slept through a ten hour bombardment infront of Amiens, in Nineteen Seventeen. I aways thought he was pullingmy leg, but now blessed if I don't believe him. I say, what's that?"
Dave cocked his head and listened to the sudden strange sound.
"Troops marching!" he breathed. "That's what it is. Troops marching. Thetrain must be back. Come on, Freddy!"
Dave scrambled forward and started crawling up out of the cave andbetween the rocks to firm ground. He suddenly stopped short as heglanced through a crack that gave him a clear view of the road that ranalong in back of the bomb shattered station. His heart leaped up intohis throat, and for a second or two he couldn't utter a word. Freddy,scrambling up behind, bumped into him and started an exclamation. Davewhirled and put a silencing hand to his lips.
"Pipe down!" he hissed. "Freddy! For gosh sakes, take a look throughthat crack. Gee! What do you know about that?"
The English youth squirmed past him and peered out through the crack.His young body stiffened, and there was the sharp sound of sucking airinto his lungs. He turned around and stared wide eyed at Dave and lickedhis lower lip.
"Germans!" he whispered. "The beggars are all over the place. We've beenleft behind, Dave. Our boys must have moved on when the Stukas wentaway. But we were asleep."
"Yeah, I guess that was it," Dave said and nodded. "Holy smokes, Freddy,what shall we do?"
"I don't know, except to stay where we are," the English youth repliedin a tight voice. "If we show our heads they're sure to grab us. Theremust be thousands of them!"
"Millions, it looks like!" Dave said with a gulp. "Yes, the best thingto do is stay right here and hope they don't find us. Maybe they'll moveoff after awhile, then we can beat it. Gosh! I had all I want of a beinga German prisoner. Sure, let's stay right here."
"At least we won't starve, no matter how long they take marchingthrough," Freddy said. "We both have plenty of chocolate bars we got atthe hospital. And I didn't have to give any of the water in my canteento the wounded I carried. Did you?"
"Not a drop, it's full," Dave said, and patted the canteen at the end ofthe strap hooked over his shoulder. "You're right, we won't go hungry orthirsty. But gosh, I hope they don't stick around too long, or we'llnever get out of this place. Maybe we were crazy to duck in here, huh?"
"And maybe we would have been crazier to have gone some place else,"Freddy murmured and pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket. "At leastno bombs hit us here."
"That's right," Dave agreed. Then with a stiff grin, "And it's a cinchthat none are going to hit us, either, while those Germans are outthere. But I sure hope all those British troops got away. I guess theydid, though, or we'd hear fighting right now. Gee! Can you beat it?"
"Beat what?" Freddy asked through a mouthful of crunched chocolate bar."What's the matter?"
"I was just thinking, and maybe it isn't so funny," Dave said. "We sortof started all this business behind the German lines, and here we areagain. I sure hope we don't end it that way! Wonder how long we'll haveto wait? Until it's dark, I guess."
Freddy didn't answer. He crawled up the stones and peered through thecrack again. When he came down his dust and dirt smeared face lookedmost unhappy.
"Until it's dark, at least," he said with a sad shake of his head. "Andmore war music, too. I just saw them wheeling some guns into position inback of the railroad station. Yes, I'm afraid the blasted beggars areplanning to stay here a bit, too."
"Well, when it gets dark we get out of here," Dave said grimly. "Guns orno guns."
"You bet," Freddy said and fell silent.
As though their silence was a signal to the gunners above, the earth andthe sky once more began to shake and tremble as the gun muzzles belchedout their sheets of flame and steel-clad missiles of death anddestruction that went screaming far off to the east. To get away fromthe shuddering, hammering pounding as much as possible, the two boyscrawled far back into the wall cave and tried to make themselvescomfortable.
Seconds clicked by to add up to minutes, and minutes ticked by to add upto an hour. Then eventually it was two hours, then three, then four. Andstill the guns hammered and snarled and pounded away at their distantobjectives. It seemed as though it would never end. Try as they did tosteel themselves against the perpetual thunder, and the constant shakingand heaving of the earth under them, it was right there with them everysecond of the time. Their eardrums ached, and seemed ready to snapapart. They tore off little pieces of their shirts and used them asplugs to stuff in their ears. That helped some, but it made speechbetween them impossible.
Roaring, barking thunder all morning, and all afternoon. But alongtoward evening it died down considerably. And when the shadows of nightstarted creeping up it ceased altogether. The two boys crawled forwardand up the bomb-made rock steps and peered through the crack between thestones. The hopes that had been born in them when the guns stoppedseemed to explode in their brains. The guns were not being hooked ontothe tractors. Nor were the swarms of troops climbing into the long linesof motorized Panzer trucks. On the contrary, mess wagons were beingrolled forward, and flare lights were being set about all over theplace. Even as Dave and Freddy crouched there watching with sinkingspirits two flare lights sputtered into being directly above theirheads. With sudden terror gripping their hearts they scuttled back deepinto their hiding place.
"No soap, I guess," Dave said bitterly. "We'd stick out like a couple ofsore thumbs. What do you think, Freddy?"
"The same as you," the English youth said unhappily. "We'd be fools tobudge an inch. I most certainly wish we had blankets. These are thehardest rocks I ever felt."
"You said it," Dave muttered and ran his hand over the hard surface thatwas unquestionably going to serve as his bed for another night ofterror. "Maybe, though, they'll pull out before dawn. Or maybe in themorning, for sure."
If the gods of war heard Dave Dawson's words they must have laughed loudand with fiendish glee, for they knew how false his hopes were. TheGermans did not leave during the night. Nor did they leave in themorning. As soon as it was dawn they started their devastatingbombardment again. And for another whole day the boys huddled togetherin their hiding place and struggled with every bit of their will powerto stop from going stark, raving mad from the thunder of the guns.
Then, suddenly, when there was still an hour of daylight left, the gunswent silent for keeps, and instead there were all kinds of sounds offeverish activity. Harsh orders flew thick and fast. Men shouted andcursed. Tractor engines roared into life. Truck transport gears weremeshed in nerve rasping grinding sound, and as the boys watched throughtheir look-out crack they saw the Germans move slowly off down a roadleading toward the southwest. Neither of them spoke until the last truckhad passed out of view. And by then it was pitch dark, save for ashimmering red glow to the east and to the south.
"Boy, I thought
it would never happen!" Dave said in a shaky voice."Come on! Let's get going before others arrive here. Which way do youthink we'd better head?"
"The railroad track, I think," Freddy said after a moment of silence."It must have been blown all to bits by those Stukas, or else therewould have been a train come up to take those Germans away. Instead,though, they headed down the road to the southwest."
"Check," Dave said. "And that track is supposed to lead to Dunkirk.Gosh, I hope the British are still there."
"They must be there," Freddy said firmly. "You can still hear the gunsup ahead, so there must be somebody besides Germans around. I say, lookat that fog, or is it fog? Yes, it is. And it's beginning to rain, too.Well, thank goodness for that. We won't be seen or heard so easily.Right-o, Dave. Let's get on with it. Like the chaps in the R.A.F. say,Tally-ho!"
"Tally-ho!" Dave echoed happily and started scrambling up out of thecave.
Walking side by side, and gripping hands to hold up the other fellow incase he slipped and started tumbling into a bomb crater, the two boysstruck out boldly along the single line of track. Before they hadtraveled a hundred yards the railroad tracks stopped being what theywere supposed to be. They became a long stretch of twisted steel andpulverized ties. But though the road bed was constantly pock marked withbomb craters it served as a guide eastward for their crunchingfootsteps.
Layers of fog came rolling in from the east, and with every step a finechilling rain sprayed down upon them. But rather than being annoyed anduncomfortable, they were buoyed up by the miserable weather. It gavethem added protection from any German patrols in the neighborhood. Ithid them from the rest of the world of dull constant sound, and theshimmering glow of red to the east and to the south. There was moresound, and a more brilliant glow of red to the south, and as they heardit and saw it their hearts became even lighter. If there was all thatsound to the south it must mean that the Germans had not been able tocut off the retreating armies at Dunkirk. And of course that was true,for as they trudged and stumbled along the bomb blasted strip of spurrailroad track some fifty thousand do or die British soldiers wereholding back the savagely attacking German hordes at Douai, and at theCanal de Bergues, so that some three hundred and thirty thousand oftheir comrades might escape the trap from Dunkirk and reach England insafety.
Of course Dave and Freddy didn't know _that_ at the time. Yet, perhapsthey sensed it unconsciously, for their step did become faster, theirhearts lighter, and the hope they would get through somehow mountedhigher and higher in their thoughts. And so on and on they went. Athousand times they stumbled over things in the darkness; went pitchingtogether down into bomb craters, or barked their shins and raised lumpson their tough bodies. Always forward, though. They stopped talking toconserve their energy, for they had no idea how many miles of bombblasted roadbed lay ahead of them. The fog and the rain dulled the soundof the guns so that they couldn't tell if they were drawing nearer oractually heading away from them. And although they looked at it amillion times apiece the dull red glow ahead of them seemed always toremain the same. It never once brightened up or faded down. It got sothat it seemed as though they were walking on a treadmill. Walking,walking, yet never seeming to get any place. Never seeing anythingdifferent to give them proof they had covered ground. Every piece oftwisted track they stumbled over was the same as the last. A bomb craterinto which they fell sprawling was no different from all the others. Andthe darkness, the fog, the rain, the boom of the guns, and theshimmering red glow were always the same in the next second, in the nextminute, and in the next hour.
Grit, courage, and a fighting spirit resolved never to give up, forcedthem forward foot after foot, yard after yard, and mile after mile. Eventhoughts ceased to stir in their brains, and there was nothing there butthe fierce burning flame that drove their tired legs and bodies forward.
Then, suddenly, their separate worlds seemed to shatter before theireyes in an explosion of sound. To Dave it seemed close to an eternitybefore the sound made sense in his dulled brain. Then in a flash herealized that nothing had exploded. A loud voice not three feet in frontof them had bellowed out the challenge.
"_Halt!_"
Even then neither of the boys could grasp its true meaning. The voiceshattered their hopes, gripped their hearts with fingers of ice, andseemed to drain every drop of blood from their bodies. Fate was havingthe big laugh on them at last. The worst, the one thing they haddreaded had come to pass. They had stumbled headlong into a nest ofGermans!
"Halt, you blighters, 'fore I run this through your bellies!"
Then truth crashed home, and the boys let out a gurgling cry of reliefas they realized the voice was _speaking in English!_