."

Freddy snorted and squinted at him out of one eye.

"Rotten landing?" he gasped. "Good grief, they can't fly any better than
that in the R.A.F., Dave. I thought sure we'd both be killed. And
neither of us has so much as a scratch. You couldn't have done it any
better, Dave. Honest!"

"Thanks," Dave grinned. "But it was all luck. And I was scared stiff.
Thank goodness those Messerschmitt guys were such punk shots. Now, wipe
some more off, and we'll...."

Dave cut off the rest short and spun around. A squad of Belgian infantry
men was racing across the field toward them. The bayonets on their
rifles glistened in the sun, and the cries of wild men were bursting
from their lips. The truth hit Dave in the flick of an eye. Those
Belgians took them for two members of the Nazi Air Force, and they were
racing over to get vengeance for what those Stuka dive bombers had been
doing to them. Even as the truth came to Dave one of the running
soldiers threw his rifle up to his shoulder and fired. The bullet cut
past Dave's face so close he could almost feel its heat. He leaped in
front of Freddy who was still wiping his face and flung up both hands.

"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" he yelled in French. "We're not Germans!
America! England! Don't shoot! _Vive les Allies!_"

The Belgian soldiers rushed up to him and leveled their rifles at his
stomach. They were a vicious looking lot, but they had been made that
way by the fury of war hurled down on them for the last seventy-two
hours or more. Their eyes were bloodshot, and their faces were caked
with dried blood and dirt. Their beards were sodden messes, and their
uniforms were torn and ripped to rags. Their rifles were the only clean
thing about them.

One of them with corporal chevrons on his tattered tunic sleeve stepped
forward until the tip of his wicked looking bayonet was within an inch
of Dave's neck.

"You are Boches!" he shouted and nodded at the wrecked plane. "We saw
you dive down on us. Well, you will not dive again. We shall...."

"Wait, wait!" Dave shouted in wild alarm. "I tell you we are not German.
He's English, and I'm an American. We have just escaped from Germany. We
were prisoners there. We have to get to Allied Headquarters at once. We
have valuable information."

The Belgian corporal hesitated and looked puzzled. His men obviously did
not believe Dave. They made snarling sounds in their throats and
shuffled forward a bit. Dave opened his mouth to exp