ocked on one side and listening intently to the guns.
Dave listened, too, trying to tell if they were coming closer. A strip
of woods broke up the sound, and it was impossible for him to tell.

He glanced at the sergeant and was startled to see the worried look on
the man's face. Worry and astonishment, as though the Belgian was trying
to convince himself that the truth was false. In the fast fading light
the lines of his face deepened until it became a face of shadows.
Suddenly he muttered something under his breath and pulled a Belgian
army pistol from the holster at his side.

"Remain here!" he ordered in a hard voice. "This is most strange, and I
must investigate. Those cannot be German guns, but perhaps so. I will go
and look, and return at once. Remain here, and wait!"

Without waiting for either of them to say a word, the Belgian glided
swiftly away from the car and was almost at once swallowed up in the
shadows cast by the trees. Dave looked at Freddy.

"What do you think?" he asked. "If that's Germans coming this way, we're
crazy to stick around. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, I do," the English youth said bluntly. "But let's wait a little
bit. They may not be, and it wouldn't be quite fair dashing off and
leaving the Sergeant to walk back, you know."

"Okay, we'll wait, then," Dave agreed. "Boy, but wasn't that some wild
ride! And it sure was lucky you spoke to him when you did. What I mean,
you saved us from a tough spot. Hey, what's that?"

The tank guns had gone silent, but the yammer of a machine gun took up
the song. It sang a few notes and then became suddenly silent. Freddy
jumped out of the car and beckoned to Dave.

"We'd better take a look, Dave," he said in a worried voice. "If they
are really close we wouldn't have a chance in the car. Our best bet
would be to hide out in the woods until they've passed."

Dave jumped down and looked into Freddy's eyes.

"You mean?" he asked in a strained voice. "You think the Sergeant bumped
into them, and they killed him?"

"I'm afraid so," Freddy nodded and swallowed. "We'd better make sure,
though. Don't you think so?"

"Okay by me," Dave said, though he didn't feel so inside. "Lead on,
Freddy. I'm right with you."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

_Bombs For Namur_

With the English youth picking the way, the two boys crept forward
through the woods toward the spot from whence had come the sharp burst
of machine gun fire. Before they had traveled a hund