e and hope they don't find us. Maybe they'll move
off after awhile, then we can beat it. Gosh! I had all I want of a being
a German prisoner. Sure, let's stay right here."

"At least we won't starve, no matter how long they take marching
through," Freddy said. "We both have plenty of chocolate bars we got at
the hospital. And I didn't have to give any of the water in my canteen
to the wounded I carried. Did you?"

"Not a drop, it's full," Dave said, and patted the canteen at the end of
the strap hooked over his shoulder. "You're right, we won't go hungry or
thirsty. But gosh, I hope they don't stick around too long, or we'll
never 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 least
no bombs hit us here."

"That's right," Dave agreed. Then with a stiff grin, "And it's a cinch
that none are going to hit us, either, while those Germans are out
there. But I sure hope all those British troops got away. I guess they
did, 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 sort
of started all this business behind the German lines, and here we are
again. I sure hope we don't end it that way! Wonder how long we'll have
to wait? Until it's dark, I guess."

Freddy didn't answer. He crawled up the stones and peered through the
crack again. When he came down his dust and dirt smeared face looked
most unhappy.

"Until it's dark, at least," he said with a sad shake of his head. "And
more war music, too. I just saw them wheeling some guns into position in
back of the railroad station. Yes, I'm afraid the blasted beggars are
planning to stay here a bit, too."

"Well, when it gets dark we get out of here," Dave said grimly. "Guns or
no guns."

"You bet," Freddy said and fell silent.

As though their silence was a signal to the gunners above, the earth and
the sky once more began to shake and tremble as the gun muzzles belched
out their sheets of flame and steel-clad missiles of death and
destruction that went screaming far off to the east. To get away from
the shuddering, hammering pounding as much as possible, the two boys
crawled far back into the wall cave and tried to make themselves
comfortable