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several seconds he remained perfectly still, not moving a muscle. What had happened? Where was he? Why was he out here under some trees in the dark? Those and countless other questions crowded through his brain. Then, as though somebody had pulled a curtain aside, memory came back to him and he knew all the answers. Of course! A Stuka bomb. It had dropped close. He had been trying to shelter that old woman. Yet, that had been on the road by a cart, and here he was under some trees. How come? Had the exploding bomb blown him under the trees? Was he wounded but still too dazed to feel any pain? Good gosh, it was night now, so he must have been here for hours! Thought and action became one. He put out his hands and pushed himself up to a sitting position. Almost instantly he regretted the effort. A hundred trip-hammers started going to work on the inside of his head. The night and the stars began to whirl madly about him. He closed his eyes tight, and clenched his teeth until things stopped spinning so fast. That helped the pounding in his head, too. It simmered down to a dull throbbing ache that he could stand without flinching. For a few moments he sat there on the grass feeling over his body and searching for broken bones or any wounds he might have received. There was nothing broken, however, and his only wound was a nice big goose egg on the left side of his head. Thankful for the miracle wrought, he got slowly to his feet, braved a hand against a tree trunk and peered about him in the darkness. It was then one more little surprise came to him. He was in a field and as far as he could tell there wasn't a road any place. No unending stream of refugees, no wagons, no carts, and no road. It was as though he had dropped down into the very middle of nowhere. Completely puzzled by the strangeness of his surroundings, he glanced at the sky, found the North Star and started walking northward. Way off in the distance there was a faint rumbling, like thunder far far away, but he knew at once it was the roar of heavy guns. If he needed any proof he had only to stare toward the northeast. There the faint glow of flames made a horizon line between the night sky and the earth. "But where _am_ I?" he asked himself aloud. "I couldn't have just been blown away. I haven't even got a sprained ankle. Gosh! I wonder where the Lieutenant is? And those poor refugees. I sure hope French planes caught those Germans and gave them so
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