CHAPTER THIRTEEN
_Falling Doom_
A faint sound broke the silence of the black night! Was it the wind inthe trees? The echo of the battle far to the north? A night animalstalking its next meal? Or was it one of Adolf Hitler's uniformedkillers?
Dave Dawson didn't know. Perhaps it was just his imagination. Perhaps itwas just his taut nerves snapping, and his brain playing him tricks. Asyet he had not come across a single Nazi night patrol. And perhaps therewasn't a German within miles of him. But maybe there was! Just to makesure, he pressed himself close to the ground, turned his cork-blackenedface toward his left wrist, and with his right hand inched up the cuffof his sleeve, and then removed the cover from the radium dial of hiswatch that was strapped about his forearm halfway to the elbow.
Twenty minutes? Twenty minutes had ticked by already? His watch must bewrong! It must have gone all cockeyed! It must have gained a couple ofhours in the last ten minutes. He was dead certain he had looked at itnot five minutes before. Yet his watch said it was exactly five minutesof the hour. Just twenty minutes since he had parted company with FreddyFarmer at those shelled barns. Twenty minutes? That meant he was late.Only three minutes left to reach the strip of old railroad track!
He had the feeling that he wasn't very close to it; that he couldn'tcover the remaining distance in three minutes, and not make a lot ofnoise doing it. But--that noise he had heard just now! Was it a Nazi? Orwas it Freddy closing in from his left. Had Freddy--?
The black night sky seemed to crash down on Dave's spine. Every musclewent limp, and and every fiber of his entire being seemed to snap like arubber band. White hot flame cut into his right shoulder, and fingers ofsteel circled about his neck. There was no air in his lungs, anddazzling white balls of fire spun around before his eyes. So this is howit feels when you are about to die? The thought pounded through hisbrain as the thunderous roar in his ears seemed to blast his whole bodyto bits.
It took perhaps a split second, or even less, for all those thoughts andemotions to register within him. And then experience and intensivetraining came racing to his rescue. He flung up both clenched fists withevery ounce of his strength, shoved them between two arms and priedoutward savagely. The steel fingers were pulled partly loose from hisneck. At the same time as he thrust up his fists, he brought up hisright knee with the driving force of a battering ram, and twisted to theleft. A gurgle of pain was music in his roaring ears. Air poured downinto his lungs and stung like sparks of fire. But strength was surgingthrough him now, and if there was still pain he was too furiouslyengaged in whirlwind action to be conscious of it.
A grunting, gurgling hulk had half rolled and half fallen off from ontop of him. He shot out his left foot, hooked his toes about a bootedankle, then kicked upward and outward. At the same time he twisted backand slammed stiff fingers right down into a puffy moon-shaped face. Hispalms slapping down over parted lips cut off the scream of pain thatwould have torn the night air apart if it had escaped. But Dawson hadtrained for this moment, and he wasn't slipping up on a single trick.Keeping the open mouth gagged with one hand, he streaked the other downto the neck, dug in his fingers and squeezed with every ounce of hisstrength. The hulking figure under him struggled desperately, arched hisbody upward, and tried to twist his head. That was the moment!
Quick as a flash Dave crooked a leg under the figure, held his grip onthe neck, and dropped the other palm down to the point of the chin. Thatpalm he jammed upward with a savage, vicious movement. No man on earthcaught by that Commando trick had a chance. And the heaving hulk underDawson was no exception to prove the rule. He was strong, though, andfor a brief instant he resisted Dawson in a furious effort. Then thestrength in him seemed to melt away. His head went flying backward andthere was the sickening sound of snapping bone. Instantly the man wentlimp and still. And quite naturally, too. A man who has had his neckbroken doesn't move very much. He can't. And in this case it wasimpossible, because the man was already dead.
A shudder shook Dave as he untwisted from the man and started to get uponto his feet. Death was a terrible thing to have to deal out, even to ablack-hearted Nazi. But this was war, and a man's personal thoughtsabout things weren't to be considered. He--
The strength was suddenly sucked right out of Dave. He hadn't realizedwhat it had cost him to take care of that hulking German who hadstumbled across him in the dark. He tried to regain his balance, butcouldn't in time. He went pitching headlong on his face. But that wasperfectly okay, at least for a moment or two. He was filled withmomentary pain from head to foot. And his lungs felt as though invisibleclaws were trying to pull them right out through his ribs. And so fortwo blessed minutes he stayed right where he was, stretched out on theground, sucking air into his lungs, and letting his heart pump renewedstrength through his body.
Then suddenly he remembered that he had only three minutes left. Holysmoke! He'd never make the railroad track now. Freddy would go onwithout him. Maybe he'd never be able to catch up. He'd--
"Dave! All right, old chap?"
The whisper was no louder than a breath of night wind in tall grass. Yetit seemed to explode in Dave's ears like cannon fire. For a split secondhe couldn't move, think, or function in any way at all. His brain racedwildly; screamed at his muscles to go into action again. This might bethe rest of the German patrol. That was an officer he had just killed.He'd felt the insignia and rank sewn on the man's uniform. Maybe therest of the patrol was--
Just a split second, and then his thoughts were making sense again. Thathad been Freddy Farmer, of course! Good old Freddy Farmer. Freddy hadcome back to look for him, as he had promised. Dave turned his head tothe right and stared at the motionless darkness.
"All okay here!" he breathed. "Had a little exercise, but it's okay now.But thanks for coming back, pal."
One of the motionless shadows moved, and Freddy Farmer was at his side.
"Didn't come back," the English youth said, and ran his hands over Daveas though to make sure. "Heard a racket, and guessed you'd stumbled intoa blighter. Couldn't tell in the dark. Phew! That must be the biggestNazi Hitler has!"
"Had," Dave corrected grimly. "And it was closer than I ever want it tobe again. Guess I'm a pretty punk Commando. He must have heard me andplayed dead dog until I passed by. Gosh! I feel as if I didn't have astrip of skin left on my neck!"
"We'll have a look into that, later," Freddy said, and started to helpDave to his feet. "We've got to be getting along. We're behindschedule. Maybe it would be better to stick together, at that. Yes, itwould. Come on, old chap. Can't spend the whole night chit-chatting."
"Okay by me," Dave grunted, and was just a little surprised when hefound out the rubber had gone out of his legs. "Let's get going. Andthat's my last dumb idea for a while. Going it alone, I mean. Okay, giveme your hand, Freddy. Let's keep contact that way."
"Right-o." The word just managed to drift to his ears. "I'll squeeze ifI hear something on my side. You squeeze if you hear or see something onyours. And let's make it as fast as we can."
Dave just grunted faintly. He didn't bother to say anything. For thatmatter, there wasn't anything to say. Besides, he was too busy feelingand sensing his way forward through the night, and getting more strengthback into his still aching body as soon as he could.
Then began a night journey that Dave vowed he would never forget as longas he lived. The closer they approached the area surrounding Evaux, thegreater the risks they ran of bumping into Nazi soldiers. It seemed thatthey would take no more than a couple of steps before they would beforced to drop flat and hold their breath while a squad of German troopswent past.
That fact worried Dave not a little as Freddy and he stole forwardthrough the dark night. True, he had expected possibly to meet a fewGermans. But not meet so many, so often. The more he thought of it, themore a gnawing little fear worked on his heart. Wasn't it just possiblethat the Germans were suspecting that an attack of some sort might bemade on von Staube's and von Gault's headquarters?
Were the Naziexpecting something like that, and so had they thrown out patrols allaround the area? And if that _was_ true, what chance would Freddy and hehave of capturing the two Nazi big shots even with Jones' help? And whatif they didn't meet the U. S. Intelligence officer posing as a German?Supposing something had happened to Jones--and he wasn't there?
The thought made a film of ice coat Dave's heart, and beads of clammysweat break out on his forehead. After all, maybe Freddy and he werewalking with eyes wide open straight into a Nazi trap. There were justtoo darned many German soldiers about for comfort. No two ways aboutthat. Something was wrong. Or at least the eerie tingling sensation thathad come to the back of his neck seemed to warn him that things werenot as they should be, or he had hoped they would be.
On sudden impulse he stopped dead, squeezed Freddy's hand, and thenmelted to the ground close to a thick clump of bushes. The shell-smashedchurch couldn't be more than a quarter of a mile away now. But he wantedto confab with Freddy before they started down the last lap of theirweird, nerve-jangling journey.
"What's up, Dave? Something wrong?"
"Not yet," Dave breathed into his pal's ear. "But that's just what I'mwondering about. Freddy! Did you ever see so many Nazis out on nightpatrol? The whole area is practically crawling with them."
"I know," the English youth murmured. "A blessed sight more than Ifancied we'd be bumping into. What do you think, Dave?"
"In circles, up to now," the Yank-born air ace replied. "I don't knowjust what to think. Trouble is, I've got a sneaky hunch that the bumsfigure that something may be in the wind, and are doing something aboutit, by throwing out so many patrols. Right here is where this wholething stops looking like a cinch. Supposing Jones isn't there at thewrecked church!"
"I refuse to answer!" Freddy hissed. "It just can't be that way. He'sjust got to be there. We'd be in a fine flat spin if Jones didn't showup. Don't even think about it!"
"I'm trying not to, but it's plenty hard," Dave murmured. "Well, I guessthere isn't much sense, at that, in parking here and trying to hash oversomething we don't know anything about--yet. Let's get going again.Can't be more than a quarter of a mile more. I've just been wasting timefor us."
"Rot!" Freddy grunted. "I was about to stop and talk things over, whenyou beat me to it. But it does no good to talk. The only thing we can dois get to that shelled church--and find out what's what."
"Yeah," Dave murmured as they got into motion again. "And do I wish mycockeyed thoughts would leave me alone. Oh well! Live and learn, Ialways say."
Perhaps! But Dave Dawson certainly didn't enjoy living the next tenminutes. For one thing, each minute seemed a year long. And for another,they twice came within a hair's breadth of running smack into a Nazipatrol. And for a third, he felt as though he had died a dozen timesover during every minute of those ten. Eventually, though, they reachedthe dirt road marked so clearly on Major Barber's maps. And but a shorttime after that they were huddled together deep in the darker shadows ofthe piled up rubble that had once been a church.
"So what?" Dave heard his own voice suddenly whisper. "Here we are,and--so what?"
"A little patience, I fancy," Freddy Farmer murmured. "Jones probablyjust wouldn't stand here waiting. It might look too suspicious to allthose blighters moving about. Besides, we're several minutes late. Maybehe went for a bit of a walk, and will be back."
"Sure, that's probably it," Dave agreed, but only with his lips.
There was no agreeing with Freddy's words inside his head. A cold clammythought seemed to fill his entire brain. No, not just a thought.Definite knowledge it was--though of course there was no proof. Just thesame, though, he had the steady sickening feeling that the man calledJones was not going to meet them this night, or any other night, forthat matter. However, he had agreed with Freddy with his lips, anyway.No sense building up a fear in Freddy that might be absolutelyunfounded. Still--
"Steady, Dave!" came Freddy's sudden, cautioning whisper. "I heardfootsteps coming along the road. Maybe this will be Jones. Steady untilwe get a look at the chap!"
Dave was steady enough--outwardly. But inside he was all just so muchnervous jelly. His heart tried to slap out through his ribs as hehimself heard the sounds of footsteps coming along the road. And theblood raced through his veins, and actually seemed to be trying to forceitself out through the ends of his fingers and the ends of his toes. Hewas filled with the wild insane desire to snap the tension with a laugh,or with a shout. He curbed the impulse, though, and crouched with Freddyin the darkness as the footsteps came closer and closer.
Dave Dawson with the Commandos Page 13