“Would you talk if we caught you?” Stan asked pleasantly.
“Of course not, but we are a superior race. Now you will be given comfortable quarters and food. We observe the rules of war.” He turned about and motioned for them to follow.
The boys were fed soup and fish with a slice of bread and a brown liquid which passed as coffee. O’Malley grumbled a lot, but he ate everything set before him.
“If this is what the Geneva treaty said captured officers were to eat, I’m a spalpeen,” O’Malley muttered as he marched away with Stan to their quarters.
They found themselves quartered in an old stone house which had at one time been a residence. There was a high wall around it with many guards pacing back and forth and two searchlights located on platforms which were also occupied by a machine gun and its crew. But there was a yard and a few trees and shrubs.
“Not as bad as a prison camp,” Stan said.
“Not very good,” O’Malley said as he stood looking up at one of the machine-gun nests.
The boys were taken to a room on the ground floor where they met several other fellows from the Eighth. They had been located at the camp for several months and were eager to hear news from England.
Stan and O’Malley talked with them for a while, answering their questions. One of the boys, a bombardier from a Fort, explained the workings of the camp.
“They change us around quite a bit. New men come and some of the old heads go. I figure they do that to nip any escape attempts in the bud.” He laughed sourly. “I never heard of anybody getting away from one of these camps.”
Another chap drifted in and seated himself. He was a lank Britisher with a mop of black hair.
“I hear you hail from the fighter strip near Diss.”
“That was our outfit,” Stan said.
“I just got a new roommate who says he’s a Yank who was stationed at Diss,” the Britisher grinned. “He got shot down a while back. He just came out of a hospital. Got a bad rap on the head.”
“We’d like to meet him. He must be one of the boys we lost on our first bombing coverage.” Stan got to his feet.
He and O’Malley went upstairs and into the little room. Two men were seated on a bed playing cards. Stan halted in the doorway. Over his shoulder, O’Malley said:
“Sim!”
At first Stan was not sure. The man looked like Sim Jones. He was thinner and he had a freshly healed scar on his cheek. His face was sallow and he looked much older.
O’Malley barged past Stan and caught the man’s hand. “Glad ye’re alive,” he said eagerly.
“O’Malley?” Sim stared at O’Malley as he said it. He looked up at Stan. “Wilson, you here, too.”
Stan grinned. “Yes, I’m here. We cracked up on a fighter strip while bombing with Mustangs. I’m glad you made it safely. When I last saw you, your P-51 had buried its nose in the ground.”
Sim’s eyes narrowed sharply. “That crack-up knocked me silly,” he said grimly. “I don’t remember much.” He put his hand to his head. “I was nuts for quite a while, I guess. Even now I forget things. Sometimes I forget what’s happened.”
“You’ll come around,” O’Malley said cheerfully.
“They might let us three have this room together,” Sim said. “I’d like to have you fellows around.”
“It could be fixed,” the Britisher said. “They let us line up about as we wish. I’ll help you fix it. I’ve been here a couple of months.”
Stan went with the R.A.F. man. They located a non-com who told them to shift around as they pleased. He seemed to know who Stan was and all about him and O’Malley.
“Ve treat you goot,” he said.
As they went back the Britisher said, “Some of these Nazis are beginning to try to make friends with us. I guess they figure they may need some friends among the Allies one of these days.”
“They certainly will,” Stan agreed.
The two boys with Sim gladly moved out and Stan and O’Malley moved in. They found Sim silent and moody, as though he was brooding over his capture and captivity. Stan spoke to O’Malley about it out in the hall.
“Sim is in bad shape. He ought to be in the hospital. We’ll have to watch out for him.”
“He’ll be after comin’ around,” O’Malley said confidently.
They entered the room and found Sim staring out of a window. Again Stan was struck by the change in the boy. He seemed to have aged at least ten years. He turned toward them, then got up and closed the door. He walked over to a picture on the wall and moved it. Behind it he revealed a small hole in the paper. He placed his hands to his lips and shook his head.
Stan moved over and looked closely, then he pressed on the paper. There was a small cylinder under the paper. He grinned at Sim and O’Malley. Deftly he slit the paper with his fingernail and removed a strip of it, revealing a listening device. Taking out his pocketknife he neatly snipped one of the small wires.
“That will take care of that. Later we’ll hook it up again so they won’t be suspicious.”
“They listen to all new men everywhere,” Sim said. Suddenly he began to laugh. “But I have fooled them. I have worked out a way for us to escape.”
Stan stared at him. He was not sure Sim was not still insane.
O’Malley said eagerly, “Spill it. Escape is what I’m lookin’ for.”
Sim went to the door and opened it. He looked up and down the hall, then closed the door.
“I was going to try it alone, but I may be able to take you fellows along.” He spoke slowly.
“Sure, three can make a getaway easier than one,” O’Malley said. Stan said nothing.
“Germany is cracking up fast,” Sim went on. “Rotten inside with half of the guards scared they’ll be stood up against a wall and shot when the invasion comes.”
“They didn’t seem to be slipping much where we landed,” Stan said.
“But they are,” Sim insisted. “I have a man fixed to take me out of here and across Germany. I’m to get him out of the country and guarantee he’ll be safely kept over in England.”
“Swell,” O’Malley put in. “When do we get going?”
“It will take a day or so. He’s no small fry either, he’s a non-commissioned officer with some authority. He thinks the Gestapo is about to pick him off for not being tough enough.”
“It sounds a bit too easy to me,” Stan said. “But I’d take any sort of chance to get back into action.”
“Tomorrow I’ll let you know if you can go along,” Sim promised. “Now you better hook that listening gadget up again.”
CHAPTER VII
ESCAPE
When Stan awoke the next morning Sim was gone from his bunk. He sat up quickly, then lay back and let his stiff, sore muscles relax. There was no hurry. He was not going any place that day, perhaps not for a long time. Lying there he listened to O’Malley’s deep snores and thought back over the events of the past few hours.
Those events had happened so swiftly and so explosively that they seemed like the shadowy memory of a nightmare. He recalled that he had not asked O’Malley how he had been captured. He had just taken it for granted his pal had been through an experience the same as his own. It was odd, too, the way things fitted together. The oddest of all was finding Sim Jones billeted in the same prison.
A knock sounded upon the door. “Come in,” Stan called.
O’Malley sat up in bed suddenly, pawing the blankets away from his shoulders. He stared around the room, then scowled. The door opened and a Nazi corporal entered.
“Heil Hitler!” he said very loudly and clicked his heels together.
“Good morning,” Stan greeted.
O’Malley just glared at the corporal.
“I am Hans.” The Nazi looked behind him, sticking his head out so that he could see up and down the hall. He closed the door. “It is orders of Herr General that prisoners be up and taking exercises by seven each morning. I
