CHAPTER TWO

_Diving Doom_

The small but speedy Renault car scooted along the broad dusty French road like a grey-brown bug fleeing for its life. The ride out of Paris had both thrilled Dave and depressed him. It was exciting to streak past the long lines of army cars and troops on the march. It gave him a kick the way the simple showing of Lieutenant Defoe's military papers cleared the way through barrier after barrier thrown up across the road. Those papers were as a magic charm that made officers and men alike spring to attention and salute. And in a way they _were_ a magic charm. They had not only been signed by the highest military authorities, but by the President of France, himself.

Yet with all that it made him a little sad to leave Paris. He felt as though he were running away in the face of danger. He had had lots of fun with his Dad and Lieutenant Defoe in Paris. Swell times, and now he was rushing away from the city. Running away because danger might come to Paris. True, he was only obeying his father's instructions, yet he could not rid himself of the feeling that he was running away.

From time to time he glanced at Lieutenant Defoe at the wheel of the car. The laughter and gaiety had gone from the Frenchman's eyes. His face was set and grim. He gripped the wheel tight with his big hands, and every so often he flung an anxious look up into the sun filled blue sky. Each time Dave followed his look but could see nothing. Eventually, the question was forced from his lips.

"What's the matter, Lieutenant?" he asked. "You look worried. You think something's going to happen?"

The French officer shrugged, and for the five hundredth time peered up at the sky.

"Something going to happen?" he murmured. "Of course not. My neck, it is a little stiff. It feels better when I move my head, so."

Lieutenant Defoe punctuated his words with a laugh, but that laugh did not ring true in Dave's ears.

"You're looking for German airplanes, aren't you?" he said straight out. "And you are worried, too, about how the army is getting along. I saw you talking with a colonel just before we left. Did you get any news?"

"We are holding the German cows," Lieutenant Defoe said through clenched teeth. "The English and our gallant troops are now pouring into Belgium by the thousands. We will throw the Boche back. Yes, he shall be taught a lesson he will not forget for a long time."

The French officer lifted one hand from the wheel, doubled it into a rock hard fist and shook it savagely at an imaginary foe.

"This time we shall teach them a lesson, once and for all!" he cried. "We...!"

The rest died on his lips. Rather it was changed into a cry of both anger and surprise. At that moment the car had gone spinning around a sharp bend in the road and there directly ahead was a scene that brought both Defoe and Dave bolt upright in the seat. The road was black with men, women, and children. A sea of people, and horses, and cows, and goats, and dogs was sweeping toward them. There were wagons, and carts, and even baby carriages piled high with household goods. And above it all rose a constant unending babble of frightened tongues.

"Good gosh, look at them!" Dave exclaimed.

Lieutenant Defoe didn't say a word. He quickly slipped the car out of gear and braked it to a stop. Then he climbed down onto the road and Dave saw him slide his hand toward his holstered gun. The swarm of men, women, and children advanced relentlessly toward them. Lieutenant Defoe flung up one hand.

"Halt!" he bellowed at the top of his voice. "What is the meaning of this?"

Ten thousand tongues answered his question all in the same voice.

"The Boche!" they screamed. "They have broken through. They have taken everything. They are everywhere. They will slaughter us like cattle, if they catch us. How far to Paris? We are tired. We have walked for hours. Yes, for years!"

"Enough!" Lieutenant Defoe roared. "The Boche will not break through. The soldiers of France will not permit it. You are but frightened fools, all of you. Go back to your homes. I command you to! Go back to your homes where you will be safe. The Boche will not harm you!"

An old, old woman clutching a bundle of clothing laughed wildly and rushed up close to the French officer. She shook a gnarled fist in his face and screamed at the top of her voice.

"Our soldiers? Where are they? I will tell you. They are in retreat. There are too many of the Boche. And they have airplanes, and, tanks, and guns. With my own eyes I have seen them shoot down anybody, and everybody. I ask you, where is our army? And the English, where are they? I will tell you, my Lieutenant, the Boche have killed them, killed them all. Turn this thing around and flee for your lives. That is my advice to you."

"Silence, old woman!" Lieutenant Defoe thundered. "Enough of such talk! Spies have filled you with such lies. That is what they wish to do. To scare you, and frighten you, and to make you leave your homes, and clutter up the roads this way. Listen to me! I...."

The Frenchman roared with all the power of his lungs, but it was even less than a faint cry in the wilderness. The long lines of terror stricken refugees drowned him out. Like a gigantic black wave parted in the middle they swept by on both sides of the car. The Frenchman's face turned beet red with fury. He shouted, and ranted, and raved. But it was all to no avail. His voice and his actions were but a waste of breath and muscle energy. For a little while Dave tried to help him. He tried to reason with the mass of terrified humanity sweeping by the car. He begged, he pleaded, and he threatened, but it was as useless as thundering at the sun to turn off its light. No one paid him any attention. It is doubtful if anybody even heard him. Eventually he sank down on the seat, his voice exhausted and his throat sore.

He looked helplessly at Lieutenant Defoe. The French officer was a picture of misery, and of burning anger. Tears were in his eyes, and he was working his mouth though no sound came off his lips. In time he got back in the car and sank dejectedly behind the wheel.

"I am ashamed of my countrymen!" he shouted at Dave. "I am mortified that you should see this. But this is the curse of war. The people are like chickens when war comes. They do not stop to think or reason. They think of nothing but fleeing for their lives. They ... they are like children. I am ashamed."

The utter sadness and remorse in the officer's voice touched Dave deeply. He reached over and took hold of the Lieutenant's arm and pressed hard.

"That's okay, I understand, Lieutenant," he said. "Forget it. Look, we'll be stuck here forever if we don't do something. Let's try and get off to the side. I'll get out and push them aside, and you keep the car in low gear. Okay, take it easy, Lieutenant."

Some of the anger faded from the Frenchman's eyes and the corners of his mouth tilted in a faint smile.

"At your orders, _mon Capitaine_," he said. "Yes, you get out and warn them away, and I shall drive the car to the side of the road."

Dave returned his smile and slid out of the car. No sooner had his feet touched the road than he felt as though his body had been caught in the roaring torrent of a rampaging river. Like a chip of wood he was picked up and swept along, and it was several seconds before he was able to regain his footing and force his way back and around to the front of the car. There he put out both his hands and started waving the steady stream of babbling refugees to the left and to the right.

It was tedious, heartbreaking effort, and a hundred times he came within an ace of falling flat on the road under the crawling wheels of the Renault. But for his young strong body pushing and shoving this way and that Lieutenant Defoe would not have been able to move the car forward an inch. As it was the car did not travel more than fifty yards in a good half hour. By then Dave was drenched with his own sweat. His hat was gone and his clothes were slowly but surely being torn from his back.

Suddenly he saw Lieutenant Defoe at his shoulder and heard the Frenchman's voice shouting in his ear.

"It is useless, _mon Capitaine_! It is madness. We will not get any place with the car. The town of Beaumont is but a few _kilometres_ ahead. There is an army post there. I shall request a military car and a driver. Ah me, I am desolate that this should happen. Here! Watch what you are doing! You! Let go of me, my old one! _Attention!_"

At that moment the French officer had been caught in the river of people. He struggled and he fought but he was relentlessly swept along and away from Dave's clutching hands. In almost the same moment Dave, himself, was caught up by the moving mass. It was either a case of moving along with the stream or stumbling to his hands and knees and being trampled under foot, or being run over by the heavy wheel of an ox cart or wagon. It was absolutely impossible, and an act of sheer suicide, to buck that packed throng.

And so Dave took the only course open to him. He moved along with the stream of refugees and inch by inch worked his way to the edge of the stream and into a clear space. There he paused for breath and strained his eyes for a glimpse of Lieutenant Defoe, but the Frenchman was nowhere to be seen. He had been virtually swallowed up by the stream of humanity moving relentlessly and blindly forward. Dave thought of the troops and the long lines of army cars he and Defoe had passed since leaving Paris, and shuddered at the thought. When the army and the populace met what would happen? Who would give way, or would anybody? In his mind's eye he pictured other French officers like Defoe striving to force the refugees to abandon their mad flight and return home. It was not a pretty picture to imagine. It was not a nice situation to contemplate. Troops with tanks and guns moving forward to meet the enemy but instead meeting thousands and thousands of their own flesh and blood.

"Please, God, put sense in the heads of these poor people!" Dave breathed softly to himself. "Tell them what they should do for the sake of France, and...."

Dave Dawson never finished that prayer. At that moment there came to his ears a new and entirely different sound. At first he could think only of tons of brick sliding down a slanting tin roof. Then suddenly he knew what it was, and in that same instant the rising hysterical scream of the passing throngs echoed his own thought.

"_Les Boches! Les Boches!_ Take cover at once!"

Like thousands upon thousands of stampeded cattle the refugees broke ranks and went scattering madly and wildly in all directions. Carts and wagons were left where they had come to a halt on the road with their horses, or oxen, or dogs standing dumb eyed and drooping in their tracks. Dave stayed where he was for an instant, not moving an inch, and his eyes fixed upon the cluster of dots streaking down from the blue sky high overhead. In the twinkling of an eye they ceased to be dots. They became planes! German planes. Heinkels, and Messerschmitt 110's, and Stuka dive bombers. Winged messengers of doom howling down upon the road choked with wagons and carts, and countless numbers of helpless refugees.

Even as Dave saw them the leading ships opened fire. Tongues of jetting red flame spat downward, and the savage yammer of the aerial machine guns echoed above the blood chilling thunder of the engines. Tearing his eyes from that horrible sight Dave glanced back at the road. It was still filled with frantic men, women, and children, and at the spot directly under the diving planes bullets were cutting down human lives as swiftly as a keen edged scythe cuts down wheat.

His feet rooted to the ground, Dave stared in horror. Then suddenly one of the diving Stukas released its deadly bomb. The bomb struck the ground no more than twenty feet from the edge of the road. Red, orange, and yellow flame shot high into the air. A billowing cloud of smoke filled with dirt, and dust, and stones fountained upward. Then a mighty roar akin to the sound of worlds colliding seemed to hammer straight into his face. The next thing he realized he was flat on his back on the ground gasping and panting for air while from every direction came the screams of the wounded and the dying.

The screams seemed to release a hidden spring inside of him and make it possible for him to set himself into action. He scrambled to his feet, stared wild eyed up at the diving planes and shook his fist in white heat anger.

"You'll pay for this!" he shouted. "You'll pay for this if it takes the Allies a thousand years. And I'll do my share in helping them too!"

As the last left his lips he suddenly saw an old woman, almost bowed down by bundles, trying feebly to get away from the road and out from under the roaring armada of diving death. She took a few faltering steps and then stumbled to her knees. One withered hand was stretched out in mute appeal to the others to help her up, but no one paused to give her aid. Stark fear had them all in its grasp and none could be bothered about the misfortunes of the other.

The old woman was only one in thousands and thousands, but Dave had witnessed her sad plight and so his movements were instinctive. He leaped forward and went dashing to her side. With one hand he grabbed her bundles and the other hand he put under her arm.

"I'll help you, Madam," he said. "Just lean on me. I'll get you to a safe place. Don't worry."

He had spoken in English and of course the old woman didn't understand his words. She understood his actions, however, and there was deep gratitude in the lined and tired face she turned toward him.

"_Merci, Monsieur, merci_," she whispered and started forward leaning heavily on Dave's arm.

And then down out of the blue it came! Dave heard the eerie sound above the general din but of course he didn't see the dropping bomb. He didn't even taken the time to glance upward. He simply acted quickly. He grabbed the old woman about the waist and hauled her to the scanty protection of a standing wagon. There he pushed her down and bent over her so that his body served as partial protection against what he knew was coming.

It came! A terrific crash of sound that seemed to split the very earth wide open. Every bone in Dave's body seemed to turn to jelly. The entire universe became one huge ocean of flashing light and fire. The ground rocked and trembled under his feet. Unseen hands seemed to grab hold of him and lift him straight upward to hover motionless in a cloud of licking tongues of colored flame. Then suddenly all became as dark as the night, and as silent as a tomb, and he knew no more.