Part 6

“They used strange devices for hiding their messages.” Alice had a good memory. “Once when Louise was arrested she threw a black ball of yarn into the brush at the side of the road but held to the end until it had landed. The message was wound inside the ball of yarn.”

“They didn’t find it. That was good!” Tillie whispered. “Go on! What else?”

“Once the two girl spies seemed to be going on a picnic. They were munching bread and sausages as they marched along. Once more they were searched. Nothing was found. The message was in Louise’s sausage.

“Oh yes,” Alice drew a heavy sigh. “Those two girls did marvelous things for their country. They set up a secret radio and sent over messages. They trained carrier pigeons to take messages across the line. Daring Frenchmen were carried over the line in airplanes to spy out the enemy’s defenses. Louise helped them.

“And after that,” the story teller sighed more deeply, “there came darker days. The enemy counter-spies wove a web of evidence about them. They were arrested. Evidence was produced. They were court-martialed. The sentence was: ‘For Louise, death. For Charlotte, death.’”

“And—and were they really shot?” Peggy whispered with a shudder.

“Not yet.” Alice’s voice was low. “Their prison keeper had come to respect and love them as if they were his children.

“‘Poor souls’, he said, ‘So they have condemned you to die? Ask what you will. It shall be granted.’

“When the day for their execution was near,” Alice went on, “they requested that they might spend their last night on earth together.

“The keeper carried this request to the governor. He returned with a radiant face. ‘He has refused it,’ he whispered to Louise. Thank God! It means that they will not shoot you in the morning. Otherwise he would not have denied you.”

“Oh, good!” Peggy breathed.

“That morning,” Alice went on after a time, “another beautiful girl, Gabrielle Petiti, was to be shot as a spy. Louise and Charlotte heard her walking to the place of her execution and they heard her cry: ‘Salut! O mon dernier matin!’ (Salute, O my last morning!)”

“Oh!” Peggy whispered.

“And were—” Tillie began.

“No, Louise and Charlotte were not shot.” There was a catch in Alice’s voice. “Because of their loyalty and great bravery they were sent to prison for life.

“Two months and two days before the great war ended Louise died in prison. Charlotte lived on and went back to keeping shop. Perhaps she’s living still.”

“And now perhaps she’s a spy again.” Peggy shuddered with ecstasy. “I’m going to be a spy some day.”

“Alice, my dear,” said Lady Applegate, “that’s no story to tell to a child.”

But Tillie whispered very low, “I—I think it is wonderful, Alice. I—I’d like to kiss you.” And she did.

Just then there came a scratching at the door. “It’s Flash!” Cherry cried. “We’ve all forgotten him.”

As she threw the door open the dog went creeping across the floor to curl up, still whining low, at Alice’s feet.

_Chapter_ XV Until the Very End

For sometime the dog lay quietly at Alice’s feet. At last, once more at ease, he rose, stretched himself, walked twice across the dungeon floor, then, marching up to Dave whined low.

“What’s this?” Dave demanded. “You want to go out again? Haven’t you had enough for one night?”

In answer the dog walked to the door, then whined again.

“O. K.,” said Dave “I don’t hear any motors. Perhaps the big show is over. Let’s get going.”

“I’ll go with you,” Brand said quietly.

Arrived at the outer castle door, Dave took one look, then let out a low whistle. “Old boy,” he said in a hoarse voice, looking down at the dog, “how did you escape?”

“What do you mean, escape?” Brand asked.

“Look!” Dave pointed to a dark spot in the brightly lighted meadow. “See that black hole? What stood there two hours ago?”

“Say!” Brand stared. “A stone building stood there.”

“But then,” he added after a thought, “what does it matter? It was just an empty old out building.”

“I’m not so sure it was empty,” Dave replied soberly. “Last time I looked at that building a man and a dog were going through the door. That was less than two minutes before the first blast. There,” his was a dramatic gesture, “question is, where’s the man? If he is at all any more.”

“Stop talking in riddles,” Brand’s voice rose. “This has been a bad night.”

“Sit down and I’ll tell you,” Dave invited as he dropped to a place on the well-worn door sill.

The story of his visit to the top of the tower both astonished and thrilled his companion.

“And the fellow who went into that shack,” Dave added with a flourish of his arm, “was none other than the assistant to old John, the shoemaker. What’s more, his real name is Nicholas Schlitz.”

“No!” Brand sprang to his feet. “It can’t be!”

“It is!” Dave insisted. “Remember that picture you took from the wrecked plane? The picture of two young fellows?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“They were clear enough. You couldn’t make a mistake if you saw one of those men. I saw Nicholas tonight, by the bright light of his own signal torch. I couldn’t be mistaken. In the shoe shop he was always bending over, half hiding his face. Tonight I really _saw_ him.”

“Where’s his signal torch?” Brand asked suddenly.

“That’s right,” Dave sprang up. “Where is it? In my excitement I might have—

“Yes. Here it is.” He drank in a deep breath of relief. “I must have put it down. I—I was afraid he had come back for it.”

“He never will,” said Brand.

“You can’t be sure,” Dave replied thoughtfully. “Flash went in with him. If Flash escaped, how about Nicholas Schlitz, the spy? After all, there were three blasts. There was some time between the first and last. Who’s going to say whether the first or last made that hole out there?”

To this question Brand found no answer.

Brand stood up, gazed at the sky, north, south, east and west, listened for a full minute, then said: “Storm’s over. Let’s see if we can’t get them all to go home.”

It took little persuading to get Alice and Cherry started. Soon they were all on their way.

It was only as they rounded the last curve that brought them in full view of their home that the full significance of Heinie’s work that night burst upon them.

They greeted the scene that lay before them in tragic silence. The home that had housed the Ramsey tribe for a dozen generations was a wreck. A bomb had landed on the east end and torn it completely away. Gone was the prim little parlor with its very formal furniture, gone the cozy dining room with its array of ancient willow-ware and rare glass-ware. Gone was the big four-poster bed on which Cherry and Alice had slept since they were tiny tots, and gone all the countless treasures that had adorned their rooms.

“Le—t—, let’s have a look.” Brand climbed out of the car. He was trying to be nonchalant about the whole affair and making a bad job of it.

Dave climbed out after him. Then, after ten seconds of listening, he flashed on the spy’s powerful light. At once the whole wrecked place stood out in bold relief.

By some miracle the great chimney had withstood the shock. The fireplace had been blown clean of ashes.

“Dave, you were a gem.” These were Cherry’s first words. “If there had been a spark of fire!”

“It’s a miracle that anything is left,” said Applegate. “Of course you’ll all come up to live with us.”

“Oh, no.” Alice spoke slowly. “The children would worry Lady Applegate. I—I’m sorry. We still have furniture and cooking things. I’m sure quite enough. And there’s the Hideout up at the foot of the hill. It’s quite large and hidden among the trees. We may,” she hesitated, “may need to borrow a few dishes. We—we don’t seem to have any.”

“There are whole china cupboardsful at our house. I’ll have a car full of them down first thing in the morning.

“Sure that’s all?” the young Lord asked anxiously.

“No, not quite.” Cherry smiled a shy smile as she whispered hoarsely. “I—I’m quite sure that Alice’s dream-robes and mine have gone to grace the Milky Way.”

“That also shall be attended to,” said the young Lord, after they had enjoyed a good laugh.

The trusty old farm truck was backed out of its shed. Beds, chairs, blankets, pots, pans, and quantities of food were piled on. Then they rattled away up the hill to the Hideout.

After building a fire on the wide old hearth they put things in such order as they could for the night.

After the others had been made comfortable and were asleep Dave and Cherry still sat by the fire.

“We’re always last,” Cherry whispered hoarsely. “It takes time for our nerves to run down. They’re like a cheap old alarm clock, I guess.” She laughed.

“That’s it,” Dave agreed.

“Brand and I are signing up tomorrow,” he said after a time.

“I thought Brand would, after this night. Who wouldn’t?” Her whisper was tense with emotion. “It’s his country. But why you? It’s not yours.”

“In America,” Dave replied soberly, “we have a saying, ‘A man’s home is where he hangs his hat’. Your home has been mine. It has been bombed. And so—”

He did not finish. Just sat there staring at the fire. “There’s a lot more to it than that,” he went on after a time. “It’s easy enough to say, ‘It’s not my war’, when you’re far away. But when you are here, when you see how this war is being fought, defenseless women and children who never harmed anyone being killed and country homes bombed. Good God! How can you help wanting to fight?

“And there’s still more to it,” he added after a moment’s silence. “This flying sort of gets you. I’ve been within its grip since the first time I went up.

“And flyer fighting.” He took a long breath. “It’s like our American football. It’s a game. The other fellow has the ball. You go after him. You have the ball. He goes after you. You dodge this way and that. You stiff arm him if he gets close. You lean like the Tower of Pisa, you zigzag and weave like a sapling in the wind. Flyer fighting is like that.”

“But the score?” Cherry whispered.

“Ah, yes,” Dave murmured. “The score must always be heavy on your side.”

They were silent. At last Cherry whispered: “I seem to hear applause, the way you hear it on the radio. Per—perhaps it’s the applause of angels. Perhaps the applause is for you. Anyway, here’s wishing you luck.” She put out a slender hand to seize his in a quick, nervous grip.

A quarter hour later the girl was beneath the blankets beside her sister and Dave, rolled in a thick, soft rug before the fire, was fast asleep.

_Chapter_ XVI Fiddlin’ Johnny

Two nights later they were all seated about the fire in the Hideout. Their new home was small but not too crowded for company. Young Lord Applegate and two of his flying buddies were there. Beside the Lord, whom Dave had met some days before, there was a flyer they had nicknamed Fiddlin’ Johnny. Johnny was slender, fair-haired and dreamy-eyed. “Just the sort that doesn’t seem to belong in the air,” Applegate had said to Dave. “But he’s got a real record. You’d be surprised.”

“Give us a tune, Johnny,” Brand urged, as Alice’s tea warmed their souls.

“Oh, all right!” Johnny rose awkwardly. “I’m not much of a fiddler, but anything to please.” After blowing on a strange little pipe, he tuned his violin, then was away to a good start.

The moment his bow slid across the strings Cherry knew they were in for a rare treat. Paying little attention to his audience nor even to their applause, Johnny launched into a series of quaint, melodious, old tunes. Like a slow-flowing river he drifted from one to another and yet another. All unconscious of those about him, he played on and on. He appeared to play not for them but for the few birds lingering among bare branches of wind-lashed trees outside, or perhaps to the angels in heaven.

“Oh!” Cherry breathed, when at last he returned his violin to its battered case. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She turned to the young Lord. “Why didn’t you bring him to one of our subway songfests?”

“Johnny!” The young Lord laughed. “He’d never remember when to stop.”

“Stop!” the girl exclaimed in her hoarse whisper. “Who would want him to stop? That—why that was divine.”

“Oh! Thank you! Thank you!” Johnny’s face flushed.

“He’s just the same when he’s in the air fighting,” said the young Lord. “Flies as if he were in a dream and never thinks to stop. He—”

Suddenly he broke off. Someone had turned on the short-wave radio. It was low. Reaching over, he turned it louder.

“Get an earful of this.” His lips were curled in scorn.

The man on the radio was saying in fairly good English, “The quality of the British fighters is laughable.”

“How do you mean?” a voice on the radio asked.

“That’s Helmuth Wick, the boasting Hun,” the young Lord whispered.

“They merely try to stay out of our reach, those English fighters,” said the boasting German pilot. “This shows that the best English pilots have already been shot down. They fire furiously but never hit anything. It must make them very annoyed.”

“Well, thank you, Major Wick,” said the interviewer on the air. “That’s all we have had time for now. Nice to have had you with us.”

“That broadcast is for America,” the young Lord explained. “It _is_ nice they had him with them tonight. He won’t be with them long. We’re all after him. No one loves a boaster. Besides, he’s a dirty fighter.”

“And does he boast!” The Lark put in. “Claims fifty planes shot down, or is it sixty. No matter. He’s head of a flight and sees to it that he stays ahead. One of his fighters always protects him from behind. If he sees one of our planes that’s shot up and wobbling, he just steps in and finishes them off. And that’s number forty-seven, or fifty-seven. Or what—”

“We caught up with him once,” the young Lord laughed. “The Lark here downed the man who protected him from behind. I would have polished him off right then but I got a slug in my motor. Oil started spurting. So I had to make a crash landing.

“Too bad, Johnny wasn’t with us,” he added with a good-natured laugh. “Johnny’d been up there fighting yet.”

“I’ll be with you next time,” Fiddlin’ Johnny said, and he did not laugh. “Tomorrow,” he went on, “we’ll be up with the dawn. The O. C. told me that just before I left. Said we could go up in five formation.”

“Who?” Dave sat up quick.

“You’ll be in on it,” Johnny grinned. “You and Brand. Only the O. C. said we were to watch and see that you don’t do anything rash.”

“You watch them! That’s a joke.” The Lark gave Johnny a slap on the shoulder. “All you can see when you’re in the air is crosses and swastikas.”

“All the same,” the young Lord insisted, “Johnny’s one swell little fighter.”

A half hour later they were gone, leaving Cherry to wonder how many of them would return, and how soon.

At dawn five Spitfires left the landing field. They flew in formation, first the young Lord, then the Lark. After these came Dave and Brand. Fiddlin’ Johnny brought up the rear.

It was a beautiful morning. Red still streaked the eastern sky. Did they see the sky? Perhaps Johnny did. He saw and heard everything that was beautiful. Dave did not see the sky. He saw only his instrument board, thought only of that which might be ahead. For they were the dawn patrol. And out of many a dawn, when the thin clouds were still red and gold, had come death. Dave shuddered at the thought but kept straight on his course.

Of a sudden he caught the young Lord’s voice in the phone. It was high and cheerful as he shouted:

“Enemy ahead. Let’s tap in.”

‘Tap in’, Dave knew meant ‘have a good time.’ Would they have a good time? Would they? He wondered. Then, as if he had taken a breath of pure oxygen, his spirits soared. Have a good time? Why not? This was a game. In this game one must have a good time or die.

They were putting on speed. At first he did not see the enemy. Then he saw them all too well. Five Messerschmitts came zooming out of a thin cloud. The rising sun struck their wings and turned them to burnished silver.

“Whoops!” shouted the Lark. “Up and at them, boys!”

In a low, sober note the young Lord said, “Boys that’s the bragging Hun, Wick, or I’m a liar!”

“Correct!” shouted the Lark. “His identical formation, V shape, one behind on his right, three behind on the left. In a scrap he’s safe. Perfect, I’d say for a hero.” Then in a roaring voice this red-headed pilot sang, “It’s a long way to Tipperary. It’s a long way to go.”

Dave didn’t want to sing. Truth was, he could not have said a word. His tongue at that instant was glued to the roof of his mouth. Only the night before a veteran fighter had said to him, “Wick may be a coward. I wouldn’t doubt that. But he’s been a long time in the air. And that means just one thing, he knows how to pick brave men to do his fighting for him.”

“Brave men,” Dave whispered as he clutched his ‘joy stick’ with a firmer grip. Then, through his radio headset, above the roar of motors, he caught a familiar sound. It was one of the tunes Fiddlin’ Johnny had played back there in the Hideout. It was “Londonderry Air.” Startled, as if expecting to see the strange boy fiddling as he flew, he glanced back. Johnny was in his place, all right, staring straight ahead.

“Whistling!” Dave murmured. “How do they do it?”

“Those Messerschmitts are looking for bombers, not fighters,” he told himself. “Haven’t seen us yet.”

The young Lord barked an order into his receiver. “We’ll climb into the sun, then drop down upon them.”

They climbed. They circled until the sun was at their backs. Then, with motors booming, they swept down upon the enemy.

With a sudden burst of speed the Messerschmitts scattered. Two planes alone remained in formation.

“That will be Wick and his bravest guard,” Dave told himself as a thrill coursed up his spine.

He was all for the fight now. Gladly he would have followed that pair, but it had been agreed that in a case of this kind the flight leader and the Lark, most experienced men of the flight, should step in where danger called most loudly.

With the hot blood of battle at last coursing in his veins, Dave went after a single, fleeing Messerschmitt.

He was faster than the enemy. Now a mile lay between them, now a half mile, a quarter. The enemy darted this way, then that. “Trying to shake me off,” Dave muttered. He was thinking at that moment of their shattered home. He should have sweet revenge.

He was all but upon the Messerschmitt. One more burst of speed. Now it was time to press the button. One thousand shots a minute! No! He’d better drop a little, to come up from below. Three hundred and fifty miles an hour. This was life.

Suddenly the air was torn by the rip and rattle of machine-gun fire, not his fire but another’s. Slugs tore into his right wing. Gripping his emergency boost, he set his plane banking madly to the left. Forty seconds of this, then he let go that emergency lever.

Standing on one wing, he executed a mad whirl, then righted himself.

“What had happened?” As his eyes swept the sky he heard again that weird whistle, the Fiddler’s, doing “Londonderry Air.”

Next instant he spotted the Whistler. Right on the tail of a plane, he was at that very instant gripping the firing button. Once again the sky was torn with the haunting rip-rip-rip that spelled death.

What effect did the fiddler’s shots have upon the enemy? Dave was not to know, at least not for a long time. At that instant he caught sight of a Messerschmitt zooming up from behind and below his comrade. He watched with horror as a great burst of fire seemed to blot Fiddlin’ Johnny from the sky.

One second the Messerschmitt was there. The next it was gone. With sinking heart Dave saw Fiddlin’ Johnny’s plane go into a spin, then spiral down, down until it was lost in a cloud.

He listened. Save for the roar of his own motor, a muffled roar it was now, he caught no sound. The whistle was dead. But what of the whistler?

Not until then did Dave become conscious of his own motor. He was losing altitude. His hand was brown with oil. His motor had been hit, perhaps more than once. Just when a Messerschmitt came zooming at him he slipped into a cloud.

He was thinking hard and fast now. He was out of the fight, that was sure. Was he too far out over the ocean to make landing before his motor died? Where was land? A glance at his compass, a slow half-swing about, then he flew straight ahead.

He was losing altitude faster now. In vain did he attempt to get more power from the motor.

There was the sea, and there, seeming far, far away, was land. He’d never make it. A cold, calm sea lay beneath him. How long could one live in that water? He’d have a try. Unsnapping his safety belt, he waited. How long before his ship sank? Not long, he guessed.

Then his eye caught something on the surface of the sea. A boat? Perhaps. Didn’t look quite like that. At least it was fairly large and it floated.

Swinging half about, he went into a slow spiral, that would land him, he hoped, close to that mysterious, floating gray spot.

It did. Leaping from his plane, he did a slow crawl, waiting to see if his plane would sink. Three minutes more and it was gone.

Turning, he swam toward that floating thing. What was it? He could not tell. All he knew was that once he reached it he would escape from the bitter, biting chill of the sea.

_Chapter_ XVII Playing War

Meantime the young Lord had gone streaking after the self-appointed ace of the Huns and his most trusted guard. The Lark and Brand had remained in formation behind their leader. A fast and furious race had followed. The Nazis had climbed to dizzy heights. Turning on the oxygen, the young Lord and the Lark followed on their tails, but always a little too far behind for attack.

Unaccustomed to the climb, Brand was thinking of dropping out. Turning to look back, he caught his breath, stared again, then leveled off for greater speed. He had seen Fiddlin’ Johnny go into a spin and had read in this disaster for his good pal Dave. He went to the rescue but too late. By the time he reached the scene both Dave and pursuer had vanished into the clouds.

Swinging about, he searched the sky for the young Lord and his fighting companion.

“There! There they are!” he exclaimed excitedly. “They win!” He was just in time to see an enemy plane go streaking down all in flames. At the same instant, some distance away, he saw a second enemy craft vanish into a cloud.

“Tough luck,” the young Lord grumbled into his speaker as Brand came up. “We got Wick’s favorite guard but the big boaster got away. Well, better luck next time. Where’s Dave and the Fiddler?”

“Johnny’s gone for good.” Brand’s voice was low and solemn. “He seemed a real fellow. I—I’m sorry. He went down in a spin, quite out of control. He can’t have come out of it. It’s taps for him.”

“Taps for poor old Johnny.” No more shouting today for The Lark. The flight’s scant triumph had cost them too dearly.

“I lost Dave in a cloud,” Brand went on. “I—I don’t know about him.”

“We’ll drop down and have a look,” said the young Lord. They did have a look. They fairly scoured the sea. All that met the eye was wide stretches of leaden, grey sea—that and a lone flock of wild ducks streaking away to the south.

“Ducks. Little old wild things,” The Lark grumbled. “Got more sense than humans.”

And so, with heavy hearts, they turned their planes landward. After that not a word was spoken until their Spitfires bump-bumped on the landing field.

That same afternoon Cherry walked alone to the village. She wanted time to think. And, indeed there was need for thinking. That morning her mother had driven out and had taken her to the city. There they visited the office of a famous specialist.

“This,” said Mrs. Ramsey, “is Cherry.”

“Cherry, the Singing Angel!” exclaimed the doctor. “I am surely glad to meet you. It’s a wonderful work you are doing.”

“That I _was_ doing,” Cherry whispered hoarsely.