The light, from broken places in the roof high overhead, was dim. André caught glimpses of shadowy faces stationed at windows and small breaks in the walls. Rifles cracked, and a bazooka at a far window flamed.
“We’re in a German trap,” the lieutenant explained to André hastily. “I sent out for help. I hope it comes. You get over in that manger, kid, and keep down.”
Then the lieutenant turned to shout orders and warnings to his men. “Don’t show yourself above that window again, Donovan! You want to get hit?”
“Two Heinies edgin’ around that wall,” screamed an unseen rifleman. “Watch it, Lieutenant!”
After a shattering fusilade of machine-gun fire against the old stone walls, a sudden silence fell. And outside, a German voice called, “Do you giff up, or do we take you, vun by vun?”
Silence fell again. And then the bark of the lieutenant’s automatic. Six rapid shots.
“There’s your answer, Fritzie boy!” Lieutenant Ouvarski growled.
The voice outside did not speak again. The lieutenant wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt.
André thought, “I hope my mother and father and Marie are in a deep stone cellar.” Then suddenly he was too tired to remember why he was there.
He did not even hear the corporal say, “What does old Dobie think he’s doin’ about those reinforcements he promised? Sendin’ ’em by way of Alaska?”