“No! Since I left your home, I have not.” The captain’s voice was sharp with anxiety. “And I haven’t time to look for him now. My men are in that burning barn with Germans all around it. I’ve ordered covering smoke shells dropped to help them escape. And I can’t understand what’s held the shells up.”
He hesitated. Looking with deep concern at Marie, he spoke more gruffly. “I’m just afraid there’s a good chance André may be in that barn.”
Marie ran out a step or two and pointed.
“In that barn?” she cried. “Oh! I can get him out then. Come, Patchou!”
Captain Dobie stood up and shouted, but Marie and Patchou had disappeared through the cottage door—not across the field.
Captain Dobie sank back, fuming. The flames were spreading across the barn roof. He switched on the radio and waited irritably. When there was no response, he reached back into the jeep for grenades which he hooked into his belt.
He had just grasped his gun firmly, and gingerly lowered a leg to the ground, when Patchou barked and wriggled out of the cottage door.
At the same instant Slim came around the garden wall and stopped in his tracks, staring at the doorway.
“Ouvarski!” he shouted and then, “André!”
Captain Dobie’s head snapped toward the cottage.