"Okay, pass the cream!" Dave ordered. "I know when I'm licked. I—Hey! You hear that?"
"Hear what?" young Farmer asked, and looked up quickly.
"I thought I heard a shout and a couple of shots from outside," Dave told him. "You didn't hear anything at all, Freddy?"
"Not a blessed thing, except your confounded voice," Freddy told him.
That was all the English youth did say, because at that instant they both clearly heard wild shouting and the savage yammer of machine-gun fire. For about half a second they sat perfectly still. Then as one they leaped to their feet, whirled, and raced out the door of Major Parker's quarters. Outside, it was dark, and the sudden change blinded them both. But only for a moment, and at the end of that moment they saw two or three moving lights over at the southwest corner of the base, and several figures running across the field toward those moving lights. Impulsively, Dawson reached for his holstered service automatic and broke into a run.
"Let's go, kid," he called back over his shoulder.
The last was unnecessary, because young Farmer was in motion, too, and right there at his elbow. Together they ran across the field and reached the small group gathered about three figures holding powerful flashlights. The beams were being played on something on the ground, and as Dawson took a look he gasped and instantly pushed his way forward. On the ground, and just being helped up by a guard corporal, was Major Parker. The officer, in spite of his leathery tan, looked very pale. And there was a trickle of blood running down from a cut on his forehead just over the left eye.
"Take it easy, sir; I'll get the ambulance," the guard corporal was saying as Dawson reached the injured man. "And we'll get the guy that did it, too."
"Don't bother about that, Corp," a voice said. "I saw him running after the major fired, and me and little Betsy, here, knocked him out. He's over there and not talking to anybody. He'll never talk again, not that bird!"
Dawson had raised his head at the sound of the voice, and saw a square-jawed American soldier not ten feet away. The soldier was holding a sub-machine gun in the crook of one arm, and patting it affectionately with his hand. He paused in his patting long enough to jerk a thumb to his left. Dawson looked in that direction and started inwardly as he made out the huddled figure of a dead man on the ground. The thing that made him start was the fact that the dead man was barefooted. One glance, and Dawson turned his attention to Major Parker, who was now on his feet, gently pushing aside the guard corporal's efforts to keep holding him.