Dave Dawson at Dunkirk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

He danced a jig across the room to the tall mirror that reached from the floor to the ceiling and took the stance of a fighter coming out of his corner for the knock-out round. For a couple of minutes he shadow boxed the reflection in the glass, then whipped over a crushing, finishing right and danced back.

"Boy oh boy, do I feel good!" he cried happily and tore off his pajamas. "Bring on your Joe Louis. Hot diggity, the Maginot Line. Me! Oh boy!"

In almost less time than it takes to tell about it he was bathed and fully dressed and ready to go. He started for the door leading into his father's room but checked himself as he saw the camera on the bureau. He took a step toward it, then snapped his fingers as he remembered Lieutenant Defoe had said that the Maginot Line was one place where even the President of France could not take a camera. For a second he was tempted to take one anyway, but sober judgment quickly squelched that idea. He knew that Lieutenant Defoe had gone to a lot of trouble to get permission for him and his father to visit that great string of fortresses, and it would be pretty cheap to do anything that would get the Lieutenant in wrong.

So he left the camera where it was, caught up his hat, and went over to the connecting door and knocked loudly.

"Rise and shine in there, Mister!" he called out. "Big doings today, remember? Are you up, Dad?"

There was no sound save the echo of his own voice. He knocked again and shouted, "Hey, Dad!" but there was still no sound from the room beyond. He hesitated a moment, then grasped the knob and pushed the door open.

"Hey, Dad, get...!"

An empty room greeted his amazed gaze. The bed hadn't been slept in. As a matter of fact there was not a single sign that the room had been occupied. There were no clothes in the closet, no toilet articles and stuff on the dresser, and not even any traveling bags. The sudden shock made his heart contract slightly, and for a long moment he could do nothing but stare wide eyed at the vacant room.

"Can I be dreaming?" he heard his own voice murmur. "This is Dad's room. I said good night to him here last night. But, there's no one here. Dad's gone, for cat's sake. Hey, Dad!"

All that he got for his extra loud shout was a muffled voice protesting violently in French, and an angry pounding on the floor of the room above. He closed his Dad's door and went down the stairs three at a time and straight across the lobby floor to the desk.