"No, north!" Dave said. "They'll guess we're trying to get to the Belgians, you see? So they'll start hunting toward the west, and sending word ahead. If we go north we'll be fooling them for awhile ... I hope. Anyway, it's our best bet. See? There go a couple of their cars racing down the road toward the west. Come on!"
CHAPTER NINE
A Desperate Mission
Dawn was a little over an hour away and Dave Dawson couldn't drag his body forward another step. For hours he and Freddy Farmer had trudged across strange country through the darkness striving to put more and more ground between them and the pursuing Germans. A dozen times they had almost stumbled headlong into roving German mop-up patrols. And once they had crouched for a solid hour in a road ditch while a long line of tanks, and motorized artillery units had rumbled by heading westward.
But now he just couldn't go another step. He didn't care if the whole German Army was right at their heels. He had to stop and rest. There is a limit to the endurance of even the strongest of men, and Dave and Freddy had most certainly proved themselves to be men, not just mere boys, during those hours of mad flight across enemy held ground. Where they were Dave didn't know, nor did he care much right at the moment. The North Star had been his guide all the way, but they had been forced to change their direction in order to skirt bomb blasted villages filled with German troops, and roads clogged with parts of the mighty Nazi war machine, so it was impossible even to guess how far they had traveled, or in what general direction.
Now, though, as he came to the outer edge of some woods and saw the shadowy shapes of barren fields beyond, Dave flung himself down under some bushes and gave his body over to the utter fatigue and weariness which had been trying to drag him down for the last several miles. His throat was dry and craving for water, and his stomach was screaming for some of the bread and the hunk of cheese he and Freddy had so wisely saved from that huge breakfast, and had stuffed inside their shirts before crawling out the window. Yes, food and water would go fine, but later. He was too dead tired now to so much as move a muscle. In a dull sort of way he was conscious of Freddy flopping down beside him, and then a moment later he felt himself slip away into blissful peace.
A soothing warmth on his back eventually woke him up. He started to move but the sudden aches and pains in his body brought a stifled groan to his lips. He stayed where he was for a moment with his face buried in his crossed over arms, soaking up the soothing warmth on his back. Then he rolled over on his back and stared up through the bush branches at the sky. It was another perfect spring day and the sun was well up on high. That realization finally filtered into his tired brain and brought him sitting bolt upright.
"Gee, it must be close to noon!" he heard his own voice whisper. "And we've still got a heck of a ways to go. But where, and in what direction, I wonder?"