"The brain of a cat I have!" he shouted and thumped a big fist against his forehead. "But, of course, of course, my little one! Those bombs and shells! They must have made scrambled eggs out of what I have in my head!"
Taking his foot off the brake the Belgian shifted back into low gear and got the car underway again. At a crossroads some hundred yards ahead he turned sharp right and fed gas to the engine. A moment later a machine gun yammered savagely behind them. Dave twisted around in the seat and saw an armored car bearing German army insignia racing for the turn-off they had taken, but from the opposite direction. There was a machine gun mounted on the car and a helmeted German soldier was striving to get them in his range.
The Belgian Sergeant took one quick glance back over his shoulder and instantly gave the engine all the gas it could take.
"A lucky charm you are indeed!" he shouted and hunched forward over the wheel. "If you had not put sense in my head, and I had not turned off on to this road, we would have run right into them. And that would have been bad, very bad. Name of the Saints, the Lieutenant will reduce me to a corporal when he hears of this!"
Neither Dave nor Freddy bothered to make any comment. To tell the truth they were too busy hanging on tight and trying to stay in the car as it rocketed forward seeming virtually to leap across shell holes in the road. The Sergeant perhaps did not have very many brains but he certainly knew how to handle that small scouting car. He skipped across shell holes, dodged and twisted about trees blown down across it, and roared right through scattered wreckage of bombed supply trucks and the like as though they weren't even there. And all the time the machine gun farther back snarled and yammered out its song of death.
The pursuing Germans had swung on to their road and were now striving desperately to overtake them. Dave stuck his head up to see if they had gained, but before he could see anything Freddy grabbed him around the waist and practically threw him down onto the floor of the car.
"Stay down, Dave!" the English youth shouted above the roar of the little car's powerful engine. "We've ducked enough bullets for one day. Don't be crazy!"
Dave grinned sheepishly and nodded.
"That was dumb!" he said. "You're right, and thanks!"
As the last left his lips a burst of bullets whined low over the car. Dave gulped and ducked his head.