"On the contrary, not at all, my boy," he said. "As they would say in the States, I was just checking up. You two most certainly saw the German plan of invasion attack and execution."
"We could be a bit mistaken about the dates, sir," Freddy said in a hesitating voice. "But I'm pretty sure those we gave you were correct."
"They were," the General said, and there was a faint ironic edge to his voice. "You saw what the Germans planned to do. We saw them do it! They occupied Spontin on the Sixteenth, Vervins on the Eighteenth, and Guise on the Nineteenth. That's a matter of history, now."
"Good grief!" Freddy exclaimed with a sob in his voice. "They've gained that much, sir?"
"And much more," General Caldwell said grimly and took a little box from his tunic pocket. "Now, I have a very important job for you two. Very important! A whole lot depends on your memories, so sharpen them up well. Here is a box of pins. I want you two lads to try and put a pin in this map for every pin you saw in that Intelligence map. Colors don't matter. These here are all the same. All white, as you see. Now, study this map and shake up your memories well. And here's a couple of pencils, too. Write down all the dates you can remember. And put them under the right pins, of course."
"Gosh, there must have been a couple of hundred pins on that map, sir!" Dave said in a weak voice.
"Just stick in the pins you remember," General Caldwell said quietly. "And the dates, too. All right, let's get at it, shall we?"
It was well over an hour later when Freddy and Dave leaned back from the map well nigh mentally exhausted.
"Anything else would be just a wild guess, sir," Freddy said. "I wouldn't be sure of it at all."
"Me too," Dave said. "I'd just get all balled up. Those are all I can remember."