[CHAPTER SIXTEEN]
The Gods Laugh
Fifteen minutes, fifteen weeks, or was it fifteen years since Freddy and he had left the old repair shop and entered the woods? Dave couldn't tell, and he didn't bother to guess. Every muscle and bone in his body ached from bumping into tree trunks and huge boulders that loomed up without warning in the darkness. And his face and hands were scratched from bramble thickets that tried to hold him back and pin him helpless.
How long had they been groping blindly through these darn woods? He had no idea. Perhaps the woods were endless. Perhaps ... and the sudden thought chilled him to the core ... they had simply been wandering about in a circle, and didn't know it. However, there was at least one tiny thing for which to be thankful. They had not bumped headlong into any Nazi patrols. As a matter of fact they had not heard a thing nor seen a thing to make their hearts loop over with fright. It was as though this section of Occupied France had gone sound asleep.
For that possibility Dave was thankful. Yet, at the same time it caused his worry to mount. In the back of his head was the faint hope that they might be able to steal that Messerschmitt One-Ten they had seen sliding down to a landing, and escape back to England. That von Peiplow had said it was a radio control plane made things that much better. No doubt British radio engineers would like very much to examine German radio control equipment. Yet, escape was not what Dave wanted most. Escape would save Freddy's life, and his own, but, it would mean leaving this area, the Nazis' testing ground for their newest weapon of war, untouched. True, a swarm of British bombers could be sent over to blast it off the map. But could they? What if swarms of TNT loaded gliders, and soaring planes, were sent aloft to bar the way? To not only bar the way, but be radio directed right into the R.A.F. bombers before they could be shot out of the skies by the British gunners? But, more likely than that, supposing before the British bombers could come over von Peiplow moved all his gliders, soaring planes, and equipment elsewhere? What then? The job would have to be done all over again. Von Peiplow's new hide-out would have to be found ... and there would still be the terrible danger of not being able to wipe it from the face of the earth. Still the danger that von Peiplow's new weapons would prove their full worth and destroy all British aircraft sent against them. True, perhaps von Peiplow's experiments and tests were far from being completed. Perhaps there was much more he had to do before this new deadly weapon was ready for continued active service. However, what happened to those Lockheeds last Tuesday night proved that the new weapon was far enough along to spread doom throughout war torn skies. It was....
Dave cut short his rambling thoughts as Freddy Farmer suddenly checked his forward movement and pulled him down onto the ground.
"What, Freddy?" he whispered excitedly. "See anything? Hear anything?"
"Shut up!" the English youth hissed in his ear. "We're practically on top of the spot. Look ahead, and just a shade to the right. See the glow of light between those trees? That's a tarmac oil-pot flare. And a light means somebody's there keeping guard. And...."
The English youth stopped short and squeezed Dave's hand hard in his mounting excitement.
"Look, Dave!" he whispered again. "See them? A half a dozen planes, pulled up under the trees! They look like Messerschmitt One-Nines to me, but I can't say for sure!"
"Boy, what eyes you've got!" Dave breathed and blinked hard. "So help me I can't see a thing but shadows. I.... Hold it! Yeah, I can see a faint glow of light, but nothing else. Looks about fifty yards from here. What do you say?"