"A darn good idea, Dave!" Freddy said in honest approval. "You're right. One never can tell."
"Then off we go," Dave said, and got up onto his feet. "Stagger and reel a little. Pretend you don't hear them the first time they challenge. Let's even lean a little on each other for support. Boy, if there's any of the actor in us, this sure is the time for it to come out. And to think—Gosh!"
"And to think what?" Freddy shot out the corner of his mouth as they started lurching forward and up over the crest of the sand dune and into full view of the enemy camp. "What were you going to say?"
"To think the day would come when you and I would walk up to a bunch of Nazi slobs and say, 'Here we are,'" Dave grunted. "Of course it's all for a reason, but—well, it sure gives me a funny feeling inside."
"I know just how you feel," Freddy said. "And I could feel a lot better, myself. But if things work out our way, we should fret."
"Things will work out for us!" Dave said grimly, and gave the English youth's arm a squeeze. "They've got to!"
Neither of them spoke for the next few minutes. They trudged forward across the sand, purposely faltering in their steps now and then and stumbling to their knees. Every second of the time, however, they kept a watchful eye on the desert camp that was just about ready to move forward. The sun was down below the rim of the world now, and night was rushing forward from the east on black wings.
Stumbling step by stumbling step, they drew closer and closer to the enemy camp. With each step they expected to hear a wild shout go up, a shout that would mean they had been sighted. With each step, also, a certain inner and unspoken fear walked with them, the tiny fear that their little plan might fail horribly almost before it had been put into action—the kind of failure, very definite and permanent, that the bark of a rifle and a singing bullet would cause.
No rifles barked, however, and no challenging voices thundered across the rolling sands. The tank, armored car, and truck motors had been silenced after a short test run period, and the stillness of the vast desert had closed down over everything. The boys impulsively held their breath every now and then as though they and the entire world were waiting for some sudden all destroying explosion to shatter what seemed an eternity of silence.
"Are we going to have to bump right into those birds before they see us?" Dave murmured desperately. "Gosh! We could have come this far on a couple of motorcycles and saved our feet. The dopes are—"