"Well, Jones, being no more than shaken up a bit, joined those who were doing what they could to help the injured. He came upon one man who was pinned under the shattered end of one car. The man was conscious, but he was bleeding at the mouth, and his chest was horribly crushed. Jones took him for a German, but that didn't make any difference at the time. He started trying to get the pieces of the shattered car off the man and drag him free in case fire broke out. It was a pretty hopeless task. The slightest movement made the pinned man's face go grey with pain, and finally he begged Jones—and in perfect English, mind you—just to let him stay where he was. The intense pain of being rescued was too much for him. And no sooner had he spoken the plea than the surprising thing happened. The injured man whispered for Jones to bend close, and listen to what he had to say. Jones did just that, and the man said that he was a Russian by birth but had lived most of his life in Germany. He said that he had discovered a horrible plot to wipe the Soviet Republic from the face of the earth. That he had learned every detail of Hitler's mad plan to conquer and enslave the entire world!"
The R.A.F. officer stopped short and smiled almost apologetically.
"I know what you must be thinking," he said to the two air aces, who sat motionless and just a little bit wide-eyed. "You're thinking that perhaps I've gone a bit balmy, or that I'm reciting a bit from one of those crazy war stories that are being so widely read these days. But that's not true. All this actually did happen. In short, over a month before the war actually started, one man pinned under a wrecked railroad train just inside the Polish border knew every detail of Hitler's entire war plan. And what's more, he gave half of that invaluable information to the British Intelligence agent I've called Jones!"
CHAPTER THREE
Fate Laughs
The echo of Air Vice-Marshal Leman's last words seemed to hang in the air for long seconds. And then suddenly the echo faded out and the room was filled with a silence in which a pin could have been heard to drop. Dave Dawson gulped softly as he let the clamped air from his lungs, and inched forward on the edge of his chair.
"Only half the information, sir?" he questioned. "So it didn't do Agent Jones any good?"
The senior R.A.F. officer smiled sadly, and seemed to emphasize his feelings with a soft sigh.
"Let me continue with the story, and I think your question will be answered, Dawson," he said. "Yes, the injured man gave Jones only half the information he had collected. But even that half didn't help any. You see, this man had written down everything that he had learned. According to Jones he must have done it with a needle point pen, and under a magnifying glass. It filled two sheets of ordinary manuscript paper, on both sides. It was sewn in his coat, and he got Jones to take it out for him. And then the man tore the two sheets in half and gave half to Jones. Then he tore his half to bits, put them in his mouth and swallowed them!"