"So you are surprised, eh?" she echoed. "Well, there are a lot of women like me fighting for Russia. But let me introduce myself. I am Senior Lieutenant Nasha Petrovski, of Soviet Intelligence. Until Colonel General Vladimir says it is time to leave for Urbakh, you are honored guests of my mother and myself. And later we will be comrades in arms for a great and worthy cause. But I keep you standing here while I chatter. Come and meet my mother. And then I will show you to the room that has been made ready for you. This way, please, Captains."
And like a couple of dumbfounded wooden Indians, Dave Dawson and Freddy Farmer followed her into the ground floor parlor.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
High Stakes
The sound was akin to that of an invisible giant of the sky tearing off a section of a tin roof with his bare hands. It began high up in the black night sky, and grew louder and louder until it seemed that their eardrums had been driven clear back into their brains. And then suddenly it turned into a gigantic explosion that made the very earth lurch and shudder, and seemed to stop spinning for a moment and go staggering across limitless space.
"If there was only a night fighter handy! Boy! What I wouldn't give for a night fighter right now!"
Dave Dawson muttered out the words aloud, hardly conscious that he had spoken them. With Freddy Farmer, and Senior Lieutenant Nasha Petrovski, he was standing out in the back yard of the Russian girl's home, and staring up at a sneak night raid by Nazi bombers on Moscow a dozen or so miles away. It was only a nuisance raid, and Soviet anti-aircraft guns and Soviet night fighters were making the Luftwaffe pay a heavy price for the few Moscow buildings they hit with their bombs.
However, though the Nazis were unable to hit anything, that fact did not curb Dawson's desire to be up there in the searchlight-laced sky, dealing out his share of trouble and doom to the raiding vultures. And, incidentally, complete inactivity for three days and nights added greatly to his desire to be aloft in all the fuss. And so it was only natural that such an expression should slip off his lips automatically.
"That is the way all good soldiers should feel, Captain Dawson," he suddenly heard the Russian girl's voice at his side. "To do nothing, when there is so much to be done, hurts more than the wounds of battle. I know just how you feel, yes. And I sympathize with you. Time never waits."