Whether the war gods planned it that way or not will of course never be known. But exactly nineteen minutes had ticked by on Dave Dawson's wrist watch when suddenly a shadow fell across the dawn light on the floor, and Senior Lieutenant Nasha Petrovski came gliding into the room. Instantly the three men were on their feet, and it was Dawson who found his tongue first.
"Boy! Am I glad to see you, lady!" he gulped out impulsively. "I mean, Senior Lieutenant, it's sure nice to see you back. We were getting mighty worried."
The Russian girl smiled her thanks, but her smile was far from her usual flashing one. She sat down on the floor and pulled off her tattered peasant cap to show her close cropped jet black hair. Dawson, staring at her for a moment, could not help but admit to himself that Nasha Petrovski in a Senior Lieutenant's snappy uniform, or Nasha Petrovski in the tattered garments of a Ukrainian peasant woman, was still one mighty pretty girl. He brushed the flash thought from his brain, however, and squatted down on his heels in front of her.
"Bad news, eh, Senior Lieutenant?" he asked quietly. "I think I can see it in your face."
She didn't answer him for a moment. She seemed content to wait until Freddy Farmer and Agent Jones had also squatted down on the floor. Then she nodded her head, and her eyes flashed with some inner rage.
"Yes, bad news, my gallant comrades," she said evenly. "It would seem the Nazis here at Urbakh are far more clever than we expected."
"Quite," Agent Jones murmured politely. "The camouflaged airfield. We have just been watching some of their planes fly over."
"Yes, a secret airfield!" the Russian girl said in a low voice, and clenched her two hands into fists. "It is not a quarter of a mile from where we now sit. I have seen it, and though I will hate all Nazis to my death, I must speak praise of that secret field. It is all underground, under a large flat-topped hill. You almost stumble into it before you see the screens of branches that hang down over the entrance. When planes are to take off, the screens are lifted by wire cables and the valley at the base of the hill becomes a smooth take-off runway. It is clever. Yes, it is ingenious. It is also most unlucky for us that Nazis are so close."
"Well, they haven't spotted us yet!" Dawson said, to cheer her up a little. "And we'll just make sure that they don't."
"Yes, of course," the Russian girl replied in a dull voice, and shrugged sort of hopelessly. "But it is blame that I must put on my own shoulders. I am ashamed to—"