On sudden impulse he stopped dead, squeezed Freddy's hand, and then melted to the ground close to a thick clump of bushes. The shell-smashed church couldn't be more than a quarter of a mile away now. But he wanted to confab with Freddy before they started down the last lap of their weird, nerve-jangling journey.
"What's up, Dave? Something wrong?"
"Not yet," Dave breathed into his pal's ear. "But that's just what I'm wondering about. Freddy! Did you ever see so many Nazis out on night patrol? The whole area is practically crawling with them."
"I know," the English youth murmured. "A blessed sight more than I fancied we'd be bumping into. What do you think, Dave?"
"In circles, up to now," the Yank-born air ace replied. "I don't know just what to think. Trouble is, I've got a sneaky hunch that the bums figure that something may be in the wind, and are doing something about it, by throwing out so many patrols. Right here is where this whole thing stops looking like a cinch. Supposing Jones isn't there at the wrecked church!"
"I refuse to answer!" Freddy hissed. "It just can't be that way. He's just got to be there. We'd be in a fine flat spin if Jones didn't show up. Don't even think about it!"
"I'm trying not to, but it's plenty hard," Dave murmured. "Well, I guess there isn't much sense, at that, in parking here and trying to hash over something we don't know anything about—yet. Let's get going again. Can't be more than a quarter of a mile more. I've just been wasting time for us."
"Rot!" Freddy grunted. "I was about to stop and talk things over, when you beat me to it. But it does no good to talk. The only thing we can do is get to that shelled church—and find out what's what."
"Yeah," Dave murmured as they got into motion again. "And do I wish my cockeyed thoughts would leave me alone. Oh well! Live and learn, I always say."
Perhaps! But Dave Dawson certainly didn't enjoy living the next ten minutes. For one thing, each minute seemed a year long. And for another, they twice came within a hair's breadth of running smack into a Nazi patrol. And for a third, he felt as though he had died a dozen times over during every minute of those ten. Eventually, though, they reached the dirt road marked so clearly on Major Barber's maps. And but a short time after that they were huddled together deep in the darker shadows of the piled up rubble that had once been a church.