Then, suddenly, he felt Freddy Farmer stiffen rigid at his side. And he felt Freddy's steel-like fingers close over his own hand and press hard. And then Dave saw it, himself. Saw the faint outline of a German infantryman walking along the road. He wore a battle helmet, and crooked in his right arm was one of the deadly Nazi sub-machine guns. Jones? The word question streaked across Dave's brain and returned to the center to whirl like a top. Jones, or a real German soldier? There was only one way really and truly to find out.
Dave hesitated, then pressed his lips to Freddy's near ear.
"This is us!" he breathed. "Let's find out."
The English youth didn't make any reply. He simply rose silently with Dave, and together they stepped out of the darker shadows cast by the church rubble and approached the figure in Nazi uniform. They were practically in front of the man before they stopped, and Dave spoke the code words in flawless German.
"Tell me the time, my watch is broken."
The figure in German uniform stopped short and gulped in surprise.
"The time?" echoed a thick, heavy voice. "I do not know. I—"
The voice stopped, and in the next split second Dave swore he could feel every hair on his head turn grey. The man in German uniform snapped on the beam of a tiny flashlight he had taken from his pocket, and the beam hit Dave squarely in the middle of his still blacked out face!
For an eternity, it seemed, Dave stood rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle. He knew that he and Freddy had made a fatal mistake by forgetting to remove the cork black from their faces. He knew that this man was not Jones. He was a real Nazi soldier. And Dave knew also that in the next split second the German was going to wake up the whole countryside with his wild yells, and the savage yammer of the sub-machine gun in his hands. He knew all that, yet he was powerless to do anything about it. It was as though he didn't have a nerve nor a muscle left in his body. He was just so much frozen bone and frozen blood. This was the end—and he couldn't do a darn thing to save himself. He—
It was a streak of black lightning that he saw moving at his side. Just a streak of black lightning. It had to be, because nothing else could possibly move that fast. But it wasn't black lightning. It was Freddy Farmer's body streaking through the air. Freddy Farmer's body that hit into the Nazi soldier with terrific force. The flashlight dropped to the road and winked out. There was a stifled moan of intense pain, and then the thud of two bodies falling to the ground.