The old man paused and leaned forward on the edge of the bunk. As he did so, he drew a folded sheet of dirty paper from under his torn and oil-smeared shirt.
"I am convinced you come from the great Colonel Fraser," he said. "Ah, how I admire that man! How I should like to meet him one day."
"And he feels the same way about you, sir," Freddy spoke up.
The old man smiled, and the warm light of great joy glowed in his eyes.
"I pray Le Bon Dieu will bring that day to pass," he said softly. "However, it is of the present we speak. Listen carefully, you two. The Nazis are going to attempt to invade England. They are going to attempt to set up a bridgehead on British soil. Not at Dover, or at Hastings, or at Brighton on the south coast. It is to be made at a point, a nine mile strip of shoreline, just north of Harwich on the east coast. And that attempt will be made on the night of the sixteenth after a terrific bombardment by the Luftwaffe on the fifteenth."
"The sixteenth?" Dave gasped excitedly. "Three days from today?"
"That is correct," the Belgian said solemnly. "But the Luftwaffe raids on the fifteenth will be directed at the south coast. It is a trick to make the British believe that an attack will be made there, while actually the attack will be made much further north on the east coast. Close to seventy-five thousand troops will be used in the first attack. If they gain a foothold in England, three times that number will follow."
Dave unconsciously tried to check the question, but it popped right out of his mouth.
"How do you know this to be true?" he asked.
For an instant he expected to see anger flare up in the Belgian's eyes. No such thing happened, however. Pierre Deschaud simply smiled and slowly nodded his white head.