“Guard,” Jan explained. As it came her turn Jan gave the countersign, submitted to a brief inspection, then drove on.
A chill ran up Gale’s spine. Already they were in dangerous territory, where roads were new.
“Jan,” she said, “Can you drive in the dark?”
“Can I?” Jan asked. “Golly, you must have slept through your weeks at Fort Des Moines if you never saw us girls driving those big trucks in convoy.”
“Oh yes, I saw them!” Gale recalled.
“Well, you’d better believe they trained us. Drive in the dark? Say! They tied handkerchiefs over our eyes and made us drive for hours and hours without seeing a thing, and us in convoy, twenty trucks all going together.”
“Once,” Jan laughed joyously, “I ran over a duck. But was I to blame? The duck could see, and I couldn’t.”
They drove on, a little more slowly, in all but complete darkness. No friendly village lights now greeted their approach. There was no moon. Here and there dark bulks loomed,—a dog barked,—the sound of their motors changed a little, then again they were swallowed up by the night. These were the only signs of a village just passed.
More and more trees lined the roadway. At times their towering tops shut out the stars.
At last there came the rattle of shifting gears. “We’re going up,” Gale whispered.