A moment of wild panic gripped Dave Dawson. His first impulse was to spin around and flee for his life. In the nick of time, however, cold logic made him realize the utter senselessness of such a move. He got a quick hold on himself, threw both his hands above his head and faked a display of mortal terror.

"Don't shoot!" he cried in a high shrill voice. "I have done nothing. I am lost, and I am hungry. Please do not shoot, Herr Kommandant!"

To be addressed by such a title of high rank seemed obviously to please the German, who held only a corporal's rank. He smiled and puffed out his chest a bit, and holstered his Luger.

"So, another little vagrant swine, eh?" he leered. "Where do you come from, boy? What are you doing in this area of the city where it is forbidden for civilians to go?"

Inwardly Dave longed to lash out with both fists at the flat leering face, but he had more sense than to ask for a bullet from the German corporal's Luger. Instead he played his part to the limit. He blinked and worked his mouth, and looked for all the world as though he were going to burst out in tears.

"I come from the south, Herr Kommandant," he said in a whimpering voice. "From Rotselner, near Louvain. Our farm, it was destroyed in the bombardment. I was separated from my family during the evacuation to Brussels. And when—and when—"

Dave purposely stumbled to a stop and gazed pleadingly at the German corporal.

"May I please put my hands down, Herr Kommandant?" he whined. "I am very tired. And I have hurt my leg, as you can see. Please?"

The German grunted and nodded his head.

"Put them down, then," he growled. "All you Belgians are babies about pain, anyway. Well? You went to Brussels? Why did you not stay there instead of coming up here to bother me, eh?"

Dave gestured miserably.

"The city was filled with refugees," he said. "They would not let any more inside the city limits. They turned us away, and ordered us to go elsewhere."

"So?" the German suddenly echoed as a sharp gleam leaped into his beady eyes. "And when was this? Last week, perhaps?"

Dave was expecting some sort of a trap, so he was prepared, and did not plunge headlong into it.

"No, Herr Kommandant," he said, and shook his head. "It was not just last week. It was a long time ago, last June. Ever since then I have been wandering around trying to find my father, and my mother, and my two sisters."

"And probably stealing all the time, eh?" the German snarled at him. "Yes, I know your kind. We come and save your country from the English dogs, and you thank us by stealing everything you can lay your hands on."

"No, no, I have not been stealing, Herr Kommandant!" Dave cried wildly. "I have been looking for work—any kind of work so I could earn money to pay for my bed and a little food. But there has not been much work to find."

"You mean you are too lazy!" the German corporal interrupted harshly. "You look big enough to work, but I know that you are simply lazy. All of your kind are lazy. So you decided to come up here to Antwerp and beg off us? You expected us to put food in your dirty mouth?"

"No, Herr Kommandant!" Dave protested with a whimper. "Only if I work for it. Yes, I am strong. I am willing to work, but there is so little work to be found these days. Farther south near Malines, I met a very kind German officer. He was in command of a tank division. He told me that his comrades in Antwerp would give me work to do. He said they would be glad to give me work so that I could pay for my bed and my food."

As soon as Dave stopped speaking, he realized that it had been a mistake to add the little lie about meeting a German officer. The corners of the corporal's mouth went down, and sneering disgust glittered in his eyes. He made a movement with his lips as though to spit.

"So you were told that, eh?" he suddenly rasped out. "Well, that officer should have tended to his tanks instead of giving foolish advice to stupid swine. We have enough trouble here in Antwerp. Too many mouths to feed as it is. You fool Belgians are so stupid. You have to be led around like cows. Yes, you should have rings put in your noses. Himmel! I shall be a happy man when my company is ordered elsewhere."

A sudden thought came to Dave, and he tried a new way of getting on the good side of the surly German corporal.

"You have been in many battles, Herr Kommandant?" he asked in a polite voice. "You have seen much excitement, and fought in many battles?"

It was instantly evident that this was the one wrong thing to ask. One of the soldiers tittered faintly, and the corporal's neck and face flushed a beet red. Undoubtedly he had yet to hear a shot fired, and had been sent to Antwerp for patrol duty long after the city had been taken by the real fighting forces of Adolf Hitler. He stood glaring, and Dave inwardly braced himself for the blow he expected to come. In a minute, however, the German managed to get control of his anger. But the wrong question by Dave had completely upset the apple cart. He had hoped that by getting on the good side of the corporal he might persuade the man to tell him some place to go and ask for work, and would be sent on his way. Thus he would be able to slip on through the patrol area and eventually lose himself in the city. But—

The apple cart had been tipped over.

"Fritz!" the corporal barked back over his shoulder. "Take him to the Central Detention Station and throw him inside. Tell Sergeant Mueller that I will be in later to make a report on him. Take him in the sidecar and return at once."

"Very good, Corporal," a voice said.

Then a skinny soldier with bulging eyes stepped forward and rammed Dave in the chest with the muzzle of his short but deadly field rifle. Dave whimpered and shrank back and looked appealingly at the corporal.

"But I have done nothing, Herr Kommandant!" he whined.

The corporal snorted and made a curt gesture with his hand.

"You were born!" he snapped. "And that was too much, as I see things. Take him away, Fritz!"

The soldier grinned and prodded Dave again with the barrel of his rifle.

"March in front of me!" he shouted. "Down the street. Try to run away and I will shoot you for a wild pig. March!"

White anger blazed up in Dave, but he still had sense enough to hold himself in check. He kept the frightened look on his dirt-smeared face, let his shoulders droop in cringing defeat, and went trudging along the sidewalk in front of the soldier. At the end of the block the soldier stopped him and made him get into the bucket of a sidecar parked around the corner. The soldier slung his rifle over his shoulder by the strap, forked the seat saddle and leered sideways at Dave.

"You will be a wise little boy to keep your hands clasped in your lap!" he barked. "Don't think that you'll have a chance to jump out and escape. You'll be another dead Belgian, if you try that."

"I shall not try to escape," Dave murmured meekly, and kept his eyes on his clasped hands.

"Then that will be good!" the soldier grunted, and kicked the engine of his army motorcycle into life.

Even if Dave had secretly nursed the idea of attempting an escape, he would promptly have abandoned any such idea once the soldier got the motorcycle and sidecar rolling down the street. The German acted little short of a madman. He streaked along like a bolt of lightning and took corners on one wheel. A dozen times, had not Dave grabbed frantically for support, he would have been bounced out on his head to meet with serious injury. It was an even wilder ride than he and Freddy had taken through the blazing bomb-blasted streets of Dunkirk just a few short months before.[2]

After a two mile ride that brought them straight into the heart of the city, the German braked to a screaming stop in front of a long flat-roofed building. A glance at it indicated that it had probably been used as a storehouse before the outbreak of war. In a way, as Dave learned a few minutes later, it was still being used as a storehouse, a storehouse for civilian prisoners taken by the Nazi troops occupying the city!

The soldier marched him in through the front door and past two giant-sized guards. The guards grinned at the soldier and raised their eyebrows questioningly. The soldier laughed harshly and nodded.

"Caught him trying to sneak through the forbidden area," the soldier said, and jerked his head at Dave. "Where is Sergeant Mueller? My corporal says that he will be in later to make a report."

One of the guards pointed at a door on the left.

"In there, and probably sleeping," he said with a mirthless chuckle. "Go and see him, and leave your little playmate with us. We will see that he has the best of care, eh, Hans?"

The other guard laughed and nodded his head vigorously.

"The very best, of course!" he cried. "We shall let him go and talk with some of his friends. Come along, you!"

A big hairy hand shot out and fingers of steel were curled around Dave's arm. He was almost jerked off his feet as the guard yanked him forward. He kept his balance, however, and was led to the far end of the short corridor into which they had entered. There the guard stopped, gave Dave a warning look, and took a ring of keys from his pocket. He selected a key and opened the door in front of him. Then, faster than moving light, he spun around and hit Dave across the back of the neck.

Stars flared up in Dave's brain, and he saw a sea of blurred faces as he went stumbling through the open door. He fell down a short flight of steps and landed hard on his hands and knees on a rough board floor. For a moment he stayed where he was, waiting for his head to clear. Then the hushed murmur of many voices and a cloying cloud of countless human smells brought his head up and made him get to his feet. He found himself in a huge, long room that contained at least a hundred others in as pitiful looking state as himself.

"There's another one of your comrades!" he heard the guard shout just before he slammed the door.

For a moment or two the hundred pairs of eyes searched Dave's face, and his heart ached as he realized why they were doing so. Here was a storehouse filled with war's driftwood, helpless refugees whose families had been either crushed or broken up by the onward rushing machine of war. Each man there was now searching his face and hoping in his heart to recognize a long lost brother, or father, or some other male relative.

Presently though, they dropped their eyes and went on with whatever they had been doing before he had been hurled into their midst. Nobody made any effort to speak to him, and he understood why. They were not shunning him, or anything like that. They were simply letting him alone with his own sorrows, as they wished to be let alone with theirs. What could they speak about, anyway? Each man's story was the same. There was no real difference. Each had been caught up in the toils of war—and here he was.

Dave swallowed the bitterness that rose in his throat and went over and sat down on a long row of hard wood benches that ran along one side of the wall. An old man sitting there, staring unseeingly at the floor, didn't so much as raise his eyes as Dave sat down. Save for the slight movement of his chest, caused by his breathing, he could have been a man dead. Perhaps in a way he was dead, too. His spirit had been killed by the Germans. Only the physical side of his body remained alive.

Dave flashed him a sympathetic glance, started to speak, but thought better of it. After all, what was there that even he could say? Certainly nothing that could give good cheer and heart to this poor old man. Then he thought of the case of emergency food still strapped in place about his waist, and his hand moved impulsively toward the inside of his shirt. He checked the movement, however. The old man looked half starved, but so did everybody else in the place. To take out his specially prepared emergency rations would start a riot, at least.

Then, too—and he felt a little ashamed as he thought of it—there was the matter of his own welfare. In a roundabout way he was fighting for these poor helpless derelicts of war, and for that reason among others he was forced to think of himself first. Right now he was in a tough spot. He was locked up in a Nazi detention prison. Perhaps fate had laughed in Freddy's face, too. Perhaps right now he also was eating his heart out in some other prison nearby. Yes, Dave was a Nazi prisoner, and he didn't dare even think of what would happen if he were exposed—if, for example, he were searched and his secret supply of food discovered, or the small compass, and pocket knife, and one or two other little things he had brought along just in case.

Each little article could well mean a short and snappy trial, and then a firing squad. He wasn't a civilian now, as he had been the last time he and Freddy had fallen into German hands. He was a commissioned Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force. And what was even more important, right now he was a spy, if ever there had been a spy.

And all of that added up to just one thing. He must get out of this place at all costs, and as soon as possible. It was no use now ranting at himself for not having thrown the incriminating articles away before entering the outskirts of the city. Too late for that, now. The main and important thing to concentrate his brain upon was how and when he was going to escape from this place.

He lifted his head and stared about. There were plenty of windows, but they were a good twelve feet from the floor. There were three doors at the rear of the place, but he couldn't see them very well because of the other refugees in the way. He was certain, however, that they must be securely locked or barred. The thought added to his misery, and he groaned aloud.

"It is of no use to complain, my son, even to oneself," a kindly yet sad voice said at his elbow. "It only adds to one's misery."

Dave turned to see watery blue eyes fixed upon him. The old man who had not moved a muscle as he sat down was now turned around and looking at him out of watery blue eyes that held a wealth of sympathy and a world of sorrow in their depths. Dave smiled and shrugged.

"I will try to get used to it," he said. Then, with a little wave of his hand, he asked, "They have been here long? And why are they here?"

The old man sighed heavily and shook his head.

"Some a day," he said. "Some a week or two. And some, like myself, for many months. Why are we here, you ask? For a thousand different reasons. Yet all the same. We are of no use to the Germans who have captured our beautiful city and driven us from our homes. We are only in their way. My son, look at me."

"I am looking at you, sir," Dave said and felt uncomfortable.

"And what do you see?" the other asked with bitterness in his voice. "An old man. An old, tired, and broken man. Yet, would you believe it, just a year ago I owned one of the finest perfume businesses in Antwerp. Yes, in all Belgium. I was a very rich man. And now, I am a broken old man."

"But there must be some way of getting out of this place," Dave said, and fought to keep the eagerness out of his voice. "There are only a few guards. And—and you could hide out some place in the city."

The old man smiled as though Dave were a little child asking questions about Santa Claus. He reached out a withered hand and patted Dave on the knee.

"We stay here because there is no other place to go," he said in a patient voice. "They at least give us a little food. No, it is not hard to get out of here. Those doors at the rear are not very strong. They could be knocked down without much trouble. But what then? All Antwerp is watched by the Nazis. Could we go to a friend's house? No. He would not dare let us in. Could we find food? No. The Germans have control over everything. They claim they are protecting us, but they are really breaking our spirits, and our bodies. It is all a part of their system. Escape? Of course. But it would be only a matter of hours before one would be caught—caught and shot down in the street like a mad dog. No, my son, I stay here and try to make the best of it. They may kill me, yes, but I shall not give them the satisfaction of my having them forced to do it."

A lump rose in Dave's throat, and near tears were hot against the backs of his eyeballs. He wanted to put his arm about the old man and do what he could to comfort him. But he feared to attract attention. The old man, and the other poor devils, were resigned to their fate. But not he. He knew now that Lady Luck was still hovering close. Escape was possible. Escape was easy, so it seemed. Escape would be his next bit of action. And, please God, the chance to act would come soon.