  In the meantime, quite ignoring the battle in the sky, two streaks of red and gold—Cherry the girl, and Flash the dog—had gone racing down the slope. In her golden sweater and red plaid skirt the girl seemed little more than a sprite. The collie might well have been her golden shadow. That she was quite a real person she herself knew full well. Her painfully beating heart told her that. Even as she raced on, her eyes were searching the ruins that had once been the playhouse of her childhood. They were looking for some trace of red or blue calico,—shocking proof that her fears had been well founded and that two small girls had been in the playhouse at the time the bomb fell. It was only after she had reached the top of the stile leading from the field to the house that she caught a loud: “Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo, Cherry!” One look, and she crumpled down on the stile steps to burst into a flood of tears, tears of pure joy. All gay in red and blue calico Tillie and Peggy stood in the farmhouse doorway. A moment more and they had left the house to come racing toward Cherry. In the meantime the fighting planes had gone beyond the hill, quite out of her sight. Soon she was hugging two tumble-haired young sprites to her bosom, and exclaiming: “Tillie! Peggy! You are safe! I was, Oh! So afraid!” “But the playhouse is all blowed up.” Tillie dabbed at her eyes. “Yes!” exclaimed Peggy, dancing a jig. “But were we bombed! And was it exciting! Just like fireworks! Only bigger! Much louder! There was smoke, and then Oops! Up went everything!” In vast astonishment Cherry stared at this small bit of humanity from the slums of London. Her eyes were on the child for a full minute. Then, mustering up her courage she managed a low chuckle. Then, springing to her feet, she cried: “Come on! Let’s go see! We’ll make it a race!” And so the four of them, three girls and a dog, went racing away. When at last they stood by the ruins of what had once been a grand playhouse, almost a living thing to her, Cherry was ready to weep. How very much that playhouse had meant to her! It was only an abandoned smoke-house, with the pleasant odor of burning wood and smoking meat still clinging to it, but she had made of it a sort of second home. What grand times she and Alice had known there! And of late, how Tillie and Peggy had gloried in it! They had called it “Home of our Dolls.” “The dolls!” Cherry exclaimed as she recalled it all. “Where are they?” As if in answer to her appeal, the dog, Flash, went racing about to return almost at once with the remains of a doll held lightly between his teeth. “Oh! Poor Wilhelmina!” Peggy cried. “She has lost her head!” “Yes,” said a sober voice behind her. “And if those terrible Nazis had succeeded as they hoped to, in dropping a bomb on our house you and I would have been minus our heads too.” It was a tall, strongly built girl in her late teens who spoke. She wore a blue calico apron. Her hands were white with flour. “Alice!” Cherry demanded, as a look of terror came into her eyes. “Do you really think they meant to bomb the house?” “Of course they did!” “Why? What have we done?” “They did it because we belong to England. They hate all of England. They will destroy every bit of England if they can!” The girl’s voice rose. “But they can’t! They shall not. There will always be an England!” At that moment the plain, strongly built girl with flour on her hands appeared transformed. No Joan of Arc could have looked stronger, more daring, than she. Cherry looked at the headless doll and was silent. In the meantime, racing breathlessly, the two boys watched the drifting of the white enemy parachutes across the sky. It had seemed at first that they would land not so far from the spot where they had stood. But a brisk wind carried them farther and farther away. “It’s going to be a race,” Brand panted, “but we’ve just got to make it. They may—may be spies. They—they must not escape!” After climbing the sloping pasture they came to a place of scattered shrubs and trees. At last the parachute nearest them vanished behind a broad beech-tree. “Come on!” Dave spurted ahead. “It’s now or never!” At last, bursting out from behind a clump of trees they came upon a silken bag lying on the ground. At the same time a dark shadow vanished into a clump of low shrubs. Without a word the boys separated, one going right, the other left. The clump was small. One or the other would come upon the man. And then— It was Brand’s luck to meet the man face to face. He was young,—not more than two years Brand’s senior. There was a savage, haunted look on his face. “All right!” he growled, showing his teeth like an angry dog, “You asked for it. You get it!” All this in guttural English. An automatic gleamed in his hand. The English boy did not move. The automatic rose, jerkily but steadily. Now it was aimed at the boy’s feet,—now at his thigh—his belt—and now— At that instant something with the force of an avalanche struck the Nazi flier across the knees. As he went crashing to earth the automatic exploded harmlessly, then fell into the tall grass. Ten seconds later both Brand and Dave were holding the man down, as Brand panted: “Tha—that was a capital stroke, Dave! I sup—suppose you’d call that a tackle!” “Right,” Dave agreed. “It’s really quite old stuff. They do it in the movies. I guess you’d call it a part of our American way of living.” He laughed softly. Brand went over the Nazi flier for weapons. Finding none, he searched in the grass, found the automatic, then turning about, said: “You may get up.” The reply was an ugly snarl. But the man, who wore a pilot’s insignia, stood up. “Mind leading the way?” Brand said to Dave. “Certainly not.” Turning his back on the prisoner Dave started toward the farmhouse. “All right, you. March!” Brand snapped. The prisoner followed Dave. With Brand bringing up the rear, they had not gone a dozen paces when from somewhere, not far distant, there came a most astounding roar. Starting in sudden shock, Brand all but dropped his weapon. “Wha—what’s that?” Dave’s voice trembled as he came to a dead stop. “That’s old Jock! Something terrible is happening. Here!” Brand thrust the automatic into Dave’s hand. “You know how to use it. Press the handle, that’s all. March him down into the pasture. Don’t hesitate to shoot. This is war—our war!” He was gone. As he dashed through the brush, Brand felt his blood fairly boiling in his veins. “If anything serious has happened to good old Jock,” he thought savagely, “if one of those devils harms the old man I’ll tear him to pieces with my bare hands!” Since no further sound reached him, guided only by that one agonizing roar, he made his way as best he could along the slope. Then breaking through a cluster of young beech-trees, he stopped short to stare. The little tableau before him seemed unreal. It might have been taken from some picture. A young man dressed in civilian clothes, minus a coat, lay flat upon the ground. His eyes gleaming, white teeth showing in a snarl, a golden collie lay with his fore-paws on the prostrate man’s chest. Over them, leaning on his crutch, towered a great gray-haired one-legged Scot. He was saying: “Keep ’im Flash! Don’t ye let ’im stir an inch!” At the same moment, from the pasture below came the confused murmur of many voices. This was followed by a shout: “Come on, men. They’re ’iding up ’ere somewheres!” |
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