  While the sound of voices from below grew louder, Jock said in a steady voice: “He was changin’ to civies.” “His uniform must be hidden somewhere close,” suggested Dave. “Aye. That it must,” Jock agreed. Brand was not long in locating the uniform half hidden by dead leaves. In a pocket he found an automatic. “It’s good he didn’t have that in his hand,” said the sturdy Scot, “else I shouldn’t ha’e been here. I caught him doin’ the lightnin’ change act. “Plannin’ to do the spy act, eh?” He spoke to the man on the ground. The answer was a surly curse. “All right.” Brand spoke quietly to the dog. “Let him up.” Flash looked at Jock, read an answer in his eyes, then left his post. “Get up.” There was a sound like clinking steel in the English lad’s voice. “He knocked me over,” Jock explained quietly. “That was easy enough, an’ me with but one leg. Then he went on to finish me off. He’s got astonishin’ strong hands, that lad has. He’s all for shakin’ a man. If it hadn’t been fer good auld Flash now—” “He would have killed you.” Chilled hate was in Brand’s voice. All of a sudden hands parted the branches of a small oak and there stood the brawny blacksmith from Warmington, the village below Ramsey Farm. He carried an antique fowling-piece. “So you got one of ’em? That’s grand, me boys!” he approved. “Where now would you say the others be?” By that time a dozen members of the Home Guard had gathered in. “My friend from America, David Barnes, has one of them just up here a little way,” Brand replied. “I’ll say you’ve done a fine job of it,” the blacksmith approved. “And now then.” He turned to the prisoner. “What may your name be?” He drew pencil and notebook from his pocket. For a moment the Nazi stood sullenly silent. “Come now,” the blacksmith insisted. “It’s part of the regulations.” “Hans Schlitz,” came in a low, defiant voice. “Hans Schlitz!” The words sprang unbidden from Brand’s voice. “That’s the name of the prisoner who worked on our farm during the World War!” “I’m his son,” the prisoner snarled. “I’ve paid you a visit to square accounts. I’m sorry we missed.” “So you meant to bomb our house!” Brand stared almost in unbelief. “Why not? Your father treated my father, a prisoner of war, like a dog.” “That,” said the gray-haired blacksmith, “is not the truth. I mind it well. He was housed and fed as one of the family. He worked no harder than the men of the household. He—” “That’s a lie!” the prisoner snarled. A crimson flush o’erspread the giant blacksmith’s face. He took a step forward. Then he muttered low—“No. It won’t do. Not at all it won’t do. Not to be brawlin’ with a swine like him.” He stood there for a moment, head bowed as if in prayer. Then his head lifted as he said: “Here you, Bill and Hugh, take this fellow to the guard house. “The rest of you,” he waved an arm, “spread out an’ search for the one that’s still free. There was three of them, you all mind countin’.” There was a murmur of assent. Then they were away. “Come on,” Brand said to Dave after the first man they had captured had been turned over to the blacksmith and a companion. “All this leaves me a bit groggy. Think of their deliberately planning to blow our house off the map!” “Terrible!” Dave agreed. “And my father did treat that prisoner well,” Brand said. “I remember his telling of it many times. We saw where their plane cracked up.” Brand’s voice rose. “Finding that plane is important. That third fellow may have been there and finished wrecking it. If not, we’ll be the first to look it over.” The discovering of the wreck was no great task. The plane had cut a path through a cluster of young trees. In doing this it had stripped off its wings, but its cabin, motor, and instrument board had been left in fair condition. “The R. A. F. will want to look at this,” Brand said. “They’ll want to know if the Huns have discovered any new tricks,—a bomb sight, or something like that.” He tried the cabin door. It stuck. Seizing a bar from the smashed landing gear he pried the door open. As he did so something fell at his feet. It was a long, flat pigskin billfold. Throwing back the flap, he pulled out a handful of papers. The first of these appeared to be some sort of flying orders. He could not read the German print, but the names, written in by hand, were plain enough. “Fritz Steinbeck,” the boy read aloud. “That may be the dark-haired fellow we caught first.” “What are the other names?” Dave asked. “Hans Schlitz, and Nicholas Schlitz. Sayee—” Brand stared. “They may be brothers.” “And they are!” he exclaimed in a low, tense whisper ten seconds later. “Look! Here’s their picture together.” He held up a thin card. “Look almost like twins,” Dave suggested. “Nope,” Brand concluded after a second look. “The one we caught is the older of the two. I only hope,” his brow wrinkled, “that they get this fellow Nicholas. If they don’t—well—” he heaved a deep sigh. “His name may be Nicholas, but for us, if he harbors a grudge, as his brother surely does, he may prove to be Old Nick, the devil himself.” He did his best to suppress a shudder. “I’ll put this in my pocket.” He stowed the billfold away. “Turn it in at the airport tomorrow. Mother will be down tonight. I want to talk the affair over with her. “Hey, you!” he called a moment later as a boy who could scarcely have been past sixteen put in an appearance. “You’ve got a gun.” “That I have,” the boy grinned. “Want a job?” “That I do. I’m tired of tramping.” “Right. You just keep an eye on this wreck until someone from the R. A. F. comes along.” “A Royal Air Force man.” The boy grinned again. “I’ll sure enough be glad to meet one.” “You’ll get a chance, all right,” Brand promised. “They won’t miss this.” To Dave he said: “Come on. We’ll go down now.” They made their way through the shadows cast by young trees in silence. Arrived at the upper side of the broad meadow overlooking the homestead and the village beyond, as if struck by the beauty of the view, they paused to stand there motionless. How different were their thoughts at that moment! The American boy was thinking: “How strangely beautiful it all is, as if it had been arranged with great care so that a famous artist might paint it.” It was just that—the farmhouse built of native stone, centuries old, stood in the midst of orchards and gardens all green and gold with the colors of autumn. Brightest speck of all was Cherry sitting on the gray rocks. “How like a sprite she is,” Dave was thinking. “And how like an angel she can sing!” Beyond the farmstead was a broad, green pasture dotted with black and white cattle. To the right of this its walls shattered but still upright, a great, gray Norman castle cast a long, dark shadow. “It’s like the shadow of war on a weary world,” the boy thought. As his gaze turned to the left his face brightened. “The village,” he whispered. Never before, he thought, had there been such a village. With its winding street following the whimsical meandering of a narrow stream, with its houses set irregularly along hillsides that sloped away on either side, with gardens running back to the edge of a great grove of beech, oak and yew trees, it all seemed part of a picture-book dream. “And yet,” he thought, “the people in that village are quite human. They are kind, simple and good. The baker, the blacksmith, the cobbler, and all the rest,—how really wonderful they are! And so kind to a stranger! And yet,”—He was thinking what it might be like tomorrow, or the day after—if the war lasted. And it would last! As for Brand, he was thinking quite simply and steadfastly, “That’s my home down there. It’s always been my home—has been the home of my people for generations. And yet, if the purpose of one man, or perhaps two, had been carried out on this perfect autumn day, it would have been no home—only a pile of rocks. And beneath that pile would have been the crushed forms of three persons I love.” “This,” he said aloud, “is war. Come on.” His voice was hoarse. “Let’s get on down.” |
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