O’Malley answered the man in German. The fellow jumped and O’Malley laughed. Too late Stan kicked O’Malley warningly upon the shin. Stan frowned. He should have warned O’Malley. Now the man knew he could speak and understand German. Sim looked at O’Malley and laughed.
“It seems we will be able to get on very well with two of us speaking the native tongue,” he said.
“You talk Kraut?” O’Malley asked.
“Come, we waste time,” the German said. He moved into the barn with the boys at his heels.
The guide untied a horse and led it out through a back door. There, by the light of the stars, the boys saw a two-wheeled cart loaded with hay. The German hitched the horse to the cart.
“Hide in the hay,” he said.
The boys climbed into the cart and burrowed under the hay. Stan worked his way well forward with O’Malley and Sim close beside him. They were forced to lie very close together because the cart was narrow. They worked an opening for air and lay on the hard boards. The German spoke to the horse and the cart moved off.
The cart joggled over rutty roads for hours. Daylight began to show through the straw opening. Stan wiggled over against the slats on the side of the cart and poked a hole to look through. They were moving along a country lane. The cart turned out and a wagon passed. It was loaded with farm workers. Behind the wagon came a motorcycle and sidecar. A German soldier sat in the sidecar, while another, with a rifle slung across his back, drove the motorcycle. The driver shouted at the German on the seat of the cart, but he did not stop him.
O’Malley began squirming. He was in the middle and could see nothing at all.
“Be still!” Sim snapped. “You’ll shake hay loose and someone may become suspicious.”
O’Malley lay still but he made Stan tell him what he saw. They passed other wagons loaded with slave labor going to the fields, as well as many farmers, both men and women, on the way to work.
The German kept on driving and no one stopped him. Noon came and he still kept on. The boys were getting hungry and thirsty, but the driver did not halt. He pulled out a bag from under the seat and munched a sausage sandwich, washing the food down with draughts from a brown jug. O’Malley was able to see this.
“Sure, an’ I’ve a mind to reach up there an’ grab that sandwich,” he said hungrily.
“Better not,” Stan warned.
O’Malley held his appetite in check, but he kept on grumbling.
“Stop watching him eat,” Stan advised in a whisper.
“Sure, an’ I can’t take me eyes off that sausage sandwich. ’Tis the most appetizin’ thing I iver seen,” O’Malley said mournfully.
The cart rattled through a village and moved on down another narrow lane. Presently they came to a gate and the driver pulled up. Stan ducked back.
“German soldiers,” he whispered warningly.
The soldiers were shouting at the driver. He got down and began talking to them excitedly.
“They’re looking for escaped prisoners,” O’Malley whispered in Stan’s ear.
Three burly soldiers walked over to the cart and began thrusting their bayonets into the hay. Stan stiffened. If he was stabbed he meant to make no outcry. He felt the cold steel move across his body a few inches from his chest. It slipped back, then stabbed again. Stan was glad the bed of the cart had a ten-inch high board around it.
After more shouting and poking the driver got back on his seat and the cart moved forward.
“Boy,” Stan muttered. “That was a close shave.”
“I got a small cut,” Sim said.
“And you didn’t yell?” O’Malley spoke admiringly.
“It would have been the end for us if I had yelled,” Sim answered.
The cart continued to jog along slowly. Long shadows fell across the road and the cart passed many farmers returning from the fields.
“I could eat a boiled dog,” O’Malley grumbled.
“We’ll eat later,” Sim assured him.
Darkness settled slowly. The driver turned off the road into a narrower lane as soon as it was dark.
“No traveling is allowed after dark,” Sim explained. “We must be near our second station.”
The cart halted and the driver called to them.
“Come out now.”
They climbed out and flexed stiff muscles. O’Malley faced the driver.
“I’m hungry. Got any food?”
“Come with me,” the man said.
They entered a grove of trees and walked up to a tiny house. The house was dark but, with the aid of a flashlight, the guide located a trap door under some loose straw. He pulled it upward, revealing a stairs. The boys went down into a cellar where their guide lighted an oil lamp.
The cellar smelled stale but it had boxes to sit on and a table. There was a box on the table.
“Your food,” the German said, nodding toward the box.
He turned away and went upstairs again. They heard him close the door and rake straw over it. O’Malley opened the box at once. It contained a loaf of heavy bread, a few pieces of cold sausage and three boiled potatoes. Also there was a jug which contained milk.
Sim produced a heavy clasp knife and cut the bread. The boys made sandwiches and munched them. The jug was passed around and they drank out of it.
“Sure, an’ this is not a bad dinner,” O’Malley said. “It compares favorably with the last roast duck dinner I had in London.” He grinned at Stan.
After finishing their meal the boys sat waiting for their guide.
“He has to care for his horse and dispose of the hay,” Sim explained.
CHAPTER IX
TRAPPED
The boys left the cellar very soon after finishing their meal. Their guide led them down a country lane. They hiked along steadily for several hours, then detoured through a field, making a wide circle.
“We have to go around the patrol stations on the road,” Sim explained.
“It’s nice to have a guide who knows the way,” Stan said.
“I understand the patrol posts are cleverly hidden. Without a guide a man walking down the lane would trip an alarm wire and be caught in no time at all.” Sim seemed to know all about the methods used by the Nazis to trap anyone fleeing the country.
They kept walking until midnight. Then they rested for a half-hour, lying in a hedge beside the road. After midnight they moved more slowly. Several times they dived into the fields along the road to avoid patrols moving swiftly along the lane on motorcycles. Once they almost ran into a bicycle patrol. The cyclists did not make any noise and were upon the boys before they had time to duck. A leafy hedge saved them from being sighted.
“We will have to cross the Dutch border soon,” Sim said after talking with their guide.
“There won’t be much of a guard there, will there?” Stan asked. “The Germans have made Holland a part of Germany.”
“There is a strict border control,” the guide answered. “The Dutch are just pigs and are kept in their pen.”
“That’s what the Nazis say,” Sim added.
“Sure,” the guide agreed. “The Nazis say that.”
“How are we to get through?” Stan asked. “You must have a method which works.”
“Sure,” the guide said. “But it has always been risky. We may be separated. If we are separated, you will ask a Dutchman to take you to 76 Mamur in Arnhem. Do not speak to a Dutchman wearing a swastika. Ask only of a farmer or other working person.”
“We all will meet there,” Sim said. “After that, we will have no more trouble. The Dutch will take care of us.”
“Now we go,” the guide said.
“At any rate, we know where we are,” Stan said to O’Malley. “Arnhem isn’t so far from Rotterdam.”