SLIM leaned forward intently, staring at a thicket to one side. “Who’re you? Come out—hands up!” he shouted. “Get back, kid.”

A voice said, “It is not necessary. I vish to giff myself up—villingly.”

A young German airman stepped from behind the litter of broken cherry branches.

“Where’d you come from?” Slim demanded. “Keep those hands on your head.”

“I know who he is,” André cried. Then, to the stranger, “You’re the pilot who jumped from the Messerschmitt, aren’t you?”

The German nodded. “I vish to make no trouble. Please take my gun—a Luger only, in the holster.”

Slim snapped out the pistol. “Listen,” he demanded, “what gives here?”

The German said, “I haf vanted to giff up a long time now. I am glad you haff come.”

“Well,” Slim shrugged, “maybe you can explain that to the captain. Come on. March ahead of me to that schoolhouse yonder.”

When they reached the food dump, the prisoner was put under guard. Meanwhile Slim carried out the captain’s orders for food supplies. Slim pointed to the stacked cartons he had piled in the corner of the schoolhouse. “See nobody lays a hand on that. A jeep’ll be over to pick it up within an hour,” he told the commissary sergeant. He also asked for an extra guard to accompany them back to the captain. “He says he wants to give hisself up,” Slim said, “but how do we know he’s on the level?”

Drawing his own gun, Slim added to André, as he led the way, “Wouldn’t our flack gunners like to get a look at this Luftwaffe fellow?”

The prisoner smiled wryly. “Your flack gunners already haff seen me,” he said. “That is vhy I am here.”

On their return, Captain Dobie greeted the German with surprising enthusiasm. “I am delighted to see you,” he said. “You had us worried.”

“I vas vorried myself, sir,” the pilot replied.

A few minutes later the prisoner was dispatched to an interrogation center by jeep, with Weller and a guard.

Captain Dobie suggested that André find M. Blanc and tell him that the village could forget about that particular German pilot. “Glad to have him off my mind,” the captain added.

André found M. Blanc consulting with Victor near the end of the village and gave them the captain’s good news.

En route home through the fields, André found an almost undamaged yellow parachute. “How beautiful Marie will be in a dress of yellow silk!” he thought. And he folded it carefully, tucking the bulky load under his arm.

That evening, after supper, André took his trumpet into the kitchen. He gathered cleaning rags and polish, and rubbed and cleaned the brass of the horn. When the tubes had been cleared and the metal gleamed, he piped a little trill of lonely notes.

They made him feel no better, and he tried a Normandy dance tune.

He heard the clump of feet behind him and Slim’s voice. “Holy cow! Where did you get that horn?”

André put the trumpet down shyly. Slim picked it up carefully and rubbed the mouthpiece with his sleeve.

“Can you play a trumpet?” André asked curiously.

“Waal ... I used to play some in the school band in Pecos, Texas. Matter of fact, I was pretty good. Shall I give ’er a try?”

André jumped when a ringing peal of notes rose from the brass to the rafters. The notes slid down the scale, and Slim broke loudly into “Turkey in the Straw.”

Weller’s bellow rose even above the music’s vibrations. “Stop that racket!” Slim guiltily took the horn from his lips. The sergeant shouted, “Captain’s on the phone to headquarters.”

“Tell you what, André,” Slim whispered. “Suppose we go try this out somewhere?”

For the next hour, in the dimly lit springhouse, André enjoyed himself more than he had for weeks. And when Slim said, “Time for bed now,” André had learned half of Slim’s pet song, which was something about Texas.

Next morning, André found that a thick fog, almost a drizzle, hung over the treetops. The soft gray mist hid the harsh destruction of the landscape.

André went out to find Raoul at work patching the Coty roof. “Just help me with this thatch, will you?” Raoul called.

André gladly climbed up the old ladder with an armful of straw while Raoul chattered.

But a moment later he stopped listening to Raoul’s talk. Somewhere in the fog, he had detected the uncertain throbbing of a plane’s engine.

André had learned half of Slim’s pet song

He sat still to follow the sound. The plane was flying in wide circles, steadily coming in lower.

In a drift of the mist, André caught a glimpse of the markings—a white star.

“He’s in trouble, Raoul. That’s an American plane,” André cried.

“How could he be in trouble?” Raoul objected. “He’s still in the sky, is he not?”

But listening closely, he too, heard the engine sputter. “That engine needs repairs!” he declared disapprovingly.

Hastily, André shouted, “DUCK!”

Their heads went down as the plane’s wings, trailing wisps of fog, swept close overhead. André had just time to make out a high-wing monoplane with patches and holes in its fabric covering.

The plane banked, sailed over a field behind the Coty house, and was set down expertly.

André was already scrambling down the ladder.

He pelted across the meadow with no thought of danger. Racing toward the plane, he thought only that the pilot might be hurt. Through the plexiglass enclosure of the little ship, André saw a blond young fellow, in an odd, peaked cap.

At the sound of pounding footsteps, the pilot whirled, an automatic suddenly in his hand and pointed at André.