Dave Dawson at Dunkirk.
by Robert Sydney Bowen.
CHAPTER ONE
_Hitler Gives The Order!_
The first thing Dave Dawson saw when he woke up was the combination clock and calendar on the little table beside his bed. He stared at it sleepy eyed and tried to remember why he had put it where he would see it the very first thing when he opened his eyes. He knew there was some reason, an important one, but for the life of him he couldn"t remember.
He struggled with the problem for a moment or two and then sat up in bed and glanced about the room. For one brief second the unfamiliar sight startled him. Then he realized where he was and grinned broadly. Sure enough! This was his room in the Hotel de Ney in Paris, France. This was just a little part of the wonderful dream that had really come true!
The "dream" had begun two weeks ago. It had begun with the thundering roar of the _Dixie_ Clipper"s four engines that had lifted Dave and his father from the waters of Port Washington Bay, Long Island, on the first leg of the flight across the Atlantic to Lisbon, Portugal. His father had been sent to Europe on a government mission, and after much coaxing and pleading had consented to take Dave along. The thrill of a lifetime, and during every minute of these last two weeks Dave Dawson had been living in a very special kind of Seventh Heaven.
To fly to a Europe at peace was something, but to fly to a Europe at war was something extra special. It was a trip a fellow would remember all the days of his life. It was an adventure that he"d tell his grandchildren all about some day. The Clipper roaring to a landing at Bermuda, then on to the Azores, and then farther eastward to Lisbon. The train journey across Portugal to Spain, then up across Spain and over the Pyrenees into France. Finally on to Paris and all the beautiful things that beautiful city had to offer.
Not all of the things, however, had been beautiful. There were lots of things that were grim looking and made a fellow think a lot. The things of war. True, the war was a long, long ways from Paris. It was far eastward between the great Maginot Line of the French and the Siegfried Line of Adolf Hitler"s n.a.z.i legions. There it had remained for eight months, now, and people were saying that there it would remain. Hitler would never dare attack the Maginot Line, and eventually the war would just peter out.
Yes, that was the talk you heard all over Paris, but the grim things were there for you to see with your own eyes just the same. The batteries of anti-aircraft guns strategically placed about the city. The fat sausage balloons that could be sent up to great heights as a barricade against raiding German bombers, should Hitler ever decide to send them over. Then too there were the French Flying Corps planes that patrolled almost constantly over the city day and night. The army trucks, and small tanks that rumbled through the suburbs day after day.
The lorries filled with solemn eyed French troops going up to battle stations. And at night ... the black out. No lights on the streets save the tiny blue flashlights that the people carried. At first it made you think of a crazy kind of fairyland. Then the faint _crump-crump_ of a distant anti-aircraft battery going into action, and the long shafts of brilliant light stabbing the black skies, would remind you that France was at war, and that danger might come to Paris, though as yet it had not even come close. But....
At that moment the musical chimes of the French alarm clock cut into his thoughts. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was exactly fifteen minutes of seven. He glanced at the calendar, too, and it told him that the date was May 10th, 1940.
May Tenth! In a flash the elusive bit of memory came back to him. He let out a whoop of joy and flung back the covers and leaped out of bed. May Tenth, of course! Gee, to think that he had actually forgotten. Why, today was doubly important, and how! For one thing, he was now exactly seventeen years old. For the other, that swell French officer, Lieutenant Defoe, of the 157th Infantry Regiment, was going to take Dad and himself on a personally conducted tour of the famous Maginot Line!
The Lieutenant had said he would come by the hotel at seven thirty sharp. That"s why he had put the clock so close to his bed! To make sure he would hear the alarm, in case his dad in the next room over-slept.
Heck, yes! Seventeen years old, and a trip to the Maginot Line!
He danced a jig across the room to the tall mirror that reached from the floor to the ceiling and took the stance of a fighter coming out of his corner for the knock-out round. For a couple of minutes he shadow boxed the reflection in the gla.s.s, then whipped over a crushing, finishing right and danced back.
"Boy oh boy, do I feel good!" he cried happily and tore off his pajamas.
"Bring on your Joe Louis. Hot diggity, the Maginot Line. Me! Oh boy!"
In almost less time than it takes to tell about it he was bathed and fully dressed and ready to go. He started for the door leading into his father"s room but checked himself as he saw the camera on the bureau. He took a step toward it, then snapped his fingers as he remembered Lieutenant Defoe had said that the Maginot Line was one place where even the President of France could not take a camera. For a second he was tempted to take one anyway, but sober judgment quickly squelched that idea. He knew that Lieutenant Defoe had gone to a lot of trouble to get permission for him and his father to visit that great string of fortresses, and it would be pretty cheap to do anything that would get the Lieutenant in wrong.
So he left the camera where it was, caught up his hat, and went over to the connecting door and knocked loudly.
"Rise and shine in there, Mister!" he called out. "Big doings today, remember? Are you up, Dad?"
There was no sound save the echo of his own voice. He knocked again and shouted, "Hey, Dad!" but there was still no sound from the room beyond.
He hesitated a moment, then grasped the k.n.o.b and pushed the door open.
"Hey, Dad, get...!"
An empty room greeted his amazed gaze. The bed hadn"t been slept in. As a matter of fact there was not a single sign that the room had been occupied. There were no clothes in the closet, no toilet articles and stuff on the dresser, and not even any traveling bags. The sudden shock made his heart contract slightly, and for a long moment he could do nothing but stare wide eyed at the vacant room.
"Can I be dreaming?" he heard his own voice murmur. "This is Dad"s room.
I said good night to him here last night. But, there"s no one here.
Dad"s gone, for cat"s sake. _Hey, Dad!_"
All that he got for his extra loud shout was a m.u.f.fled voice protesting violently in French, and an angry pounding on the floor of the room above. He closed his Dad"s door and went down the stairs three at a time and straight across the lobby floor to the desk.
"Have you seen my Father?" he asked the girlish looking man at the desk.
The girlish looking man didn"t hear. He was talking on the telephone.
Talking a blue streak with his hands as well as his mouth. In fact, in order to make full use of both his hands the clerk had dropped the receiver and was giving all of his attention to the mouth piece. He looked like he was trying to do the Australian Crawl right into it and down the wire to whoever was at the other end of the line.
Dave grinned and stood watching the clerk. The words came out like a string of machine gun bullets. Much, much too fast for Dave to line them up in a sentence that made sense. He caught a word here and there, however, and presently the grin faded from his face. He heard the name, _Holland_, and _Belgium_. He heard _n.a.z.i cows_. He heard _Maginot Line_, and _Siegfried Line_. And a whole lot of the girlish looking clerk"s personal opinions of Hitler, and Goering, and Hess, and Goebbels, and everybody else in n.a.z.i Germany.
He did not hear a lot, but he heard enough, and his eyes widened, and his heart began to thump against his ribs in wild excitement. He banged on the desk and shouted at the clerk, but he might just as well have shouted at the moon. The clerk was far, far too busy trying to swim down the telephone cord.
Dave started to yell even louder but at that moment a hand took hold of his arm and swung him around. He found himself staring into the flushed, good looking face of Lieutenant Defoe. The French officer was breathing hard and there was a strange look in his eyes that checked the happy greeting on Dave"s lips.
"Hey, what"s wrong, Lieutenant?" he asked instead. "That clerk acts like he"s going nuts. And, say, Dad isn"t in his room. Not even any of his things."
"I know, _mon Capitaine_," Lieutenant Defoe said and held onto his arm.
"Come. First we shall have some breakfast, and then I will explain all."
The fact that Defoe was there, and that the French officer had called him by the kidding t.i.tle of My Captain soothed the tiny worry that was beginning to grow inside Dave.
"Okay, Lieutenant, I am starved at that," he said as the officer led the way to the breakfast room. "But, that clerk. He was shouting something about the Germans in Holland and Belgium, and.... Hey, my gosh! Has. .h.i.tler invaded the Lowlands?"
"Early this morning," Defoe said gravely. "Another of his promises broken, but we expected it, of course. Yes, _mon Capitaine_, now France will truly go to war. Here, sit there. Let me order. They are perhaps excited a little this morning, and I will get better results."
Dave waited until the French officer had ordered for them both and put the fear of the devil in the lumbering and thoroughly fl.u.s.tered waitress. Then he leaned forward on the table.
"What about Dad, Lieutenant?" he asked. "Is anything wrong? I mean, is he all right?"
The French officer nodded and wiped beads of sweat from his face with a huge colored handkerchief. It was then Dave saw how tired and weary the man looked. His eyes were drawn and haggard. His funny little mustache seemed even to droop from fatigue. Despite his natty uniform, and the two rows of shiny medals, the Lieutenant looked as though he had not slept for days.
"Yes, your father is well, and safe," Defoe finally said through a mouthful of hard roll. "He is in England."
Dave spilled some of the water he was drinking.
"England?" he gasped. "Dad is in England?"
"In London," Defoe said and crammed more roll into his mouth. "It was all very sudden. Be patient, _mon Capitaine_, and I shall try to explain. First, a thousand pardons for not arriving sooner, but I was delayed at the War Ministry. And there was not one of those cursed taxis we have in Paris, so I was forced to run all the way. You were surprised and alarmed to find your father gone, eh?"
"I was knocked for a loop," Dave said with a grin. "But, look, tell me.
Why in thunder did Dad go to London? Because of the German invasion into Holland and Belgium?"
"No," Defoe said. "Some business with your American Amba.s.sador there.
What, I do not know. We were in the lounge having a good night gla.s.s of wine just after you had gone to bed. A wireless message arrived. Your father said that he had to leave for London at once. An Emba.s.sy car took him to Calais where he could embark on a destroyer. He said that he would be gone for three days. You were asleep and he did not wish to wake you. He asked me to take his room, and to be your companion until he returned. He said he would write you from London. He said it was just a quick business trip and nothing for you to worry about."
"Yes, yes," Dave said, trying to keep his voice polite. "But what now?"
Lieutenant Defoe gestured expressively with a b.u.t.ter knife in one hand and a piece of roll in the other.
"Now, everything is changed, _mon Capitaine_," he said. "In a few hours you and I shall drive together to Calais. There I shall salute you and bid you farewell. A British destroyer will take you to Dover. And from there to London you shall travel by train. Your father will meet you at the station in London. What you will do then, I do not know. Your father did not honor me with the information."