let's go," Stan said. He was trying to remember
if Sim Jones had ever talked to him about his past. He could not
remember the flier ever having said much about himself.

The German took the lead and they followed him out through a back door.
They walked down a path and came to a small barn. Stan heard a horse
snort. The German spoke softly to Sim in German.

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 hal