ance back over his shoulder and
instantly gave the engine all the gas it could take.

"A lucky charm you are indeed!" he shouted and hunched forward over the
wheel. "If you had not put sense in my head, and I had not turned off
on to this road, we would have run right into them. And that would have
been bad, very bad. Name of the Saints, the Lieutenant will reduce me to
a corporal when he hears of this!"

Neither Dave nor Freddy bothered to make any comment. To tell the truth
they were too busy hanging on tight and trying to stay in the car as it
rocketed forward seeming virtually to leap across shell holes in the
road. The Sergeant perhaps did not have very many brains but he
certainly knew how to handle that small scouting car. He skipped across
shell holes, dodged and twisted about trees blown down across it, and
roared right through scattered wreckage of bombed supply trucks and the
like as though they weren't even there. And all the time the machine gun
farther back snarled and yammered out its song of death.

The pursuing Germans had swung on to their road and were now striving
desperately to overtake them. Dave stuck his head up to see if they had
gained, but before he could see anything Freddy grabbed him around the
waist and practically threw him down onto the floor of the car.

"Stay down, Dave!" the English youth shouted above the roar of the
little car's powerful engine. "We've ducked enough bullets for one day.
Don't be crazy!"

Dave grinned sheepishly and nodded.

"That was dumb!" he said. "You're right, and thanks!"

As the last left his lips a burst of bullets whined low over the car.
Dave gulped and ducked his head.

"Thanks, and how!" he yelled. "Boy, those were close. If I'd been
looking back they might ... _Hey!_"

At that moment the little car turned sharply to the right and seemed to
zoom right up into the air. It came down with a crashing jolt. A shower
of bush branches slithered down on the boys and they were tossed around
in the back of the car like two peas in a pod. Puffing and panting, they
struggled to brace themselves before they were pitched out head over
heels. No sooner would they get a firm hold on something than the scout
car would careen up on its side and go darting off in another direction,
and they would be bounced around again.

For a good ten minutes they tore through the darkening twilight first
this way and then that way. Then suddenly the violent jolting ceased
abr