of the world of dull constant sound, and the
shimmering glow of red to the east and to the south. There was more
sound, and a more brilliant glow of red to the south, and as they heard
it and saw it their hearts became even lighter. If there was all that
sound to the south it must mean that the Germans had not been able to
cut off the retreating armies at Dunkirk. And of course that was true,
for as they trudged and stumbled along the bomb blasted strip of spur
railroad track some fifty thousand do or die British soldiers were
holding back the savagely attacking German hordes at Douai, and at the
Canal de Bergues, so that some three hundred and thirty thousand of
their comrades might escape the trap from Dunkirk and reach England in
safety.

Of course Dave and Freddy didn't know _that_ at the time. Yet, perhaps
they sensed it unconsciously, for their step did become faster, their
hearts lighter, and the hope they would get through somehow mounted
higher and higher in their thoughts. And so on and on they went. A
thousand times they stumbled over things in the darkness; went pitching
together down into bomb craters, or barked their shins and raised lumps
on their tough bodies. Always forward, though. They stopped talking to
conserve their energy, for they had no idea how many miles of bomb
blasted roadbed lay ahead of them. The fog and the rain dulled the sound
of the guns so that they couldn't tell if they were drawing nearer or
actually heading away from them. And although they looked at it a
million times apiece the dull red glow ahead of them seemed always to
remain the same. It never once brightened up or faded down. It got so
that it seemed as though they were walking on a treadmill. Walking,
walking, yet never seeming to get any place. Never seeing anything
different to give them proof they had covered ground. Every piece of
twisted track they stumbled over was the same as the last. A bomb crater
into which they fell sprawling was no different from all the others. And
the darkness, the fog, the rain, the boom of the guns, and the
shimmering red glow were always the same in the next second, in the next
minute, and in the next hour.

Grit, courage, and a fighting spirit resolved never to give up, forced
them forward foot after foot, yard after yard, and mile after mile. Even
thoughts ceased to stir in their brains, and there was nothing there but
the fierce burning flame that drove their tired legs and bodies forwa