t 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 glass, 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 hims