Camp X (20 page)

I burst off the road, taking a step in one direction before realizing that Jack was running across the road in the other. I skidded around and raced after him.

“Wait!” yelled the Chief. “Stop!”

I raced down the shoulder of the road, almost tumbling onto my face as I hit the ditch at the bottom, and scrambled up the other side. I braced myself, waiting for the sound of a bullet and the searing pain as it entered my back. Instead, tree branches smacked into me, stinging my face, as I broke into the cover of the forest.

“Come back!” the Chief yelled.

I staggered forward, desperately trying to gain some ground in the pitch black. I tripped and landed heavily on the forest floor with something hard sticking into my side. Then I scrambled forward on all fours, not knowing where I was going but certain I needed to get farther from the road. Finally my hands slipped out from under me and I fell into a puddle of shallow water. I raised my head and didn't move. I just listened. There was no sound. Not the noise of somebody coming after me, no sounds of the forest, not even the sound of breathing . . . I realized I was holding my breath.

“Listen to me, boys!” the Chief's voice bellowed out. “I didn't mean to scare you! Come on back to the road. I need to get you home to your mother! She's worried sick about you!”

I'd forgotten all about Mom. She had to be scared to death wondering what had happened to us.

“Whatever mischief you boys have gotten into can't be that bad! You come out now and everything will be forgotten. I'll just drive you home . . . okay?”

I
did
want to go home . . . and he sounded sincere. Maybe we'd just overreacted. And he'd be able to warn them at the camp. He wasn't a spy . . . just because his family had once come from Germany. So had ours! Besides, if he was a spy I was sure that the people at the camp would have known— and yet they hadn't known about Mr. Krum.

I looked all around me in the dark. Somewhere out there, maybe just a dozen feet away, was Jack. He'd know what we should do.

“Come on, boys, we can't wait here all night . . . don't make me come in there and get you. Then I
will
be mad!”

That sealed it for me. I wasn't going back to the road, and I couldn't just wait there, in case he did come after us. I slowly rose to my feet. I was just going to keep moving farther into the forest, farther away from the Chief. I took a few steps and then froze. That also meant I was probably moving farther away from my brother.

I turned my head away from the road. “Jack!” I hissed. There was no answer.

“Jack!” I called out, louder.

“What was that?” Obviously the Chief had heard me. “Are you trying to find your way out? I'll keep talking so you can come toward my voice!”

I caught a glimpse of the moon through the trees. Jack had said we should just keep moving and keep the moon on our left and we'd be able to find the camp. I started to walk slowly, the moon over my left shoulder, the Chief's booming voice directly behind me. I'd keep moving away quietly and then stop and call out for Jack when I was farther from the road and safe.

It wasn't long before the Chief's voice started to fade. I kept moving until I couldn't hear him at all. Either I'd put enough space between us, or he'd stopped calling—or both. The trees started to thin out, and without the canopy above me more light was hitting the forest floor to brighten my path. Up ahead I could see that the trees and bush gave way completely to an open field. Was this the camp? No, it couldn't be . . . I hadn't hit the railroad embankment yet. The embankment—that was what would guide me! Once I hit the embankment I'd simply follow the tracks until I hit one of the culverts and then head along the road!

I stopped at the edge of the field, which was bathed in the bright moonlight. It would be easy to see my way, but I would also be visible to anybody as I crossed the field. That could be good—if it was Jack who was looking for me—or bad. There were other people heading for the camp too, people I never wanted to see again. Either way, I couldn't stay there.

I'd just taken my first step into the field when I heard some sounds off to the side. I swivelled my head to look but I couldn't see anything. The sound continued. Somebody or something was moving through the bush. Slowly I lowered myself to the ground and took shelter in the knee-high grass. Whatever it was, it was coming closer. I flattened myself until only the very top of my head protruded out of the grass. As long as I stayed perfectly still, perfectly quiet, I knew that something could practically bump right into me without seeing me. I just—

“Jack!” I screamed, jumping up from my hiding spot. I ran over and threw my arms around him. “I was so scared, and—”

“Be quiet, you little idiot!” he hissed. “He's right behind us!”

“Who?”

“The Chief,” he whispered. “He's coming after us through the trees.”

I turned my head in the direction we'd both just come. There was the unmistakable sound of somebody else breaking through the underbrush.

“Can you run?” Jack asked.

“Sure . . . of course.”

“Good. We have to get across the field before he gets this far.”

We started to run. The ground was level and flat and we were moving fast, the grass swishing against our legs. I looked back over my shoulder. The edge of the forest was black. We
wouldn't be able to see anybody coming out of the trees, but I was positive that they would still see us.

Up ahead the far edge of the field was looming, and beyond that it simply looked black—as black as the forest on the other side. I tried to pick out individual images—a gap between the trees, rocks, an opening we could head for, something—but it remained just a dark blur stretching out of sight in both directions, rising up into the sky and—the embankment! There were the railroad tracks!

We stopped at the foot of the embankment and I peered up to the top.

“Do we follow along until we hit the road, or do we climb it?” I asked.

“Both,” Jack said. “We climb it and then follow along on the other side.”

I started up the bank, using my hands to dig in and help pull me up the steep slope. My feet dislodged rocks and cinders and they noisily showered down the slope toward my brother. Looking down I could see that Jack was struggling. He held his injured hand tightly to his chest.

“Let me help you,” I called out.

I reached back and grabbed him by his good arm. At that same instant he lost his footing and almost fell over. I struggled to maintain both my grip and my balance and was just barely able to keep us both upright. Together we climbed up. Repeatedly I tripped and felt the cinders and rocks bite into my knees, but I clawed my way forward until we both reached the top.

“Maybe we should rest here,” I said, panting.

“Not here . . . too much of a target,” Jack replied.

I looked back and suddenly felt very exposed. I could imagine how visible we'd be, our silhouettes standing out on the horizon. Involuntarily I ducked down.

“We'll rest at the bottom,” Jack said.

I didn't need any more encouragement. I shuffled over to the other side and dropped down on my bottom. I slid down feet first for a couple of yards. Rocks rained down before me, but at least I was less likely to fall.

“Go down like this,” I called back to Jack over my shoulder.

“I'll try.”

For a few seconds I'd forgotten about Jack not being able to use his hand and that he needed me.

“Just come down this way. I'll wait for you and help,” I offered.

Jack started to pick his way down the slope. His feet slipped out from under him and without thinking he reached back with his hands to cushion the blow, so that he cried out in pain. I scrambled back up and offered a hand. He willingly took it.

As we moved down the slope I thought how strange it was that I was the one helping Jack—and he was letting me. This was so different, something new for us.

Again, Jack let out a yelp. There was no point in asking him if he was all right because I could see, even in the limited light, that his face was distorted with pain.

“It's not much farther,” I said reassuringly. “Let me help you
down and then we just have to walk. We'll find somebody, or somebody will find us, soon . . . I know they will.”

Slowly, together, we slid down the rest of the slope. I could feel my socks and shoes filling up with cinders as we slipped to the very bottom, sending a shower of debris ahead of us.

I'd stood up and was beginning to dust myself off when I became aware that the whole palm of my hand—my good hand—was raw and cut and bleeding.
What will happen next?
I wondered.

Jack was slumped on the ground. “I'm almost positive I know where we are,” he said.

“You do?”

“We've been right here before. We came in off the creek from over there,” he said, pointing off to a spot invisible in the darkness.

“But isn't that how the Nazis were going to be coming in . . . off the creek?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“They were asking us all sorts of questions about how we got in,” I reminded him.

Suddenly I pictured the darkness around us filled with Nazi agents, all armed, all wanting to kill us. I couldn't imagine anything worse than surviving all we'd survived, getting away and getting this far, only to be recaptured. Recaptured and killed.

“Let's get moving that way,” I said, pointing away from the creek. “As fast as we can.”
Jack struggled to his feet and we started to move along the base of the railroad embankment.

“You said you know where we are. Are we far from a road?”

“You remember that first night we came here?” he asked. “That would be hard to forget.”

“I think the culvert and that dirt track are just up ahead. But we have to move quickly or it's going to be too late.”

We moved to the side, away from the embankment. The ground was much more level and easier to move along quickly. And we were far enough away from the Chief that I wasn't worried about him seeing us.

“There's the track,” Jack said.

I strained my eyes to make out a darker ribbon of road cutting through the field. I followed it until it met the embankment and disappeared underneath—the culvert! Still holding onto Jack's good arm, I pulled him along with me. I stumbled forward, not stopping until we broke out onto the dirt track.

“That's where they first stopped us,” Jack said, pointing back to the culvert.

“They heard us in the culvert. Maybe that's what we should do this time, go into the culvert and start yelling.”

“Let's just head down the road toward headquarters and—” Suddenly we were hit square in the face by a blinding light, and my hands went up instinctively to shield my eyes.

“Hands in the air!” screamed out a voice.

“Is it . . . is it?”

Jack nodded his head. “It's guards from the camp.”

“Thank goodness,” I whispered.

“Hands up now or we'll shoot!”

I slowly raised my hands. Beside me, Jack raised one hand right up. The second one, the injured one, was barely at the level of his head.

“It's us!” I called out. “Jack and George! We've got to see the—”

“Shut up!” hissed one of the soldiers as he came toward us. He turned back around to the jeep. “And kill those lights, now!”

Suddenly we were plunged into darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“
ARE YOU TWO GOING
to keep coming here until we finally shoot you by accident?” one of the soldiers demanded. His tone was angry, but he was speaking in a voice only slightly louder than a whisper.

“You don't understand—”

“Keep your voice down!” he hissed.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. “It's important that you take us to see the Lieutenant-Colonel right away because—”

“You think we're falling for that again?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know how much trouble those last guards got into for driving you two into the compound?”

“But this is important!” Jack protested.

“Yeah? Well, you can say whatever you want until the cows come home,” he said, “there's no way we're driving you to headquarters!”

“You don't have to drive us . . . we can walk,” I told him.

“Don't you get it, kid? We're guards. We're supposed to
stop
you from just walking there! That's what guards do!”

“What are you kids even doing out at this time of the night?” the other soldier asked.

“Time . . . that's right, what time is it?” I asked.

“Almost ten-thirty, I think.”

“You've got to get us in to see the Lieutenant-Colonel, or Bill or Little Bill. The attacks are supposed to happen at ten-thirty!” I pleaded.

“What are you talking about, kid?”

“The attacks on the munitions plant and the prisoner-of-war camp in Bowmanville,” Jack explained.

“And here. They're going to attack here at eleven-thirty,” I told him. “They're after somebody . . . somebody important.”

“Who's after somebody? Just who is going to launch these attacks you're talking about?”

“German agents. Lots of them,” I exclaimed.

“And how would you two know any of this?”

“Mr. Krum told us,” I said.

“He's the editor of the paper,” Jack added.

“And a German spy,” I continued. “He told us after we were tied up, and then they told him to kill us, but he didn't and instead he just pretended to kill us and—”

“That's quite a story,” one of the soldiers said, mockingly. “And they make it really believable. These two are pretty good storytellers.”

“Storytellers? What do you mean?” I demanded.

“This is just another test to see if you two can sneak by
security again, isn't it?” one of the soldiers challenged.