Halfway through this, Weller paused suddenly and said to André, “By the way, son, you better tie up that hound of yours. He doesn’t seem to know Americans are his friends, by the way he lit into my only pair of britches.” The little party moved slowly toward the Gagnon house, helping the half-crippled captain. Pale moonlight glowed on the windows and against dark walls. When André saw the front door ajar, he cried happily, “They must have come home while I was asleep.” “’Fraid not,” the sergeant corrected. “We went through the whole house--André. Want to know how I got your name?” Weller grinned. “Read Marie’s note about your supper on the kitchen table.” Immediately inside the house, the sergeant said crisply, “This room okay, Captain? I guess it’s a sort of store during peacetime. I’ll get you a table and somethin’ to sit on, pronto.” André had run to light candles and draw the blackout curtains. Then he dragged his mother’s best velvet chair from the parlor for Captain Dobie, and brought cushions to prop up his leg. Captain Dobie spread maps on the table before him, but paused to study the boy. André looked into his kind, thoughtful face and asked, “Do you think my father and sister will be all right, sir? It would be awful....” The captain nodded. “Nobody’d let them start out from St. Sauveur tonight, son. They’ll be all right.” But André’s worry was not so easily talked away. The thud of bombs and firing inland was too continuous. He heard a whine and rushed into the kitchen to a wet, pawing welcome from Patchou. He tugged at the familiar warm fur and when Patchou had calmed down, brought him a bowl of milk. Then, with a warning to be quiet, he chained the dog to the fireplace grate. At the front of the house he found that a strange, businesslike disorder was mounting. Just inside the door, bazookas, mortars, and ammunition of all sorts were being pulled from “drop” bundles. Bulky, helmeted soldiers were coming in from everywhere, receiving quick orders from the captain, and clanking off in groups. Captain Dobie sent out a messenger for a walkie-talkie, to make contact with his commanding colonel. At one moment, everyone around the captain paused warily as the roar of a low-flying plane shook the walls. Sergeant Weller and André darted out to the doorway and stared up at the U. S. markings. As the plane sped by, a shower of paper cascaded over the town. “That’s one of our Flying Fortresses dropping leaflets, telling the Frenchies to scatter ’n stay off the roads.” Weller shrugged. “That means you, too, boy, y’know.” For the next thirty minutes André sat and watched while dirty, hot men clumped in and out on errands that made no sense to him. Some had been wounded. Many, hurt in the jump, were being treated both by medics and some of the village people. Slim pushed his way into the room, looking leaner and sootier than ever--all his drowsiness gone.