When the Nazis were all on their feet, the sergeant’s men surrounded them. Two soldiers relieved the officers of their side arms. As the shock of their capture wore off, the Nazis began to protest curtly, and the sergeant retorted in their own language. “Okay. You’re staff officers! We’ll get you to the proper authorities just as soon as we can.” André had seen plenty of Germans, but few of such high rank. Suddenly it dawned on him that it was Victor’s shots which had made the capture possible by wrecking the car. But where was Victor? André ran around the farm buildings, but neither Victor nor La Fumée was in sight--anywhere. Shells had blasted the carpentry shop, and rubbish lay over the scattered, twisted, and blackened tools. After a thorough search, André stumbled sadly out to the courtyard and around the scattered manure pile, toward the group at the gate. He was greeted by a shout from a jeep which had driven up. “Hi, there. You--boy!” An American lieutenant sat at the wheel, with the two Nazi officers crammed rigidly in the rear seat. An American with a Tommy gun perched backward on each of the front mudguards, and the German driver, his arm in a sling, shared the front seat with the lieutenant. Impatiently, the lieutenant asked André whether he knew where the nearest U. S. headquarters had been set up. [Illustration] André pointed up the road and replied, with some pride, that there was an 82nd Command Post in his own house. “It’s a little more than a mile up that way,” he said. The lieutenant grinned. “Well, hop in and show us the way.” André stood stubbornly firm. “But Lieutenant,” he protested, “I came with Victor. He’s an old man. I can’t leave him here.” “_Get in_,” snapped the lieutenant. “You can find him later. There’s a war on.” “As if I didn’t know,” André thought crossly. But he climbed over the great booted legs of the guard, and hunched in under the elbow of the German prisoner. The jeep lurched into gear and roared down the road. CHAPTER NINE _Victor Disappears_ As the jeep bumped rapidly along, André explained to the lieutenant, “I didn’t want to leave there, sir, till I found my friend Victor. He was the one who really stopped that Nazi car, shooting at the tires, I think.” “He did?” the lieutenant exclaimed. “Well, why did he disappear after we got there?” One of the guards interrupted. “Old Frenchman? Walrus mustache? With a shotgun?” André nodded excitedly. “Did you see him?” “Saw a man like that run back into the orchard of that farm just as we came up.” André said no more; at least Victor could run. The jeep had been proceeding cautiously around road blocks and paratroopers. Now it speeded up. A little while later, André saw the roofs of his own village, and he cried, “Oh! it’s been hit!”