André was pushed back before the second, louder, “_Kamerad_” gave him warning. CHAPTER TWELVE _Slim and the Trumpet_ Slim leaned forward intently, staring at a thicket to one side. “Who’re you? Come out--hands up!” he shouted. “Get back, kid.” A voice said, “It is not necessary. I vish to giff myself up--villingly.” A young German airman stepped from behind the litter of broken cherry branches. “Where’d you come from?” Slim demanded. “Keep those hands on your head.” “I know who he is,” André cried. Then, to the stranger, “You’re the pilot who jumped from the Messerschmitt, aren’t you?” The German nodded. “I vish to make no trouble. Please take my gun--a Luger only, in the holster.” Slim snapped out the pistol. “Listen,” he demanded, “what gives here?” The German said, “I haf vanted to giff up a long time now. I am glad you haff come.” “Well,” Slim shrugged, “maybe you can explain that to the captain. Come on. March ahead of me to that schoolhouse yonder.” When they reached the food dump, the prisoner was put under guard. Meanwhile Slim carried out the captain’s orders for food supplies. Slim pointed to the stacked cartons he had piled in the corner of the schoolhouse. “See nobody lays a hand on that. A jeep’ll be over to pick it up within an hour,” he told the commissary sergeant. He also asked for an extra guard to accompany them back to the captain. “He says he wants to give hisself up,” Slim said, “but how do we know he’s on the level?” Drawing his own gun, Slim added to André, as he led the way, “Wouldn’t our flack gunners like to get a look at this Luftwaffe fellow?” The prisoner smiled wryly. “Your flack gunners already haff seen me,” he said. “That is vhy I am here.” On their return, Captain Dobie greeted the German with surprising enthusiasm. “I am delighted to see you,” he said. “You had us worried.” “I vas vorried myself, sir,” the pilot replied. A few minutes later the prisoner was dispatched to an interrogation center by jeep, with Weller and a guard. Captain Dobie suggested that André find M. Blanc and tell him that the village could forget about that particular German pilot. “Glad to have _him_ off my mind,” the captain added. André found M. Blanc consulting with Victor near the end of the village and gave them the captain’s good news. En route home through the fields, André found an almost undamaged yellow parachute. “How beautiful Marie will be in a dress of yellow silk!” he thought. And he folded it carefully, tucking the bulky load under his arm. That evening, after supper, André took his trumpet into the kitchen. He gathered cleaning rags and polish, and rubbed and cleaned the brass of the horn. When the tubes had been cleared and the metal gleamed, he piped a little trill of lonely notes. They made him feel no better, and he tried a Normandy dance tune. He heard the clump of feet behind him and Slim’s voice. “Holy cow! _Where_ did you get that horn?”