Evening star., 1940-01-12

ness the Nazi insignia on his ship
could not be seen and unless he
got caught in the middle of a dog
fight. there was slight danger of his
coming to grief. His chief peril
would be motor failure, and that was
scarcely worth worrying about. 1t
was different now from flying in the
first World War, when it was almost
an epochal event for a ship to make
200 miles without running out of
fuel or collapsing under the strain.
The salvos from the anti-aircraft
batteries stopped as suddenly as
they had started. and she assumed,
as she got to her feet, that the raid
If it was a raid-was over. She
wondered whether the Nazis hadn't
mistaken a cruising air feet of their
own for a squadron of enemy
planes.
She walked slowly on and soon
reached the fringe of trees. AL
though she had matches in her
purse plain sulphur matches, she
didn't dare to light one to try to
find the path Rene had told her
about. After stumbling into first
one tree and then another she
finally decided it would be wiser to
stay where she was until it was light
enough to find the path. If she
wandered around in the dark she
would lose her sense of direction
entirely, and if she took the wrong
path there was no telling where she
would land.
Fatigue Takes Its Toll.
She found small hillock of grass
and settled herself as comfortably
as she could. Strangely enough, de-
spite her danger, in the midst of
enemy country, and not knowing
what moment some one might come
to the clearing and discover her
she was very tired
The nervous strain she had been
under since Bills disappearance
hadn't been helped much by the
nerve = racking fight halfway
across Germany and she started
nodding sieepily. She caught her.
self several times, rubbed her eyes
with her knuckles and resolved that
she would stay wide awake. She
told herself 1t might be fatal if she
didn't.
But her body was weaker than her
will power, and it slowly relaxed as
she slumped into sound sleep.
Terror seized her when she awoke
to find the jet darkness of the
night had turned to a dull gray. She
tried to get quickly to her feet, but
her muscles were cramped and it
took several minutes of rubbing legs
and ankles before she could stand
without prickly pains shooting
through her.
She glanced at her watch and was
relieved to see that it was only
$50 o'clock. She was farther north
than Paris and dawn came later
here. Claire glanced about and the
path which had proved so elusive in
the darkness was the matter of only
a few yards away from where she
had slept.
A0AO ASO0SAAOS AWoys
Looking carefully around and see
ing nothing, she cautiously started
down the path through the woods.
It was q winding path but she
knew that its general direction was
north from the clearing. It was
much darker among the trees, but
enough light filtered through for
her to find her way, and after nearly
half an hour of careful walking
she saw the trees thinning out in
front Of her. She slowed her pace
and before emerging from the
woods looked carefully out in every
direction. Ahead, about a quarter
of a mile, she could see the con-
crete strip of main highway and
she walked in that direction.
Reaching the road, she turned left
in the direction she knew Berlin
was, and saw q clump Of trees dotted
by spires, indicating small village
not far distant. She started In that
direction and had gone no more
than 200 yardsfwhen she heard the