Chapter I

It was one of those rare autumn days in England. The sky was blue as blue. The trees cast dark shadows across the hillside. The sheep wandered contentedly along the slope. To Cherry Ramsey, for one full moment it seemed that nothing could possibly be wrong with the world.

Then with a sudden light spring she shot from her sunny corner to scan the sky and to exclaim softly to the collie at her feet:

“Flash old boy, it’s an airplane. Perhaps it’s a bomb-bomber.” That last word always choked her. How she hated those Nazi marauders! No, all was not right with the world! Perhaps it never would be again for a long, long time!

“But Flash old boy,” there was hot fire in her voice, “we must all do our best and trust God. That’s what mother always says, and she’s nearly always right.”

Flash, the splendid golden collie, stood up, appeared to listen, then whined as if he had truly understood. And who will say he did not?

For one more full moment the scene remained just as it had been. In the foreground were low hills and sheep feeding. Beyond that lay a level field where two grown youths in their late teens bent over their task of harvesting Brussels sprouts. Beyond all this were trees and barns—a farm home,—Cherry’s own home.

As she stood there, lips parted, ears straining in their attempt to build up a mental picture of the rapidly approaching airplane, she saw the two boys straighten up, then gaze skyward.

“Ah! They hear it!” she whispered. Then she tried with a sudden flash of the imagination to picture the thoughts running through the minds at that moment of those strangely different boys. The plane proved to be a German bomber.

Then suddenly her heart stood still. The plane had come zooming out from behind the nearby hills, and in a flash she had caught sight of the hated cross on the right of the plane, the swastika on its tail.

At that same instant the taller of the two boys turned to his companion to say:

“I suppose that’s what you call a bomber?” His was the sharp, brisk accent of a Midwest American.

“Not precisely that,” was the slow drawling reply of his typically English companion. “It’s a Messerschmitt 110, I’d say. They do use them for daylight bombing. But that plane is 

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