Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/285

Rh "That," the girl whispered back, "may mean death for all of us, will probably mean death—"

"A friend!" the old man said.

The girl arose, and went to the field with her father, and helped him carry the man to the house where they hid him. They both knew the risks of that journey even in those quiet hours before the dawn. When they had completed it they glanced at each other and smiled.

"God is with us," the old man said.

And through the weeks that followed they seemed miraculously protected. The presence of the man was never suspected. They nursed him back to his former ability. They started him on his road back. For there is a road back, out of the conquered provinces, out of the hands of the Germans. The execution of Edith Cavell didn't close it. Innumerable other executions haven't closed it, because that is something the Germans can't do. In every war that conquers peoples such a road persists. It penetrates even the vaunted barrier across the Dutch frontier. So the recovered airman was passed from guide to guide on that road until finally he slipped from the grasp of the Germans and reported himself ready for duty to his own people.

His exaltation demanded expression. He wanted to shout out his contempt of the German