"Come on, men!" Harding yelled, "Put some muscle into it!"

He was rewarded with grunts and groans and a dirty look or two from the GIs as they pushed and nearly carried the motorcycles through the dunes. Harding was anxious and when he was worried, he yelled. I knew we didn't have much time to make contact with the French officer who was supposed to be waiting to surrender the fort and join up with us. If we didn't get there before he received direct orders from Algiers to resist the invasion, he might change his mind. That would be curtains for a lot of guys following the first wave, especially at full light. Even in the dark, those new thermal detectors could target a blacked-out troop transport and send a thousand soldiers and sailors to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Harding got to the crest of the next dune and signaled everyone to halt. He knelt and scanned the horizon. I hustled up next to him and looked around. It was still pretty dark, but I could see that the sand dunes gave way ahead to scrub-pine woods that rose gradually from the beach.

"What is it, Major?"

"Shhh!" Harding swiveled his head, listening, then pointed to the left. I didn't hear a thing.

"Truck," he said. Then I heard it. The distant sound of an engine and of heavy tires on a gravel road. "Running with no lights."

The sound came closer, and rose as the truck passed in front of us. I could see a dark shape moving through the pines on the low ridge- line dead ahead.

"The coast road." Harding smiled. I realized that in the five months I had known him, I had never seen Harding smile this much. He looked so natural behind a desk, frowning, that I had never thought about him as a combat soldier. He gave a hand signal for the GIs to move forward, as if he'd been longing for this moment.

I put on my goggles and checked the safety on my. 45 caliber Thompson submachine gun. Harding had an old. 30 caliber Springfield M1903 bolt-action rifle. He said he preferred 'aimed fire' to automatic weapons. Me, I preferred to put a twenty-round clip from a Tommy gun between Mrs. Boyle's boy and anyone looking for trouble.