A snarling growl echoed through the cave.
Another Nip went down, struggling with something invisible.
Panic gripped the Jap patrol. Two surviving soldiers broke and ran, but the lieutenant in charge snatched up a gun. Bullets whined off the rocks as he fired wildly, without a target.
All at once Frankie lay in the middle of the floor, his spine shattered by a chance bullet but his fangs still bared in a snarl of defiance. The Jap kicked at the dog, then jumped aside and stared unbelievingly as his outlines blurred momentarily. He kicked again with deliberate brutality, and the dog gave one convulsive shudder and lay still.
Without conscious volition Gunnar raised his arm. Twenty feet away bones crunched under the brass handle-studs of the trench knife. Gunnar felt the impact up his arm, and then the snick as the double-edged blade plunged between two ribs.
Then he and Martha were alone with several dead Japanese and the body of a dog.
Gunnar felt a pulling sensation in his shoulder. The bloody knife surged toward him through the air. He looked down.
And he wasn't there at all!
"M—Martha!" he called unsteadily.