From ahead came Dugan's voice, low-pitched but carrying. "Cover me, Ray. I'm gonna crawl around to the back."
"You damn fool, you don't know how many there are. Our guys'll be along in a few minutes."
"Hell with them," said Dugan. "Just cover me." He didn't mention White. But there was a compressed fury in his voice.
Manning sighed. "All right."
Dugan crawled like a weasel. Manning lost sight of him. He waited with humming nerves, firing spaced shots into the enemy's log fortress.
Then he noticed he had stopped drawing any return fire. That might mean things had started happening inside the house, if it wasn't a trick—He discarded most of his caution and darted into the open, zigzagging from scanty cover to cover—something must have happened inside—and flattened against the rustic wall beside one shattered window, just in time to hear a voice beyond it exclaim hoarsely, "Gut!"
That was all he wanted to know. If anything was going gut in there, it was time Ray Manning got into the picture. He cleared the window-ledge with automatic level.
There was a big, raftered room, and in the middle of the floor Eddie Dugan was struggling groggily to get up, while behind him stood a white-goateed civilian with a wrench, and in front of him a tough-looking younger man was lifting a rifle.
The two Germans saw the gun in Manning's hands and made a tableau as they were. It was broken as the burly one's grip relaxed and his Mauser clattered on the floor.
Manning motioned toward the goatee. "Dr. Kahl? Better drop that," he advised in German.