Stan did not hesitate. He did a backward flip. As he went over the railing he saw flame flash from a machine gun. He caught a glimpse of Lorenzo sagging forward, his hands gripping his stomach.
The next instant he had plunged into a large bush which broke his fall. He lay beside a rock wall in a ditch. Vaguely he knew where the kennels were. Tony had taken him back to see the dogs one evening after dark. From above he could hear the officer bellowing down to the men he had left below. He hoped the Germans had felt so sure of their quarry that they had not surrounded the house.
Reaching a corner he discovered a guard there. The man was looking up, listening to his commander's orders. Stan hit him hard in the back with a knee and slapped a viselike grip around his neck. The man sagged down without a murmur. Stan stripped off the fellows cartridge jacket and grabbed his tommy-gun. He was glad the Germans had equipped their hounds with rapid-fire guns.
Leaping forward he reached the back of the house. There he halted. The squad cars were in the back yard, two of them. Four men stood at the back door listening to the shouting above. Stan saw the kennels and set himself to blast a path to freedom.
Suddenly he heard a wild yell from above. It was O'Malley and Stan could tell the Irishman was seeing red. There was a fight in progress up on the balcony. Machine guns chattered savagely. Stan felt suddenly sick to his stomach. The boys were up there mixing it barehanded with four Germans armed with machine guns.
The guards at the door whirled to leap into the house. Stan's submachine gun burst into flame and he swept a pathway of death across the ranks of the Nazis. They went down in a writhing mass, one of them rolling off the steps and crawling away on his hands and knees, leaving a bloody path behind him.
Stan leaped for the back door and plunged into the house. He went through the spacious music room and up the wide stairway leading to the balcony like a charging tank, his submachine gun at his hip, his eyes like cold steel.
Leaping through the doorway he swept the room with his gun. O'Malley and Allison and Tony were crowded back against the wall. O'Malley was bleeding profusely from a wound in his shoulder. A broken chair lay on the floor and beside it lay a dead German. Lorenzo lay on the floor face up. He was dead, but there was a smile of triumph on his lips. Arno had sagged down into a chair. He, too, was bleeding from a head wound.
The three Germans had their backs to the door. The officer was wild with fury. He was shouting wildly.
"If I did not have orders to bring you in so that we can force you to tell who your underground helpers are, I would shoot you all and leave you here to rot!"