His one hundred eighty pounds of hard body hit the guard like a bolt of lightning. The Jap went down with a groan. Stan caught up his rifle and set it against the wall. Picking up the little sentry Stan tossed him over the wall into the enclosure.
Grabbing the rifle he began slashing at the lacing on the Stockade. “Can you call to them? Make them understand?” he shouted to Niva.
“I’ll try,” she answered.
Stan cut through the lacings and jerked several poles loose. The Jap sentry’s bayonet was as sharp as a razor and Stan was able to slash the fiber bindings rapidly. In a short space he had an opening wide enough for a man to slip through.
Niva was shouting to the milling prisoners near the opening. Her cry was taken up and the prisoners surged toward the hole. Stan waited no longer. He caught her arm.
“Come on!” he urged.
They could hear guards running toward the opening in the stockade and behind them the prisoners were pouring out. Stan caught Niva up and charged away, just as the guards smashed head-on into the prisoners swarming out of the stockade. A furious battle began with the Japs going down under the fists and claws of the escaping men.
Stan made for the wide hedge. Reaching it he set Niva down. They ran along its sheltering wall for a hundred feet before they located a hole to duck through to the jungle side of the hedge. They were halted by an opening which had been cut across the thorny growth. Jap sentries marched back and forth. They were unusually alert because of the commotion at the stockade.
The pandemonium below was growing. From the platform the machine guns had opened up and were blasting away. Lights, coming from the direction of the temple, were stabbing into the night.
“This place will be swarming with soldiers in a few minutes,” Stan whispered. “We have to break through the guard line. I’ll charge that Jap. You keep close behind me. Can you use an automatic pistol?”