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But he wasn't worried about the wound, about the blood in his eyes. The rope — that was all that mattered. Was the rope there? Had anything happened to Casey Brown? Had he been jumped before he could get the rope over the side? If he had, then all hope was gone and there was nothing they could do, no other way they could span the forty sheer feet between house and cave. It just had to be there. But if it were there, why couldn't he find it? Three times now, at the right extremity of a swing, he had reached out with his bamboo pole, heard the hook scrape emptily, frustratingly, against the bare rock.
And then, the fourth time, stretched out to the straining limit of both arms, he felt the hook catch on! Immediately, he jerked the pole in, caught the rope before he dropped back on the downward swing, jerked the signal card urgently, checked himself gradually as he fell back. Two minutes later, near exhaustion from the sixty-foot climb up the wet, slippery rope, be crawled blindly over the lip of the cave and flung himself to the ground, sobbing for breath.
Swiftly, without speaking, Miller bent down, slipped the twin loops of the double bowline from Mallory's legs, undid the knot, tied it to Brown's rope, gave the latter a tug and watched the joined ropes disappear into the darkness. Within two minutes the heavy battery was across, underslung from the two ropes, lowered so far by Casey Brown then hauled up by Mallory and Miller. Within another two minutes, but with infinitely more caution, this time, the canvas bag with the nitro, primers and detonators, had been pulled across, lay on the stone floor beside the battery.
All noise had ceased, the hammering of the sledges against the steel door had stopped completely. There was something threatening, foreboding about the stillness, the silence was more menacing than all the clamour that had gone before. Was the door down, the lock smashed, the Germans waiting for them in the gloom of the tu
The heavy Colt .455 balanced at his waist, Mallory climbed over the safety barrier, padded silently past the great guns and through the passage, his torch clicking on half-way down its length. The place was deserted, the door above still intact. He climbed swiftly up the ladder, listened at the top. A subdued murmur of voices, he thought he heard, and a faint hissing sound on the other side of the heavy steel door, but he couldn't be sure. He leaned forward to hear better, the palm of his hand against the door, drew back with a muffled exclamation of pain. Just above the lock, the door was almost red-hot. Mallory dropped down to the floor of the tu
«That door's hot as blazes. They must be burning—»
«Did you hear anything?» Miller interrupted.
«There was a kind of hissing—»
«Oxy-acetylene torch,» Miller said briefly. «They'll be burnin' out the lock. It'll take time — that door's made of armoured steel.»
«Why don't they blow it in — geignite or whatever you use for that job?»
«Perish the thought,» Miller said hastily. «Don't even talk about it, boss. Sympathetic detonation's a fu
Within seconds Dusty Miller was again a man absorbed in his own element, the danger outside, the return trip he had yet to make across the face of the cliff, completely forgotten for the moment. The task took him four minutes from begi
Quickly he taped the ends of two rubber-covered wires on the insulated strip, one at either side, taped these down also until nothing was visible but the bared steel cores at the tips, joined these to two four-inch strips of bared wire, taped these also, top and bottom, to the insulated shaft, vertically and less than half an inch apart. From the canvas bag he removed the T.N.T., the primer and detonator — a bridge mercury detonator lugged and screwed to his own specification — fitted them together and co
«Are you aware, boss,» he said conversationally, «that if I touched this here blade across those terminals, the whole gawddamned place would go up in smithereens.» He shook his head musingly. «Just one little slip of the hand, just one teeny little touch and Mallory and Miller are among the angels.»
«For God's sake put that thing away!» Mallory Snapped nervously. «And let's get the heli out of here. They've got a complete half-circle cut through that door already!»
Five minutes later Miller was safe — it had been a simple matter of sliding down a 45-degree tautened rope to where Brown waited. Mallory took a last look back into the cave, and his mouth twisted. He wondered how many soldiers ma
It was Miller who helped him over the balcony rail, an apprehensive-looking Miller who glanced often over his shoulder in the direction of the gun-fire — and the heaviest concentration of fire, Mallory realised with sudden dismay, was coming from their own, the west side of the square, only three or four houses away. Their escape route was cut off.
«Come on, boss!» Miller said urgently. «Let's get away from this joint. Gettin' downright unhealthy round these parts.»
Mallory jerked his head in the direction of the fire. «Who's down there?» he asked quickly.
«A German patrol.»
«Then how in the hell can we get away?» Mallory demanded. «And where's Andrea?»
«Across the other side of the square, boss. That's who those birds along there are firing at.»
«The other side of the square!» He glanced at his watch. «Heavens above, man, what's he doing there?» He was moving through the house now, speaking over his shoulder. «Why did you let him go?»
«I didn't let him go, boss,» Miller said carefully. «He was gone when I came. Seems that Brown here saw a big patrol start a house to house search of the square. Started on the other side and were doin' two or three houses at a time. Andrea — he'd come back by this time — thought it a sure bet that they'd work right round the square and get here in two or three minutes, so he took off like a bat across the roofs.»