There was not an instant to lose. Gregory dived back behind the plane and spoke to Rudd. 'They're coming; you'll have to carry her. Fireman's lift and gun in your right hand. Too late to make a detour, we'll have to chance a dash across the open.'
Rudd stooped and threw Sabine across his strong shoulders as though she had been an infant. Without a word he plunged forward straight for the Bell tower. Gregory followed, walking swiftly backwards, ready to fire instantly they were spotted and covering Rudd's retreat.
Rudd had traversed sixty yards before they were seen; then a cry went up from one of the men by the flares. In a second Gavin's pilot swung round with a drawn pistol in his hand. He fired from his hip and the bullet sang past Gregory's head; but Gregory had had him marked already. His pistol cracked, the man's knees gave under him, and he crashed forward on his face.
Gregory ducked to escape the bullets of the men by the flares. As he did so a series of sharp coughs told him that they were firing at him with pistols which had Mauser silencers attached. Suddenly he sprinted forward, covered fifty yards before he stopped, swung round, and fired again. One of the men by the flares staggered sideways with a scream.
The lawn was full of racing figures now. The scattered group by the house was surging forward in a long irregular wave. Lord Gavin still stood on the doorstep, waving one of his sticks and shouting something which Gregory could not catch. Rudd had already covered two thirds of the way to the Bell tower when Sabine cried: 'Put me down! I can manage now.'
He slipped her from his shoulders. She stood rocking for a moment then began to stagger forward while he turned and fired at the nearest of the running men. The man ran on, Rudd fired again. The fellow spun round and fell.
Rudd's intervention gave Gregory another chance. He bounded forward. Both of them fired twice into the mass of shouting figures that were thundering across the grass, then they turned and ran on together.
A bullet ploughed up the ground at Gregory's feet, another whistled past his ear, a third hit the gun in Rudd's hand, knocking it out of his grasp.
Gregory halted and emptied the remaining contents of his automatic into the oncoming mob. Rudd lurched forward, grabbed up his pistol, and dashed on again. Next instant he came up with Sabine. She was now no more than twenty yards from the Bell tower.
Jamming his now useless automatic into his pocket Gregory pounded up beside them. Each caught Sabine by an arm and half carried, half dragged her towards their goal.
'Come on! Come on!' shrilled a treble voice and Milly's form loomed up by the tower. She was holding the door wide open for them.
'Good God!' gasped Gregory as they dashed through the entrance. 'Why didn't you hide as I told you to?'
She shook her head. 'I had to stay and help if I could.' Then she flung her frail weight against the heavy door and banged it to. Rudd grabbed the key and turned it in the lock.
For a moment they remained there panting in the close musty darkness. Sabine was lying on the ground; Gregory leaning against the wall as he sought to ease the strain of his bursting lungs. He pulled his torch out of his pocket and flashed it on. Rudd and Milly were standing just behind the door.
'Get back, you fools!' he shouted. 'They'll be shooting through that door!' Rudd grabbed Milly and thrust her away from it into a safe corner.
Sabine was on her feet again. She snatched Gregory's torch and turned in on the door; then she sprang forward and shot the bolts at its top and bottom.
'That's better!' her voice came huskily. 'They could have blown in that lock.' As she spoke a bullet crashed through the door splintering its woodwork. She swung round towards Gregory.
'Why why did you bring me here? It would have been safer to have hidden in the coppice near the hangar. You could have carried me there without bringing this hornets' nest about our ears.'
'I thought of that,' he replied swiftly, 'but there are dozens of them. When they found you missing from the plane it wouldn't have taken them five minutes to beat the coppice for us. We'd have been caught with no protection.'
A thunderous beating came upon the door. Shots thudded into its stout oak panelling; one clanged upon the metal lock. Gregory remained leaning against the wall. He only shrugged now at this fresh clamour and smiled in the darkness.
'Don't get scared any of you. That door's old and solid. It'd take them an hour to break it in and they can't spare the time. They know every policeman in Kent is on the lookout for them and that they'll be caught if they don't get away from here before one o'clock. It's five to now.'
Sabine stretched out a hand and grasped his quickly. 'Mais non,' she cried. 'Gavin believes all the police are concentrated miles away on Sheppey Island. He's killed the men who were set to keep a look out here. There is no one to give a warning of what they do and the village is too far for anyone there to hear the shooting. Gavin will send for saws and cut the bolts out of their sockets; or get a battering ram for all that mob to break down the door. He thinks he is safe here for an hour two hours yet. If help doesn't arrive soon nous sommes tons morte.'
While the battering outside continued Rudd was flashing his torch round the lofty chamber. From holes in its wooden ceiling ten ropes dangled; the last few feet of each covered with a thick wool grip. They looked like a group of inverted bulrushes.
'All right,' said Gregory with sudden decision. 'If we've got to summon help after all we'll use the bells.' He sprang forward and caught at one of the ropes bearing down his full weight upon it. A loud clang sounded high up in the tower.
Rudd seized another rope and Milly a third. The noise outside the door was drowned in a horrible cacophony of vibrating sound. Without rhythm or music the great bells above their heads pealed out in horrid irregular clamour clash boom dong bing which seemed to shake the very ground on which the bell ringers stood.
Sabine ran to Gregory and shouted in his ear: 'The lights on the steel mast! The controls are in the next room. I will make signals with them.' She dashed away and a moment later was tapping at the instruments S O SS O S SOS.
Rudd now had a bell rope in each hand and was swaying from side to side as he pulled them alternately with all his vigour. Gregory tugged at first one, then another until the whole peal of ten bells was in motion; thundering out a vast and hideous discord which could be heard over half Thanet.
After a couple of minutes Gregory left Rudd and Milly to keep the din going, rushed up the narrow winding stairs in a corner of the chamber until he reached a long slit window cut in the thick stone wall, and peered out.
From it he saw that the attempt to force the door had been abandoned. Gavin Fortescue was standing near the flares; waving his sticks and evidently ordering the pilots to their various planes. As Gregory watched, a new commotion started. A car roared up the driveway and halted in front of the house. Dark figures sprang out of it. Another 'car and then another came in sight.
The bells were so deafening that he could not hear the coughing of the silenced automatics, but stabs of flame, piercing the darkness near the museum building, told him that a battle was in progress between the reds and the constantly arriving squads of police.
He glanced at his wrist watch and saw that it was one o'clock. The bells could not have been pealing for more than five minutes. How could the police have got here so quickly, he wondered, but he did not pause to think of possible explanations. Instead, he leapt down the, narrow stairs, yelling for Sabine, and waving his arms to stop Rudd and Milly tugging at the bell ropes.