Charlton began to drag Magda back into the kitchen sitting room but Gregory edged forward again towards the back door. As he did so a tommy gun opened, sending a stream of lead over his head. Other Nazis had now come round to the back of the cottage and escape that way was impossible.
Turning, he found von Lutz crouching beside him on the floor. The Baron raised his automatic again, fired twice at the flash of the sub machine gun, then with his free hand swung to the door. Springing up, Gregory secured it by thrusting the thick wooden bar home into its socket.
Back in the kitchen they found Frau Foldar trying to staunch Magda's wound while Freddie stood helplessly beside her; but the old woman's efforts were of no avail. The bullet had cut Magda's jugular vein; blood poured from it like a river, drenching her clothes and forming great pools upon the floor. She was already dead, having succumbed within thirty seconds of the bullet's hitting her.
Covering her face, the others began a rapid consultation. "We're trapped! " said Gregory. "No hope of getting alive out of this place either way."
"We will some of these swine to hell send before they get us, though," muttered the Baron grimly.
"If we've got to die anyway, wouldn't it be best to surrender?" asked Charlton.'
"What?" exclaimed van Lutz in astonishment; then he added more quietly: "Of course, you can your hand throw in if you wish but I'll first see them in Hell."
"I wasn't thinking of myself," said Freddie, "but of Frau Foldar. If we let them shoot this place to bits she'll probably be killed too, whereas by giving ourselves up we might at least save her life."
The colonel shrugged. "I apologize. But you shall take my word that nothing we can do will make them to spare her, since she shelter us here."
"That's so." Gregory gave a grim chuckle. "You don't know these Nazis, Freddie. my boy. They'd butcher a twelve year old child for having given a drink of water to a blind man if he had ever raised a finger against Hitler. Come on, let's get the other shot guns and see if we can't dust up some of these embryo Himmler’s before they rush the place."
For the past two minutes there had been a lull in the firing, only an occasional bullet whacking through the curtains of the Window or splintering the woodwork of the door. The cottage consisted of only two rooms and the loft above which had been used by the three fugitives during the past fortnight.
"You two stay here and I'll take the bedroom in case some of them try to get in through the window there," said von Lutz, and he left the others abruptly.
There was only one window in each room and both fronted on the lane; so Gregory felt that they might be able to hold the place for some time if they were careful not to expose themselves unnecessarily, although he knew that sooner or later there could be only one end to such an uneven combat.
"We must try to draw their fire," he said to Freddie. "We'll use that fur cap that Hans left behind. Put it on the end of that stick and thrust it up under the curtains when I give the word. It will part them just enough to show a streak of light and they'll see the cap outlined against it."
Charlton grabbed the cap and stick and together they crawled across the floor. Gregory put his hand up and felt along he lower part of the window. The Nazis' bullets had shattered he glass leaving only the empty frame. Very cautiously he poked his shot gun out of one corner and warily raised his head until he could see along the barrel; then he whispered: `Ready now?"
Still kneeling on the floor Freddie thrust up the big fur cap end parted the curtains a little where they met across the centre of the window. Instantly there was a burst of fire and a hail of shots smacked into the cap, knocking the stick on which it was supported out of his hands.
Gregory had marked the nearest flashes and loosed off both barrels of his gun, hoping for a double. A he ducked back howls of pain told him that some of his pellets had found a resting place in human flesh.
A second later the Nazis brought a sub machine gun into fiction. There was a deafening roar as it sent a stream of lead through the empty window frame; cutting one of the curtains nearly in half so that the torn part sagged down disclosing a large triangle of the lighted room. With extraordinary daring Freddie raised himself until the bullets were zipping only a few
inches above his head; then, aiming carefully at the perfect target presented by the flame spitting flame of the gun, he let the gunner have two rounds from his revolver. There was a loud cry and the firing ceased.
"Well done! Well done I" murmured Gregory. "But for God's sake don't try any more of those tricks or you'll get yourself shot to pieces."
"What's it matter?" Freddie was crouching on the floor again and turned his head to grin. "We'll be dead anyway within the next half hour."
Gregory shrugged. "I'm afraid so. Still, we might as well try to hang out as long as we can."
The sound of sharp explosions in the next room told them that von Lutz had come into action and it seemed that the Nazis had turned their attention to the bedroom window. But a moment later bullets descending at a sharp angle began to spatter the floor of the kitchen within a foot of the place where Gregory and Charlton were crouching.
"Hell!" whispered Gregory. "One of them's got up a tree and is firing down on to us. He can see through the rent in the curtain; we must put out that light."
With a swift wriggle he scrambled across the floor and, raising his hand, turned down the oil lamp that was on the kitchen dresser. Instantly the room was in semi darkness, lit only by the soft glow of the fire.
The shooting died down again and after a few minutes it ceased altogether. The silence was uncanny after the almost continuous banging of explosions and thudding of bullets that had created pandemonium for the last ten minutes. The Nazis were evidently planning some new form of attack and Gregory anxiously strained his ears for any sounds which might give the first intimation of it.
Suddenly it came: a rush of footsteps at the front of the cottage and a terrific battering upon the door. Freddie was nearest and, turning, he began to fire with his revolver at the panels of the door, hoping that the bullets would go through the wood and wound some of the men who were trying to smash it in.
"That's no good " yelled Gregory. "Here, give me a hand with this table." Sweeping the things that were on it to the floor they heaved the table over sideways and dragged it up against the door; then hastily stacked up all the furniture they could lay their hands on behind it to form a barricade.
Snatching up his gun Gregory ran back to the window. He meant to lean out, shoot along the side of the house and take the Nazis who were trying to force the door in a flank attack. But the second he raised his head under the tattered curtain the submachine gun was brought into play again; a bullet zipped through his hair and others began to splinter the woodwork of the window frame.
After three minutes of furious thudding the Nazis gave up their efforts on the door and silence fell once more. This time it continued for much longer and Gregory had a feeling that it forebode yet more serious trouble. A quarter of an hour later he began to hope that he had been wrong and that some of the Nazis had gone to fetch reinforcements, in which case the time had come to attempt a sortie.
He estimated that at least five out of the ten or twelve attackers must have been killed or seriously wounded. If one or two more had been seat off to Dornitz to get help that considerably reduced the odds. To break out and rush the remainder, who would certainly have been left to watch the exits of the cottage, was a most desperate venture; hut even if only one of the besieged party got through that would be better than their all remaining there to be massacred, as they undoubtedly would be in due course, unless they could manage to break out.