Nick fused a grenade and hurled it as hard as he could toward the lights. It wouldn't reach — but it might be a depressant He counted fifteen. Said, "Down again." The blast was like a firecracker compared to the other. A submachine gun chattered; two short bursts of six or seven each, and when it stopped a man roared, "Hold that!"
Nick pulled Jeanyee erect and headed for the valley border. A couple of the slugs had passed in their general direction, ricocheting off the ground to flip past in the night with the vicious whir-r-r-r-r that is intriguing the first time you hear it — and chilling whenever you hear it forever after. Nick had heard it many times.
He glanced back. The grenade had slowed them up. They were approaching the wire gap well spread out, like an exercise group at infantry school. There were twenty or more men chasing them now. Two powerful flashlights stabbed into the murk, but didn't reach them. If the clouds uncovered the moon, he and Jeanyee would have had it.
He trotted, holding the girl's hand. She said, "Where are we…"
"Don't talk," he cut her off. "We live or die together, so depend on me."
His knees struck brush and he stopped. Which way was the trail? Logically it must be to the right, parallel to the course he had followed from the main house. He turned that way.
A strong light blazed from the gap in the wire and crept over the lawn, reached the forest at their left, fingered its way along the brush with a pale touch. Someone had brought up a more powerful light, probably a six-volt sportsman's handlamp. He pulled Jeanyee into the brush and pressed her to the ground. Pinned! He bent his head toward the ground as the light patted their hiding place and moved on, probing at the trees. Many a soldier has died because his own face glowed.
Jeanyee whispered, "Let's get out of here."
"In a moment I don't want to get us shot." He couldn't tell her that there was no way out. At their back was forest and bluff, and he did not know where the trail was. If they moved, the noise would be fatal. If they walked on the lawn, the light would find them.
He probed experimentally through the brush, trying to work along to where the trail might be. The low hemlock branches and second-growth set up a crackle. The light swept back, missed them again and explored in the other direction. If they moved in the brush, they'd draw it back.
At the wire they had started to come through one at a time, in nicely spaced rushes. Whoever commanded them had them all down now except the ones who advanced. They knew their business. Nick took out Wilhelmina, pressed his inner arm against the single spare clip fastened inside his belt over where his appendix used to be. It was faint comfort. Those short bursts had indicated a good man with the spray gun — and there were probably more.
Three men were through the gap and spreading out. Another ran toward it, a good target in the car lights. There was no use waiting. He might as well move while the wire was on his team, holding back their concerted rush. With the precision of a craftsman he allowed for the drop, the man's speed, and collapsed the running figure with one shot. He put a second bullet into one of the car's headlights, and it became suddenly one-eyed. He was aiming coolly for the strong handlight when the submachine gun opened up again, was joined by another, and two or three pistols started to blink flame. He hit the dirt.
The ominous whir-r-r-r-r sounded all around them. Slugs zipped through the grass, clattered on dry branches. They were peppering the landscape and he did not dare move. Let that light catch the phosphorescence of his skin, a chance glitter from his wrist watch, and he and Jeanyee would become animal meat riddled and torn by lead and copper and steel. She attempted to raise her head. He pushed it down, gently. "Don't look. Stay still."
The firing rattled to a halt. Last to stop was the spray gun which was stitching short bursts methodically along the forest line. Nick resisted a temptation to peek. That's my boy — a good infantryman.
The man Nick had shot groaned, a throat-tearing, misery-filled retch of pain. The strong voice shouted, "Hold your fire. John Number Two drag Angelo back behind the car. Then don't move him. Barry — take your three men and get a car and circle outside and hit those trees. Ram the car in, and get out and work along toward us. Keep that light going' along the edge there. Vince — you got ammo left?"
"Thirty-five — forty." Nick wondered — my good gunner?
"Watch the light."
"Right."
"Look and listen. We've got 'em pinned down."
So you have, general. Nick pulled his dark jacket up across his face, curled his hand inside it and risked a look. That cluster of orders should have most of them watching each other for an instant. In the Cyclops eye of the car headlight another man was dragging away the wounded man who was gasping out a blubbery choke. The handlight was moving along the forest far to the left. Three men ran toward the house.
An order was muttered which Nick could not hear. The men began to crawl in behind the car, like a patrol behind a tank. Nick worried about the three men who had come through the wire. If there was a doer in that bunch, he would be inching his way forward like a deadly reptile.
Jeanyee gurgled. Nick patted her head. "Quiet," he whispered. "Be very quiet." He held his breath and listened, tried to see or sense anything that moved in the near blackness.
Another mumble of voices and the handlight winked out The single headlight on the car was extinguished. Nick scowled. The mastermind would advance his gunners now without lights. Meanwhile, where were the three whom he had last seen lying prone somewhere in the sea of darkness out there in front?
A car started up and roared down the road, paused at the gate, then turned to race across the meadow. And here come the flankers! If I had support I'd radio for artillery, mortar fire and a support platoon. Better yet, send me a tank or armored car if there's one to spare.
Chapter VIII
The motor of the car with one headlight roared. Doors on it slammed. Nick's fantasies were interrupted. Frontal attack too! Damned efficient. He slipped his one remaining cigarette lighter-type grenade into his left hand and cradled Wilhelmina in his right. The flanking car dipped its headlights as it churned through a brook, bobbed up and was crossing the near gravel path.
The headlight of the car beyond the wire flamed on and it accelerated toward the gap. The handlight came on again, probing at the trees. It stabbed its glow along the brushline. There was a crackle — the submachine gun rattled. Rattled again. Nick thought, He's probably firing at one of his own men in there, one of the three who came through.
"Hey… I" It ended in a gasp.
Might have got him, too. Nick slitted his eyes. His night vision was as superb as carotene and 20/15 eyesight could make it, but he could not find the other two.
Then the car hit the fence. For an instant Nick saw a dark shape forty feet in front of him as the car's light swung in his direction. He fired twice and was sure he had scored. But now the ball begins!
He shot out the headlight and squeezed lead at the car, stitching a pattern just across the lower windshield, his last shots guided by the handlight before it was switched off.
The car's engine whined and there was another rattling crash. Nick guessed that he might have winged the driver and the car had circled back into the fence.
"There he is!" the strong voice shouted. "To the right. Up and at 'em."
"C'mon." Nick pulled Jeanyee upright. "Make 'em get us on the wing."
He guided her forward to the grass and along it, away from the attackers but toward the other car which was a few yards from the tree line, about a hundred yards from them.