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 tunnel, waiting with cradled machine-carbines that would tear the life out of them? But there was no time to wonder, no time to wait, no time now to stop to weigh the chances. The time for caution was past, and whether they lived or died was of no account any more.
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 tunnel just as Miller came staggering up with the battery.
«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 funny thing — there's an even chance that the whole damned lot would go up. Give me a hand with this thing, boss, will you?»
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 beginning to end. While Mallory was sliding the battery below the floored well of the lift, Miller squeezed in between the shining steel runners of the lift shaft itself stooped to examine the rear one with his torch and establish, by the abrupt transition from polished to dull metal, exactly where the spring-loaded wheel of the shell-hoist came to rest. Satisfied, he pulled out a roll of sticky black tape, wound it a dozen times round the shaft, stepped back to look at it: it was quite invisible.
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 connected one of the wires from the steel shaft to a lug on the detonator, screwing it firmly home. The other wire from the shaft he led to the positive terminal on the battery, and a third wire from the negative terminal to the detonator. It only required the anununition hoist to sink down into the magazine — as it would do as soon as they began firing — and the spring-loaded wheel would short out the bare wires, completing the circuit and triggering off the detonator. A last check on the position of the bared vertical wires and he sat back satisfied. Mallory had just descended the ladder from the tunnel. Miller tapped him on the leg to draw his attention, negligently waving the steel blade of his knife within an inch of the exposed wires.
«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 manned the guns and magazine during action stations. One thing, he thought, they'll never know anything about it, the poor bastards. And then he thought, for the hundredth time, of all the men on Kheros and the destroyers, and his lips tightened and he looked away. Without another backward glance he slipped over the edge, dropped down into the night. He was half-way there, at the very lowest point of the curve and about to start climbing again, when he heard the vicious, staccato rattle of machine-gun fire directly overhead.
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.»
«Going to draw them off?» Mallory was at Louki's side staring out of the window. «The crazy fool! He'll get himself killed this time — get himself killed for sure! There are soldiers everywhere. Besides, they won't fall for it again. He tricked them once up in the hills, and the Germans—»
«I'm not so sure, sir,» Brown interrupted excitedly. «Andrea's just shot out the searchlight on his side. They'll think for certain that we're going to break out over the wall and — look, sir, look! There they go!» Brown was almost dancing with excitement, the pain of his injured leg forgotten. «He's done it, sir, he's done it!»
Sure enough, Mallory saw, the patrol had broken away from their shelter in the house to their right and were running across the square in extended formation, their heavy boots clattering on the cobbles, stumbling, falling, recovering again as they lost footing on the slippery wetness of the uneven stones. At the same time Mallory could see torches flickering on the roofs of the houses opposite, the vague forms of men crouching low to escape observation and making swiftly for the spot where Andrea had been when he had shot out the great Cyclops eye of the searchlight.