Faked Passports (10 page)

“Keep away from that window!” yelled Gregory; and just as Charlton ducked the hidden glass was shattered by a burst of fire from automatic pistols, the bullets ripping through the curtains.

Magda was standing., white-faced but upright, in a corner.
Frau
Foldar was crouching in a chair near her, weeping into her apron. She knew only too well that having hidden her master now meant certain death for her husband and herself.

“Where's Hans?” asked von Lutz suddenly.

“He—he ran out of the back door just—just after
Herr
Sallust fired,” sobbed the distraught wife.

“We'd best try and get out that way, too,” cried Gregory above the din, and grabbing Magda by the arm he pulled her down beside him so that they could crawl along the floor under the level of the window through which bullets were still streaming. Charlton and the Colonel seized
Frau
Foldar and between them dragged her after the others.

Gasping with relief they drew themselves upright at the far end of the room and staggered out into the tiny passage. The back door of the cottage stood open, just as Hans had left it in his flight. The passage, which barely held them all was unlit, so from it they could make out faintly the sky-line of the woods and the trunks of the nearest trees.

“Let me go first,” said Gregory, thrusting Magda aside and stepping towards the open door, “and for God's sake go quietly!”

Suddenly a flash stabbed the outer darkness and Magda gave a strangled cry. One of the S.S. men had already come round to the back of the cottage and had fired from behind a tree. His bullet had missed Gregory by a fraction of an inch and had caught Magda in the neck. As she fell her father fired over her shoulder at the flash of the Nazi's pistol. He had pressed down his trigger and was emptying the whole contents of his automatic into the open doorway.

Gregory and Charlton had flung themselves flat, dragging
Frau
Foldar with them. Magda, choking blood, had slipped
down among them, so von Lutz alone remained a target for the Nazi's fire. One bullet whipped through the skirt of his greatcoat, another tore the epaulette on his shoulder, but his escape was miraculous as the burst of shots thudded into the woodwork about him, and a sudden wavering cry from outside, in the dead-silence that followed the burst, told that he had got his man.

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 von 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 apologise. 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 Himmlers 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 the lower part of the window. The Nazis' bullets had shattered the 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 and 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. As he ducked back yowls 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 action. 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 barrel 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!” 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 sent 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; but 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.

Leaving Charlton for a moment he slipped into the bedroom to consult the Baron, but before he had a chance to put up his suggestion he was struck by something peculiar about the atmosphere of the room. It was not the close fugginess in which Hans Foldar and his wife usually slept, since the window of this room, too, had been smashed to atoms by the Nazis' bullets. It was something else. Gregory sniffed quickly twice—then he knew. It was the faint smell of wood-smoke.

Von Lutz was almost indistinguishable in the darkness but his voice came from near the window.

“How does it go with you?”

“We're still all right. But what are they up to now? Can you smell anything here?”

The Baron drew a long, deep breath through his nostrils and, exhaling it, suddenly exclaimed: “
Himmel, ja!
I haf not notice it before but it comes from the window. I can smell smoke.”

“That's it. I had a hope just now that they'd sent to Dornitz for reinforcements and we might stand a chance of breaking through while their numbers were reduced; but my first
hunch—that they were planning something pretty nasty for us—was right. They've been collecting wood all this time and now they've fired the place.”

As he ceased speaking a faint hissing and crackling caught their ears, proving him to be right. The Nazis had piled up all the loose wood they could find against the blank wall at the bedroom end of the cottage and the bonfire was just beginning to get well alight.

The smell of smoke grew stronger; soon great puffs of it were drifting in through the broken window and the crackling of the flames increased to a low roar. Gregory put his hand on the far wall of the bedroom and withdrew it quickly; the timbers were already scorching to the touch.

There was nothing they could do about it—nothing whatever. They could not get at the blaze to attempt to put it out, while it was still small, and once the flames had eaten their way through the wall it would have much too strong a hold for them to get it under. Even the possibility of delaying its action by throwing buckets of water from the kitchen tank against the threatened wall was denied to them since they were compelled to crawl about the floor; not daring to stand upright in case the Nazis started shooting again through the shattered windows.

Von Lutz began to cough from the acrid smoke which was now filling the room, so Gregory called to him and they both returned to the kitchen. Freddie looked up quickly from where he was kneeling behind the barricade. “They've fired the place, haven't they? There's been a strong smell of smoke for some minutes.”

Gregory nodded and the airman went on: “Well, what are we going to do? Break out or stay here to be roasted alive?”

“Break out,” said von Lutz; “but not yet—not till the flames haf goot hold. They will gif us light to see by so we can shoot more of these swines before we ourselves are shot.”

“That cuts both ways,” Gregory replied promptly. “The brighter the light the easier it will be for them to pick us off from a distance as we come out.”

Although his argument for an immediate sortie was sound they still hesitated, knowing that once they were outside with their backs against the flames they would make a perfect target for the sub-machine-guns of their enemies. It was a foregone conclusion that within two minutes of crossing the threshold they would all be dead.

The voice of the flames had swollen to a sudden roar and,
now that it had properly caught, the old wooden cottage was going up like tinder. Von Lutz stepped across the narrow passage and opened the door of the bedroom. A great cloud of smoke billowed out, choking and half-blinding him. The far wall was now a solid sheet of flame. Curtains, bedding and draperies had also caught, making glowing red patches in the blackish murk. He hastily thrust the door to again, brushed his hand over his watering eyes and gasped: