orenzo was in front of Stan. He whispered, "Over the balcony rail.
There is a large shrub to land on. Take the path leading from the
kennels. Cross the ridge. There is no road to the field."

"You, stop talking!" the German officer shouted.

Stan did not hesitate. He did a backward flip. As he went over the
railing he saw flame flash from a machine gun. He caught a glimpse of
Lorenzo sagging forward, his hands gripping his stomach.

The next instant he had plunged into a large bush which broke his fall.
He lay beside a rock wall in a ditch. Vaguely he knew where the kennels
were. Tony had taken him back to see the dogs one evening after dark.
From above he could hear the officer bellowing down to the men he had
left below. He hoped the Germans had felt so sure of their quarry that
they had not surrounded the house.

Reaching a corner he discovered a guard there. The man was looking up,
listening to his commander's orders. Stan hit him hard in the back with
a knee and slapped a viselike grip around his neck. The man sagged down
without a murmur. Stan stripped off the fellows cartridge jacket and
grabbed his tommy-gun. He was glad the Germans had equipped their hounds
with rapid-fire guns.

Leaping forward he reached the back of the house. There he halted. The
squad cars were in the back yard, two of them. Four men stood at the
back door listening to the shouting above. Stan saw the kennels and set
himself to blast a path to freedom.

Suddenly he heard a wild yell from above. It was O'Malley and Stan could
tell the Irishman was seeing red. There was a fight in progress up on
the balcony. Machine guns chattered savagely. Stan felt suddenly sick to
his stomach. The boys were up there mixing it barehanded with four
Germans armed with machine guns.

The guards at the door whirled to leap into the house. Stan's submachine
gun burst into flame and he swept a pathway of death across the ranks
of the Nazis. They went down in a writhing mass, one of them rolling off
the steps and crawling away on his hands and knees, leaving a bloody
path behind him.

Stan leaped for the back door and plunged into the house. He went
through the spacious music room and up the wide stairway leading to the
balcony like a charging tank, his submachine gun at his hip, his eyes
like cold steel.

Leaping through the doorway he swept the room with his gun. O'Malley and
Allison and Tony were crowded back against the wall. O'Malley was
bleeding p