German
soldiers from view. Stan grinned. When he got back, the bomber boys
would know where to drop a stick of bombs.

This condition made it easy for Stan to observe because the guards
figured their only job was to keep the prisoners from escaping. They
were not worried about an attack. Moving around behind the kennels Stan
found darkness. He managed to wiggle up to the back wall. There were no
windows in the back of the shed. He checked the other guarded sheds and
found no windows in the rear of them. Moving back to the hedge he
crouched there watching the three buildings.

The only way to get into any of those buildings was through the doors or
one of the front windows. The windows were open and not barred, but at
least a dozen guards patrolled the grounds. They were scattered out,
making a blitz machine-gun attack difficult. By the time Stan had
blasted the guards out of the way he would have several hundred officers
and men attacking from the grounds below.

A soldier approached one of the guards, spoke to him, then entered one
of the buildings, a shed between the kennels and the third barn. A
light flashed on and Stan could see men inside the building. They were
packed in, standing close together, those he could see through the
window. All of them were Italian soldiers.

After a bit the soldier came out with an Italian officer walking ahead
of him. They went directly to the grounds below. Stan eased along the
hedge until he was opposite the kennels. Here he halted and parted the
branches of the hedge. He listened intently. The prisoners in the
kennels were talking but their voices were very low. One of them laughed
and the guard at the door shouted an order in German. With the butt of
his rifle he hammered against the sill. There was silence inside and
then a voice called out:

"Get away from that door, ye dirty spalpeen! Yer disturbin' the pleasure
o' gentlemen!"

Stan almost shouted. That was the voice of O'Malley. The guard beat
harder upon the sill of the door and shouted louder. Stan heard Allison
warning O'Malley to keep his mouth shut. Silence settled inside the
building.

Pulling out his sheath knife Stan began cutting a hole in the hedge. The
hedge had been carefully tended by the Bolero gardener. The limbs of
the shrubs had been entwined and laced together, making the hedge almost
a solid wall. Stan cut away a large hole, leaving only a few branches
over the inside to hide his work. Getting dow