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I remember, too, hearing Hank gasp, "Judas priest German spies!" just |
before his lanky length toppled under the impact of an accurately |
wielded blackjack. And I remember my last conscious thought: that when |
I got a chance I must offer an apology to sour-puss Grimper. Because |
that thin, hawk-nosed stencil of superiority-plus was what-ever else |
his faults a bang-up fighting man in a pinch! With a fury incredible |
in one his size and build, he was laying about him like a demon. One |
Heinie was peacefully slumbering at his ankles already, a second was |
bawling for assistance. |
Then three, or four, or a thousand of them rushed me at the same time. |
I remember something playing "Heavy, heavy what hangs over your head?" |
above my cranium then that's all I do remember. A bomb exploded in my |
cerebrum and I went to beddy-bye. |
I had a nice little dream, then. I dreamed I was in Spain during the |
Inquisition, and a black-robed priest had me fastened to a windlass. |
As he murmured pious paternosters in my ears, he was gently screwing |
the instrument tighter, and I was gasping with pain as my arms slowly, |
grindingly, withdrew from their sockets. |
I wriggled, emitting a muffled howl, and awakened to find the dream |
based on cold, brutal fact! My mouth was full of cotton waste slightly |
the worse for wear explaining my muffled tones. My arms were tied |
together with a short scrap of hemp; this length had been passed |
through the draw-chain of a skylight, and thus, securely locked, I hung |
dangling like a pendulum with my toes barely scraping the floor. |
Nor was I the only trussed duck in this tableau. My pal Hank was |
swinging from another skylight chain a few yards away, while Grimper |
made it three-on-a-ratch. The government agent was the luckiest of us |
all. He was out cold, and so he didn't have to listen as did Cleaver |
and I to the gleeful chucklings of the saboteurs. |
And chuckling they were, like the hooded villains in a Victorian |
meller-drammer. Apparently one or two thousand of them had gone home, |
because there were now only a half dozen, but these six were the |
nastiest looking Nazis I ever hope not to see again. Beetle-browed |
thugs, fine examples of the pure Aryanism Herr Shickelgruber is always |
bragging on. |
They had been rifling the plant as we happened in, I guess, because the |
floors were strewn with a litter of papers and blueprints, diagrams, |
schematics, formulae. As my bleary eyes opened, one of the foragers was |
complaining to the chief rascal: |
" nothing here, Schlegel. This has a search of no value been." |
"And you," I piped up rather feebly, "a nest of rats are! What's the |
big idea? Untie us, or " |
The ringleader turned, grinning unpleasantly. "Or," he sneered, "what |
schweinhund? So, Karl, nothing we can use there is here? Very well; |
it matters not. When we leave, we shall the plant make useless to the |
verdammt Amerikanisch." |
He called to others of his cohorts, scattered around the room. "You are |
ready? When I give the word ignite!" |
Polecat No. 2 jerked a dirty thumb in our direction. |
"And how about them, Schlegel?" |
Schlegel's grin would have congealed hot toddy. |
"We leave them here." |
"Of course, but " The other man fingered a blunt-nosed automatic |
hopefully "would it not be safer to?" |
"Nein!" chuckled Schlegel boastfully. "We shall not make bulletholes |
in their carcasses. That the cleverest part of my plan is. That is why |
we tied them thus. The same fire that destroys them will devour the |
ropes around their wrists, dropping their bodies to the floor, leaving |
no evidence. The investigators will believe they started the fire, |
and so will not search further for us." |
He laughed coarsely and poked me in the ribs. "That amusing is, nichts |
wahr, mein Freund?" |
"Yeah," I answered grimly. "It's a howl. Just like kidnapping Polish |
girls and executing innocent hostages. You filthy " I wrestled |
savagely with my bonds, but my efforts just sent lancets of pain |
burning through my already groaning armpits. I glanced at Hank, but |
he was still hanging quietly from his chain, his eyes closed, his |
head loud forward upon his chest. He, like Grimper, was blissfully |
unconscious. |
Now came an end to the German's taunts. He swung to his aides, rapped |
swift commands. Matches scratched, flared, were thrust instantly into |
heaps of piled rubble. Tongues of flame rose, wavering; strengthened; |
licked hungrily higher as the inflammable material ignited. |
For the first time, a sense of real fear filled me. Up till this moment |
the whole affair had seemed so fantastic, so maddeningly unreal, that |
it had been a sort of wild dream. Now I realized belatedly, suddenly, |
completely, that this was really happening to me, here in the heart |
of the U.S.A. This was War! We had met the enemy in battle and had |
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