ad suddenly become very black because all of the
lights in and around the villa had snapped off.

Stan almost fell down the pole. He heard shouting and bellowing from the
yard. Shots were fired and flashlights began to stab back and forth.
Stan grabbed his machine gun and leaped into the road leading to the
small barns. Suddenly the machine gun under the tree opened up. The
Germans knew a prison delivery attempt was on. Stan halted and pulled a
grenade from the sack slung over his shoulder. Jerking the pin, he
tossed it just as he had often tossed a forward pass in a football game.

A sharp roar and a flash of fire told him the grenade had gone off, and
the sudden ceasing of the staccato voice of the machine gun told him he
had scored a hit. He did not have time to look as he charged toward the
kennels. He ran into a German and knocked the soldier down with the
barrel of his machine gun. Reaching the door he came to grips with three
Germans. They had an electric lantern and they spotted him closing in,
but not quick enough. Stan's tommy-gun blasted them off the wide stone
flagging before the door.

"Hi, Allison! O'Malley!" Stan hit the door with his shoulder in a
leaping dive. He went crashing into the room with the door draped around
him.

"Stan!" O'Malley roared from the darkness.

"Here! Get close to me and follow me!" Stan shouted as he staggered to
his feet.

Outside, the flaming and the sound of Stan's tommy-gun had given away
his location. Rifles and pistols began blasting away. Bullets splintered
the front of the building.

"Get down low!" Allison called.

A dozen men had rushed out of the kennels, carrying Stan with them. He
heard a man groan and go down as a bullet hit him.

"Here!" he bellowed.

O'Malley and Allison located him. They knew just about where he was
headed. Wiggling along on their hands and knees, the three fliers moved
to the hole in the hedge.

They slid through and, paused. "Where's Tony and Arno?" Stan asked.

"In the shed next to ours," Allison answered. "They were captured the
day we were shot down."

"Sure, an' if you'll wait I'll go beat down the door," O'Malley
whispered.

"We'll all go," Stan answered. "We'll batter open both prisons."

The three, keeping close together, circled and charged into the mass of
milling Germans. They were not spotted because there was little light.
Flashlight beams stabbed here and there, but none of the fingers of
light found the three Y