By the light of the fire, the amphibian returned and landed on the tarn.
Trish and I took advantage of the confusion to run across the meadow south of the Hall. We went about 60 feet from the house, which was emptying itself of men as if it were vomiting them. The entire roof and the middle section of the Hall were burning brightly.
I carried two knives, an automatic, the bazooka, two grenades, and two bazooka missiles. Trish carried a knife, an automatic, the crossbow and six bolts, and another missile. Our destination was the castle.
By the time we got past the house, the amphibian had waddled out of the water and was proceeding swiftly on its wheels. It raced away from the south end of the lake, turned, and sped towards the men by the burning house. Submachine guns from the men and a heavy machine gun from the castle battlements pulsed flame at it. A rush of flame and a loud explosion came from the battlements where the machine gun had been. Briefly, by the firelight, I had seen the missile as a dark streak.
But forty feet away from the first explosion, a red jet shot out, something black whizzed towards the plane, and the nose was enveloped in smoke and it jumped a little. Smoke covered the amphibian, and when it was whisked away by the wind, a big hole in the belly, near the nose, was revealed. One of its wheels was gone, and the craft was listing.
The crew must have scrambled out on the other side and started running towards the castle. Red flame winked again on the battlements, and the amphibian, taking a direct hit, blew up with a roar and a white fifty-foot high gush. Ammunition inside it continued to explode. Trish and I were knocked off our feet and half-deafened and, for a minute, enveloped by smoke.
We got up, and I shouted for her to follow me. Something whooshed by us and ripped apart the air and shook the earth from fifty yards behind us (or so I estimated). We continued on around the plane.
Noli’s men must have seen us by the light of the burning, exploding plane, but intermittently, because we were veiled by puffs of smoke. A glance showed me that a number were running after us. They had to give the plane a wide skirting, however.
Ahead, three figures raced for the main entrance of the castle. The portcullis was up, and the drawbridge was down. The castle was surrounded by a moat which I had deepened and supplied by the tarn through an underground pipe.
The giant in the lead was undoubtedly Doctor Caliban. The two behind him were the old men,
Rivers and Simmons. Each carried a small submachine gun and wore dark coveralls and black coal-scuttle helmets.
I did not know why Caliban brought the old men along. Perhaps he did so because they were deeply attached to Trish and wanted to be in on her rescue. Perhaps they wished to die with their boots on, fighting to attain some sort of Valhalla. Perhaps Caliban had had so little warning that these two were the only ones available and their aid was better than none. Probably, they came along because of a combination of all the reasons I have suggested. I will say one thing for them. For men of 80, they were remarkably agile and swift.
The third bazooka missile from the battlements, coming at a steep angle, blew up the end of the drawbridge behind them and hurled them forward and onto the floor of the bridge. They picked themselves up and ran through the great arch below the portcullis.
I did not like to use my bazooka yet, but I had to do so. We were now the targets of the men on the battlements, and we had much more ground to cross than Caliban and crew before we reached cover.
After loading the bazooka, I put it on my shoulder and Trish aimed and fired it. The explosion was ten feet below the spot where I had seen the rocket’s jet. We ran forward with the hope that the nearness of the hit would upset and delay them. But their missile exploded on the ground about forty feet behind us.
I halted again, and loaded, and Trish fired. This time the missile hit about ten feet to the right of their estimated location and approximately a foot below the crenellations. The crenellations disappeared, and so did the bazooka men.
Meanwhile, our pursuers had rounded the plane, which had ceased to explode but not to burn. They began shooting at us. I turned with the bazooka loaded with our last missile and fired at the group. They threw themselves on the ground, and the missile went over their heads and blew up a tree on the edge of the meadows. However, they all jumped up and ran away behind the protection of the plane. I knew they would be back in a minute, so I threw the tube down, and we ran to the drawbridge.
We had to jump a gap of eight feet, which was easy for Trish even with her burden of weapons. A
submachine gun in the battlements began firing at us. We got into the courtyard before he could bring his spray of lead around to catch us. The mob behind us, and the men above, were not all of Noli’s forces.
Explosions inside the castle told us that Caliban was meeting resistance from others.
I tried to raise the drawbridge, but the chains had been sawed apart. A head, silhouetted against the glare, appeared above us, and the short snout of a tommy poked out. Trish aimed carefully. The bullet screamed off the stone, and the head withdrew.
“Where’s Doc?” Trish cried. “I want Doc!”
So far she had been as much aid as the best of men. But the time was to come when I would have to watch her because she might turn against me. That would not be, however, unless she got a chance to talk to him.
“We’ll find him,” I said.
We went through the closest of the nine entrances in the courtyard. This led up a narrow winding staircase for four stories, at which point an iron-bound oaken door blocked us. Noli’s men had used the other two routes to the battlement walls. They had not found the key to unlock this and had refrained from blowing it open. I turned the huge dragon-headed knob six times to the right, pushed in on it, and turned it three times to the left. It opened slowly with a slight squeaking despite all my stealth.
There were three bodies on the stones and three men standing. One was on my right and looking down into the yard, presumably for us. The other two were looking towards the flames. They were manning a .50-caliber machine gun.
We stepped out. I shot the man with the tommy in the back with my crossbow. The other two did not hear or see us. I reloaded and aimed just as one man turned towards us. My bolt caught him in the belly, and Trish’s two shots carried the other backwards and against the stone wall.
I looked down at the bridge. The last of the men from the Hall was just entering the courtyard. I pulled the pins of two grenades in rapid succession and tossed them down on the bridge near the end of the gap. When the smoke cleared, a fifteen foot gap existed between the bridge end and the lip of the moat.
Trish and I poked the dead men’s tommies over the embrasure within the yard and fired blindly down. A storm of bullets chipped stone off and one knocked Trish’s weapon from her hand. It fell down into the yard. I think they must have emptied the clips in their automatics and rifles and reloaded and emptied them again. They shot as if they had an inexhaustible supply of ammunition.
37
Somebody suddenly realized that they were short of bullets. He shouted an order. I peeked over the edge and saw several men running into the castle. One body was sprawled on the stones. I leaned my tommy out and began firing but had to withdraw because they were not entirely out of bullets.